Name It!

What's the difference between religion and spirituality? This is the second most frequently asked question I get as a scholar of religion, next to “Oh, so you're a minister?" And to be honest, folks tend to be disappointed by my answer to both.When it comes to the religion versus spirituality question, that is often because my answer focuses less on defining the terms and more on the question itself. I am fascinated by what is really going on in people’s thought worlds when they want me to distinguish between religion and spirituality in the first place.This week, I'm thinking through my own experiences alongside Robert Orsi’s Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (Princeton University Press, 2005).If you like the episode, don’t forget to follow me over at the grounded pages (on spotify and apple podcasts), share Grounded, with a friend and follow me @imanabdk on socials.

Hey Name It! fam, if you’re liking these episodes be sure to follow Grounded over at the main pages to not miss an episode!New ones everyday Monday✨FOLLOW US HERE!—-I have a very complex, sometimes maybe a little too intense, relationship I have had with time. One that left me extremely skeptical of the saying "we're our ancestors' wildest dreams" when I first heard it. I’m coming to this reflection during the cross-over episode that is Ramadan intersecting with Black History Month, which has got me thinking its time to heal my own relationship to time.This week, I'm finding grounding in a beautiful concept written about by Alexis Pauline Gumbs: dream time. This idea really changed how I think about my responsibility to, as they say, use my time wisely.Follow me @imanabdk on socials for more at the intersections of the spiritual and the intellectual!--I did the reading so you don't have to, but as always, I'd love to hear what you think about it too! Send me a DM or comment on the show directly on Spotify.Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Prophecy in the Present Tense: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee Pilgrimage, and Dreams Coming True,” Meridians 12, no. 2 (2014): 142–152.

Hey Name It! listeners! If you enjoyed the reading, research, and connections we made here, then you'll for sure enjoy this new podcast with Dr. Iman. Follow Grounded for new episodes every Monday!--Welcome to the Grounded podcast with your host, Dr. Iman. This is a space where the intellectual meets the spiritual. I'm a professor, scholar of religion, and someone trying to find her footing. I will introduce you to the people, discussions, and schools of thought that have changed how I see the world. Together we'll seek clarity, not in passivity or bypassing, but in intuition, critique, and imagination. Some episodes are just me reflecting on where I'm finding my footing. Others draw more closely from my own research on religion and spirituality, tracing where I've seen others find theirs. And sometimes we're joined by experts, friends, and even you, the listeners, learning with each other and seeking rootedness together. So wherever this episode takes us, I'm really glad you're here. Let's get grounded.

Hi friends! In this episode, we are talking about genocide. What is genocide? How did the word come about? Why are some genocides recognized and remembered, while others are not? The truth is, we don’t have all the answers—but we can start by turning to the life of Raphael Lemkin. In our case study, we think alongside Lemkin’s global vision, who first defined “genocide” in print in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Influenced by the Armenian Genocide and his own family’s mass murder during the Holocaust, Lemkin derived the word genocide from the Greek prefix genos (meaning race or tribe) and the Latin suffix cide (meaning killing). According to Lemkin, “genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and punish.” In the eighty years since its invention, the word genocide has skyrocketed in usage across mass media, popular literature, and everyday speech. On a more personal note…this episode happens to fall on Kohar’s birthday. Coincidence or synchronicity? As a descendant of genocide survivors still awaiting reparations, she reflects on her entanglement within this history and shares her own family’s survival story. What can we learn from the powerful testimonies of survival, collective refusal, self-determination, and radical love that emerge in the face of genocide? As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts—the segment where we share ideas that we haven't fully fleshed out but stand fully behind. You’ll just have to listen to the episode to hear those.Thanks for listening! Please rate and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Music, follow us @nameitpod, and share the episode with a friend!Where We Know From: Lemkin, Raphael, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Division of International Law. 1944. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe : Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress. Washington [D.C.]: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law.Lemkin, Raphael. “Genocide.” American Scholar  15, no. 2 (April 1946): 227-230."Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 260 A (III), December 9, 1948."https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition

