The Classical Ideas Podcast

Liz Bucar is a religious ethicist and professor of religion at Northeastern University, as well as a certified intenSati and Kripalu yoga instructor. Her popular writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, Teen Vogue, and The Wall Street Journal, and she is the author of four books, including the award-winning Stealing My Religion and Pious Fashion. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. For more about how religion shapes us all, even if we don't believe, subscribe to Liz's newsletter at LizBucar.com. In the chaos of today's world, we're all searching for meaning. The wellness industry has sold us a promise that we can find it if we just buy the right products, attend the right retreats, and follow the right celebrity gurus. But is this true? Or are we picking and choosing from a self-care salad bar in ways that satisfy our hunger but don't truly nourish us? When we approach practices like yoga and ayahuasca as fitness routines and life hacks, we miss out on the sacred wisdom they have to offer us. But by digging into the real and often ancient religious traditions behind these practices, from Buddhism to Christianity and beyond, we can make them more meaningful, ethical, and effective—without the often unpleasant baggage of joining an organized religion. In this engaging and deeply personal book, award-winning scholar and writer Liz Bucar embarks on a quest to get to the heart of "spiritual but not religious" activities from detox diets to sound baths. As she tries out each practice for herself, she asks how we can get more out of it by tuning out the hype and taking the religious meaning behind it seriously—with emotionally profound and often surprising results. Whether it's as simple as setting an intention for a yoga asana or as complex as reevaluating what a "higher power" is, it's time to understand, experience, and simply get more out of our spiritual practices. It's time to dig deeper with Beyond Wellness. Order the Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/774524/beyond-wellness-by-liz-bucar/ Visit: https://www.sacred-writes.org  

Ann Gleig (Professor of Religion and Cultural Studies, University of Central Florida; PhD, Rice University, 2010) studies spirituality emerging from the encounter between Buddhism and American culture, particularly meditation and mindfulness. The author of American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity (Yale University Press, 2019); and co-editor with Scott A. Mitchell of The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism, she has published widely about how the incorporation of psychotherapeutic and social justice frameworks have transformed American Buddhist practices. A recipient of a Sacred Writes media partnership to write for Religion Dispatches, Dr. Gleig's public-facing work has also appeared in The Conversation and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Ann Gleig will collaborate with Nalika Gajawira on a comparative ethnographic study of how Buddhist communities adopt and adapt popular spiritual exercises such as "secular" mindfulness and yoga classes within a wider Buddhist framework. Their work aims to illustrate the processes, frameworks and relationships that can enable more responsible relationships between specific religious communities and the word of spiritual wellness practices.   Ann Gleig, "The Deepak Chopra-Jeffrey Epstein friendship tells of a spirituality industry in crisis," Religion News Service: https://religionnews.com/2026/03/06/the-deepak-chopra-jeffrey- epstein-tells-of-a-spirituality-industry-in-crisis/ Ann Gleig and Brenna Artinger, "The Buddhist Culture Wars #BuddhistCultureWars: BuddhaBros, Alt-Right Dharma, and Snowflake Sanghas," Journal of Global Buddhism Vol 22: 1(2021) https://www.globalbuddhism.org/article/view/1298 Ann Gleig and Amy Langenberg, "Supporting Survivors of Abuse," Abuse in Buddhism: Facing It, Preventing It and Healing From It, Dharmadatta Community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tlvm5gq-G0 Ann Gleig, Amy Langenberg and Sarah Jacoby, "Reflecting on Heartwood/Northwestern Symposium on Sexual Violence in Buddhism: Centering Survivors Voices," The Shiloh Project https://shilohproject.blog/reflection-on-heartwood-symposium-on-sexual-violence-in-buddhism- centering-survivors-voices/ Ann Gleig, Talking About Cults: Abuse and the Study of New Religious Movements: https://www.ugapress.org/9780820377902/talking-about-cults/ Association for Spiritual Integrity (ASI) https://www.spiritual-integrity.org/ Seek Safely: https://seeksafely.org/