Hey friends! In this episode, we’re talking all about cults. What makes something a cult and something else, well, not a cult? Does the word "cult" even mean anything, or is it just a label to signify, “I don’t agree with these people”?Before diving into the TL;DR of Making the American Religious Fringe: Exotics, Subversives, and Journalists, 1955–1993 by Sean McCloud, we rewind to 1959, when Malcolm X was introduced to mainstream (White) American audiences for the first time. This happened through the airing of a docu-series called The Hate That Hate Produced. And oh my, did people lose their minds.What’s that got to do with cults, you ask? Well, the CBS documentary introduced Malcolm X and Black nationalist organizations, like the Nation of Islam and the African Nationalist Movement, to the public as—yep, you guessed it—cults. But not just any cults: “Negro cults.” The Hate That Hate Produced serves as a perfect case study for examining the deeply racialized criteria mainstream news outlets use to define a cult.Iman loves McCloud’s argument that calling something a “cult” says much more about the person doing the labeling—the cult-caller—than it does about the “cult” itself. A classic “what you say about me says more about you” moment. But Kohar disagrees. Will we ever see eye-to-eye on the topic? Let us know your take by leaving a comment on Spotify or Instagram.As always, we close with our Half-Baked Thoughts segment, where we share ideas we haven’t fully fleshed out but still stand behind 100%. You’ll just have to listen to the episode to hear those!Thanks for listening! Please rate and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Music, follow us @nameitpod, and share this episode with a friend!Where we know from:The Hate that Hate Produced by CBS News (1959): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsYWD2EqavQ Sean McCloud, Making the American religious fringe: Exotics, subversives, and journalists, 1955-1993. Univ of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Hey, friends! In this episode, our big idea is Black nationalism! What would life in the U.S. look like today if Black folks, post-emancipation (1865), had received forty acres and a mule—or any form of reparations for that matter? What if they had been granted the opportunity to build a sovereign nation within the territorial United States? What if their efforts to systematically and structurally reimagine the parameters of citizenship as a dispossessed people on native land had not been violently suppressed?In a time when the nation is asking, "Why do it gotta be like this?" we look back 100ish years to one of the many moments when Black thinkers reimagined and organized toward a different vision of life within the U.S. We’re talking about Harry Haywood’s 1928 Black Belt Thesis, which demanded that the geographic region of the Black Belt (stretching from Washington, D.C. to eastern Texas) be given to the descendants of enslaved people to create their own independent nation, to be known as the Black Belt Republic. How did he plan to do it? Well, you gotta listen to find out more about Haywood’s vision for an independent Black nation.When we talk about Black nationalism as a movement, philosophy, and way of life, are we talking about the same thing as run-of-the-mill White nationalism? For an answer, we turn to Adom Getachew’s Worldmaking After Empire. Spoiler alert: the answer is no! Getachew defines Black nationalism on its own terms, as the process of Black worldmaking—not empire-building.As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts—the segment where we share ideas that we haven’t fully fleshed out but stand fully behind. You’ll just have to listen to the episode to hear those.Thanks for listening! Please rate and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Music, follow us @nameitpod, and share the episode with a friend!——Where We Know From: Harry Haywood, “Resolution on the Negro Question in the United States of America,” Communist International, 1928, accessed December 2, 2024, https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/CIResNNQ.pdf.Adom Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019).Hannah Foster,“Black Belt Republic (1928-1934).” BlackPast, March 9, 2014. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/black-belt-republic-1928-1934/.Timothy V. Johnson, “The Black Belt Thesis: An Interview with Timothy V. Johnson,” Platypus, February 1, 2022, https://platypus1917.org/2022/02/01/the-black-belt-thesis-an-interview-with-timothy-v-johnson/.Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation(New York: Ecco, 2022).

Parev fam! Sister Sledge said it best: we are fam-ily! Today, we are meditating on the term “elastic kinship”—literally! Episode 6 offers a guided meditation, a potential outlet for listeners to connect with us, chosen kin, and ancestors during a tear-filled vulnerable hour. How do we choose our family? And what does the history of photography have to do with this complex question? The answer lies within YOU…and this episode! In the words of Saidiya Hartman, “Flexible and elastic kinship were not a ‘plantation holdover,’ but a resource of black survival, a practice that documented the generosity and mutuality of the poor” (91). Before we give you the TL;DR of Hartman’s book Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals, we share the story of Papa Renty, an enslaved African man photographed in 1850 by Louis Agassiz at Harvard—nude, violated, and exposed. Today, his descendant Tamara Lanier is fighting for her ancestor’s justice, reparations, and the return of his image. #FreeRenty!As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts— the segment where we share ideas that we haven't fully fleshed out but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. Thanks for listening! Please rate and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Music, follow us @nameitpod, and share the episode with a friend!Where we know from:“An Inter/Racial Love History,” We Are All Armenian: Voices from the Diaspora. University of Texas Press, 2023, 37-53.Hartman, Saidiya. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals. W. W. Norton, 2020. “Inheritance,” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, 29: 1 (2022), 128.Tamara Lanier et al.. Free Renty: Lanier V Harvard Gravitas Ventures, 2022.

Hey, friends! In this episode, we’re diving into the world of psychic knowledge. What exactly does “psychic” mean? What makes some knowledge psychic and other knowledge… well, not so psychic? And was anyone else forced to experience Spotify’s “song psychic” feature, in the same way that Apple forced us to download that random U2 album? Before we give you the tl;dr of Yvonne Chireau’s Black Magic: Religion in the African American Conjuring Tradition and LaShawn Harris’ Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City's Underground Economy, Iman has Kohar ask a question to Spotify’s Magic8Ball-coded “song psychic” feature. Why? Because we’re curious about how a corporation, recently tapping into the spiritual trend with astrology-based playlists and features, defines the term “psychic.”But Iman, deep in her religion-nerd bag, isn’t convinced by this corporatized definition. Instead, we turn to the readings for a definition of psychic knowledge that has, for centuries, been a part of Black women’s religious history. The term is also personal for us, and Kohar shares how a psychic dream inspired her family’s immigration to the States.As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts—the segment where we share ideas that we haven't fully fleshed out but stand fully behind. You’ll just have to listen to the episode to hear those.Thanks for listening! Please rate and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Music, follow us @nameitpod, and share the episode with a friend!Where We Know From:Spotify. "Spotify’s Song Psychic Is Ready to Answer Your Burning Questions." Spotify Newsroom, February 29, 2024. https://newsroom.spotify.com/2024-02-29/spotifys-song-psychic-is-ready-to-answer-your-burning-questions/.LaShawn Harris, Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016).Yvonne P. Chireau, Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).

Ah, preservation…what is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear this word? Perhaps you thought of paintings like the eminent Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, pristinely preserved since 1503. Perhaps you thought of the ever-growing collection of ancient Indigenous artifacts neatly stored behind glass at your local museum. Or maybe you even remembered the family stories told and the canned peaches preserved in your grandmother’s kitchen. In episode 4, we build a bridge between two sacred sites: the persisting presence of a 17th-century Nipmuc dugout canoe (carbon dated to 1640-1680 AD), sitting at the bottom of Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, MA today and Aghtamar Cathedral, a monastery-turned-museum and the 9th-century sacred Armenian spiritual haven of Lake Van, brought to life in a short film by Talin Avakian, Kohar's sister and a talented filmmaker, storyteller, and documentarian. As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts—the segment where we share ideas that we haven't fully fleshed out but stand fully behind. You’ll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. Thanks for listening! Please rate and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Music, follow us @nameitpod, and share the episode with a friend! Where we know from: Avakian, Kohar. "Introduction to the Exhibitions." In Boundless: Native American Abundance in Art and Literature, edited by Lisa A. Crossman and Heid E. Erdrich, Amherst College Press, 2025. (Forthcoming May 13, 2025 & still in revision). Citable link:https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.14513702Talin Avakian, dir., Time of the Gulls. 2014. The ARF Eastern Region Centennial Committee, 2014. Online film. Vimeo link here: https://vimeo.com/112526569

Hey friends! In this episode, we're diving into intimacy. Is knowing the “type” of person someone is really the same as knowing them? And does adding your Myers-Briggs letters to your dating app profile actually lead to better matches? 🤔This week, we're on a mission to find a definition of intimacy that's deeper than the usual, and we found one in Jennifer Nash’s Black Feminism Reimagined (2018). But before we give you the TL;DR of Nash’s work, we take a fun detour into the history of the Myers-Briggs test. Did you know the test was originally designed to match people with the "right" jobs? Now it’s popping up on dating apps like Tinder to help users find the "right" people. Kinda weird, right? Maybe you think so too, or maybe you’ve made MB your own, and hey, we love that for you!Taking a step beyond MB, we explore Nash’s idea of a Black feminist love politics, which offers us a different way to think about intimacy. What if intimacy wasn’t about fitting someone into a type, but about an ethic of witnessing—seeing the world as someone else sees it? And what if vulnerability wasn’t about the power to hurt someone, but the ability to be undone and remade through your encounters with others? As always, we wrap up with our half-baked thoughts—where we share ideas we haven’t fully worked through yet, but we totally stand behind. You’ll just have to tune in to hear them!Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to rate and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Music, follow us @nameitpod, and share the episode with a friend! ✨---Where We Know From:Jennifer Nash, Black feminism reimagined: After intersectionality. Duke University Press, 2018.Gillian Brockell, "Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers: The Women Behind the Personality Test You Can’t Avoid." The New York Times, October 14, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/14/obituaries/katharine-briggs-and-isabel-myers-overlooked.htmlDavid Stovall, "The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing." NEA Today, September 27, 2021. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/racist-beginnings-standardized-testingTake the Myers-Briggs test! https://www.16personalities.com/

In episode 2, we deconstruct the notion of expertise once and for all. We know what you’re thinking…since when did you two become experts on expertise?! After all, who gets to be called an expert anyway? The truth is, we all make history, every single day. We learn this lesson by going back in time, thanks to two Indigenous scholars and experts in their field: the 17th-century Nipmuc scholar Wawaus (also known as James Printer) of Harvard Indian College and the 21st-century Ojibwe historian Jean O’Brien. Before we give you the tl;dr of O’Brien’s Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England (2010), Kohar shares a nugget of wisdom: when learning history, always pay attention to someone with many names. As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts—the segment where we share ideas that we haven't fully fleshed out but stand fully behind. You’ll just have to listen to the episode to hear those.Thanks for listening! Please rate and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Music, follow us @nameitpod, and share the episode with a friend!Where we know from: Brooks, Lisa. Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2018.DeLucia, Christine M. Memory Lands: King Philip’s War and the Place of Violence in the Northeast. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2018. O’Brien, Jean. Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of Existence in New England. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. nameitpod.com

Welcome back for Season 2, friends! In this episode, we’re diving into spirituality. Does the word spirituality refer to just one thing, or does it mean anything at all? And are you among the growing number of people identifying as “spiritual, but not religious”?Before we give you the tl;dr of Jeremy Carrette and Richard King’s Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion, we discuss Big Zodiac and the increasing profitability of astrology apps and products. Who knew venture capitalists were investing in apps like Co-star?!Iman shares why she finds the phrase “spiritual but not religious” confusing and ick-inducing, while Kohar talks about what truly makes someone a real spiritual baddie (and it’s not just their TikTok feed). We explore the relationship between modern spirituality and capitalism, and the distinction between capitalist spirituality and an anti-capitalist / revolutionary one, as defined by Carrette, King, and the traditions we come from.As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts—the segment where we share ideas that we haven't fully fleshed out but stand fully behind. You’ll just have to listen to the episode to hear those.Thanks for listening! Please rate and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple Music, follow us @nameitpod, and share the episode with a friend!

Hey y’all! Name It! your encyclopodia of big ideas is back for season 2 on September 9. We can’t wait to bring you more big ideas and be sure to follow us @nameitpod and check out nameitpod.com for all updates!

Hey, friends! In this episode we're talking about Sara Ahmed's term: complaint!  An idea that names how we learn about power from those who dare to complain about it.​Before we give you the tl;dr (too long; didn't read) of Ahmed's Complaint, Iman shares her own experience of becoming the problem when she complained about a problem. We discuss the inevitably of encountering weirdos when you're a part of capitalist institutions, the vulnerability it takes to speak up, the importance of whisper networks, and our love for the people who create safe harbors for us in stormy weather.As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts. The segment where we share ideas we haven't fleshed out, but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. Where we Know From:Sara Ahmed, Complaint, Duke University Press, 2021.

Hey, friends! In this episode we're talking about hair. We draw on Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharp's Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America and an interview with Dr. Tanya Mears.​Before we give you the tl;dr (too long; didn't read), we phone -a-friend as our case study! We invited our friend Asha to discuss her "hair release ceremony," and Kohar and Iman reflect on being a part of such a special moment. We discuss how much we love Byrd and Tharp's description of black hair as a subculture, complete with its own rituals and language. Kohar describes herself as coming from a long line of hairy people and has some choice words for her middle school bullies. Iman shares that doing friends' hair is how she shows them love and care.​As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts. The segment where we share ideas we haven't fleshed out, but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. Where We Know From:Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharp, Hair Story: Unlocking the Roots of Black Hair in America, St. Martin's Press, 2001.Veer Mudambi, "Untangling the politics of hair: WSU professor to give presentation for Historical Museum, Worcester Magazine, March 14, 2022.

Hey, friends! In this episode we're talking about Patricia Hill Collin's definition of Black Feminist Thought.Before we give you the tl;dr (too long; didn't read) of Collin's Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, we discuss the Combahee River Collective's landmark statement published in 1977. The statement coined the terms interlocking oppression, identity politics, the notion that when black women get free, we all get free.We discuss the statement's radicalism, the misconception that black feminism is about representation, Collins and the CRC's distinction between separatism and autonomy, and the evolving nature of black feminist thought over the decades.As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts. The segment where we share ideas we haven't fleshed out, but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. Where we Know From:Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, Routledge, 2002.The Combahee River Collective Statement, 1977. Marian Jones, “If Black Women Were Free”: An Oral History of the Combahee River Collective, The Nation, October 29, 2021.

Hey, friends! In this episode we're talking about Christina Sharpe's term: the wake. A multi-meaning metaphor that names how the slave ship structures contemporary society, despite the formal "end" of slavery.Before we give you the tl;dr (too long; didn't read) of Sharpe's The Wake: On Blackness and Being, we discuss the "discovery" of the Clotilda in 2019 as our case study. The Clotilda was the last known slave ship to bring enslaved peoples from West Africa to Mobile, Alabama in 1869, despite the passing of the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves in1807. Slavers sunk the ship in the Mobile River to cover up their crime. After Emancipation Proclamation, those brought over on the Clotilda established Africatown, a settlement with its own chief, schools, and legal system. Africatown still stands today. Despite formal discovery of the Clotilda in the 2019, the ship's location at the bottom of the Mobile River was well known amongst Africatown residents through their own family histories and archival work. We discuss Africatown residents efforts to preserve the legacy of their ancestors as exemplifying "wake work." Kohar and Iman discuss their own family histories in the South, and Kohar shares the work she's been doing with her tribe to honor sunken mishoons (canoes) in Worcester, MA.​As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts. The segment where we share ideas we haven't fleshed out, but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. Where we Know From:Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, Duke University Press, 2016.The Clotilda Descendants Association (Donate to support their work!)Joel K. Bourne, Jr., "Their ancestors survived slavery. Can their descendants save the town they built?," National Geographic, 2019.​Alison Keyes, "The ‘Clotilda,’ the Last Known Slave Ship to Arrive in the U.S., Is Found," Smithsonian Magazine, May 22, 2019. ​Descendant (Documentary on the Clotilda and Africatown streaming on Netflix). 

Hey, friends! In this episode we're talking about Toni Morrison's term, safe harbors. An idea that names the sense of safety fostered through intimate relationships. Who feels like a safe harbor for you?Before we give you the tl;dr (too long; didn't read) of Morrison's Sula, we invited our million siblings to share what sisterhood means to them. Just kidding, we don't have a million siblings... just a thousand. Iman and Kohar talk about how being a sister has taught them to lead with love in all their relationships. And we're joined in the studio by Amara, Iman's youngest sister, who gives us a Gen Z take on being a ship in search of safe harbors.We discuss that families aren't guaranteed safe harbors, needing more than one, and moments when your dock is full. ​As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts. The segment where we share ideas we haven't fleshed out, but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. Where we Know From:Toni Morrison, Sula, Knopf, 1973. ​Constance Rae Custer Schomburg, " Safe harbor and Ship": The Evolution of Self in the Novels of Toni Morrison, Dissertation, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1990.Chan-Malik, Sylvia. Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam. NYU Press, 2018.

Hey, friends! In this episode we're talking about Simone Browne's term: Dark Matters. An idea that names blackness as a "key site through which surveillance is practiced, narrated, and enacted," (9).Before we give you the tl;dr (too long; didn't read) of Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, we discuss the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program, known as COINTELPRO. A program designed to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of the Black nationalists" and other organizations they deemed a threat to U.S. interests, including the Social Workers Party and the American Indian Movement. Iman is hyped because this is one of her favorite topics as a Muzlim, and Kohar shares stories of her own surveillance experiences at airports, on road trips, and on Twitter.As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts. The segment where we share ideas we haven't fleshed out, but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. Where We Know From:Simone Browne, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. Duke University Press, 2015.US Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities ("Church Committee"), Final Report - Book III: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, April 23, 1976. Ula Yvette Taylor, The Promise of Patriarchy: Women and the Nation of Islam. UNC Press Books, 2017.Paul Gilroy, "Driving while black." In Car Cultures, Routledge Press, 2020.​Barbara ​Fields and Karen E. Fields, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, Verso Books, 2022.Bukhari, Safiya. The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison & fFghting for those Left Behind. The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2010.

Hey, friends! In this episode we're talking about Audre Lorde's term: the erotic. An idea that names the knowledge, power, and sense of satisfaction encapsulated by the phrase, "this feels right to me." Lorde coins the term to speak back to the European-American male tradition that teaches one to “separate the erotic demand from the most vital areas of our lives other than sex.” What is a life lived erotically?​Before we give you the tl;dr (too long; didn't read) of Lorde's "The Erotic as Power," we discuss how hard it is to actually hear and listen to yourself. As our case study, we get v vulnerable by answering a recent self-connection survey created by psychologists. We discuss gaps in the study and how hard it is to know and accept yourself when inhabiting spaces founded on the exclusion of you and yours.​Iman and Kohar share the moments and spaces that make them feel the most aligned with Lorde's sense of the erotic.As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts. The segment where we share ideas we haven't fleshed out, but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. 

Hey, friends! In this episode we're talking about Josh Kun's term: audiotopia. An idea that names popular music's ability to create utopias for listeners, speak back to American racial hierarchies, and challenge nationalist narratives.Before we give you the tl;dr (too long; didn't read) of Kun's Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America, we explore the boundary-pushing ability of music in our case study: the public censoring of the Shirelles' 1960 classic, “Will You Still Love me Tomorrow.” How dare a group of black women speak aloud their anxieties about sex and intimacy- blasphemy!We talk about the audiotopias we create for ourselves. Kohar admits to making 700+ song playlists. Like, who does that?! And Iman flames Kohar for having boomer-adjacent music taste, while she describes herself as moving between the genres of house and hoe.As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts. The segment where we share ideas we haven't fleshed out, but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. As a special treat (you're welcome), we created our own Audiotopic playlists. You can listen to Iman’s on Spotify and Kohar’s (much longer playlist) on Apple Music.Where we Know From:Josh Kun, Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America by University of California Press, 2005.​'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow' Turns 50: An Interview with Beverly Lee," The Takeaway, 2011. ​Ellon Green, "A Magical Ten Seconds of the Shirelles," The New Yorker, November 18, 2018. 

Hey, friends! In our first episode we're talking about Name It! That's right, this is our self-titled episode *insert Bey meme.*As our case study we reflect on how Name It! came to be and the political function of naming. We're breaking the fourth-wall and talking about the process of bringing the show into reality (and let us just say it was a process), naming as a survival tool, and all the spaces, places, and people who've passed their survival tools onto us. ​As our case study, we answer the question: where do you know from? Iman talks about what her name means in Arabic, growing up Black and Muslim in Northeast Ohio, and shares a story about her name change at nine years old. Kohar discusses the genealogy of her family name, what it means in Armenian, and how she discovered art was her intellectual medium.​As always, we close out with our half-baked thoughts. The segment where we share ideas we haven't fleshed out, but stand fully behind. You'll just have to listen to the episode to hear those. Where we Know From:Our families, loved ones, friends, and mentors.Karim, Jamillah. American Muslim Women: Negotiating Race, Class, and Gender within the Ummah. NYU Press, 2008.Zuroski, Eugenia. "Where Do You Know From?: An Exercise in Placing Ourselves Together in the Classroom." MAI: Feminism (2020).Avakian, Kohar. "Inheritance." Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 29, no. 1 (2022): 128-128.AbdoulKarim, Iman. "Islam is Black Lives Matter: The Role of Gender and Religion in Muslim Women's Activism," In Race, Religion, and Black Lives Matter, Vanderbilt University Press, 2021.

Iman and Kohar, friends-turned-PhD-students, break down a big idea, changing how they think about the world and talk to each other!  We're two best friends who met at Dartmouth College and have been bonding over our nerdom since. We started Name It! to share the ideas we've picked up from books, classrooms, sister-friends, and ancestors. Ideas that have helped us name what it means to live at the intersections. Each episode we do the reading and research on one of those ideas so you don't have to. Whether it's Audre Lorde's notion of "the erotic" or Toni Morrison's "safe harbors," consider Name It! your encyclopodia of big ideas that are gonna change how you talk about the world... and you can go ahead and consider us your newest internet besties!