Natalie Avalos (Assistant Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies, University of Colorado Boulder; PhD, University of California Santa Barbara, 2015) is an ethnographer of religion whose research examines contemporary Indigenous religious life, healing historical trauma, and decolonization. A Chicana of Mexican Indigenous descent, born and raised in the Bay Area, Dr. Avalos is currently working on her manuscript, titled Decolonizing Metaphysics: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal. She served as a co-PI for a Luce Foundation-funded research group at the UC Humanities Research Institute, "Humanitarian Ethics, Religious Affinities and the Politics of Dissent." She is also the recipient of a Sacred Writes media partner fellowship to write about Buddhism and race for Religion Dispatches.  Avalos studies how Indigenous practitioners in the Denver metro area navigate the increasing use of Indigenous plant medicine like ayahuasca and psilocybin by white Americans for wellness purposes. Her informants are concerned about the metaphysical impacts of the decontextualized use of these plants, including how their commodification and increased white demand may limit Indigenous access. However, Avalos's study reveals that along with these risks are compelling possible benefits. Within their Indigenous religious context, plants are understood to have conscious, sacred intelligence revered within the larger social body. If Westerners could look through this sacred lens, plant medicines could help address human-centric biases created by colonial relations, and the West's spiritual yearning for a lost connection to the natural world. Such understanding could both benefit our ecological future and inspire rectification of historical and ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Learn more about John Templeton Foundation's Sacred Writes Working Group here: https://www.sacred-writes.org/templeton-working-group

Michiel van Elk (1980) is a researcher and writer in the field of psychology, philosophy and neuroscience. Having received his PhD at the Donders Institute, the Netherlands, he has worked at several international institutions including the University of California Santa Barbara the École Polytechnique Féderale de Lausanne in Switzerland and Stanford University. He is currently affiliated as associate professor at Leiden University. He has conducted pioneering work on psychedelics, altered states of consciousness, feelings of awe, the evolution of religion and mystical experiences. His work, including more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles, book chapters and books, has been featured by the New York Times, Vice, Lonely Planet, New Scientist, The Daily Beast and Psychedelic Spotlight. VISIT PRSM Lab: https://prsmlab.com/teams/michiel-van-elk/ Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/  

Laine Walters Young is the Assistant Director of the Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership in the Professions at Vanderbilt University. She received her PhD from Vanderbilt in Religion, Psychology and Culture, and considers herself a feminist care ethicist working at the intersection of psychology and ethics. She has experience in non-profit administration as well as a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School where she studied Religion in Public Life, storytelling, and the possibilities of pluralism.  At the Cal Turner Program, she directs the interprofessional student fellowship at Vanderbilt, a group of masters-level students who journey together over a year to deepen their moral awareness and gain leadership skill. Thank you to Sacred Writes for the support! Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/  

Dr. Lizardy-Hajbi is the author of Unraveling Religious Leadership: Power, Authority, and Decoloniality (Fortress Press, 2024) and co-editor of Explore: Vocational Discovery in Ministry (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). In addition, she is the author of a number of articles and reports, including Latino Congregations: Trends from the Faith Communities Today (FACT) and Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations (EPIC) Studies. Read "Songs That Call Me Home to Puerto Rico": https://www.christiancentury.org/features/songs-call-me-home-puerto-rico Visit: https://www.iliff.edu/faculty/rev-dr-kristina-lizardy-hajbi/ Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/about  

Judith L. Bishop is Associate Professor of History and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Alice Andrews Quigley Chair in Women's Studies at Mills College at Northeastern University. She earned her BA from Baylor University, MA from Vanderbilt University, and her PhD from the Graduate Theological Union. Her research interests include: women in world religions; theoretical approaches to gender, body, and sexuality; and religion in public discourse. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-august  

Amar D. Peterman is a constructive theologian working at the intersection of faith and public life. He is the founder of Scholarship for Religion and Society LLC and the former assistant director of civic networks at Interfaith America. Peterman holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and is currently a PhD student at the University of Chicago's Divinity School. His writing and research have been featured in Sojourners, Christianity Today, The Christian Century,The Fetzer Institute, TheBerkley Forum, and The Anxious Bench. He also publishes regularly on his Substack, This Common Life. Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local is his first book. Read "Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local": https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802884121/becoming-neighbors/ Visit: https://www.amarpeterman.com/amar-site/meet-amar Subscribe to "This Common Life" on Substack: https://amardpeterman.substack.com Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org  

Mac Loftin is a lecturer on theology at Harvard Divinity School. This essay was adapted from his forthcoming book, "In the Twilight of the Christian West: A Theology of Mourning and Resistance" and was produced in partnership with The Narrative Project, an initiative of The Christian Century.  Read: How immigrants, student protesters and Muslims became the lepers of our time View: In the Twilight of the Christian West: A Theology of Mourning and Resistance Visit: Sacred Writes

LJ Williams (they/she) is a queer African and Jewish ritualist and writer, pursuing an MDiv from Starr King School for The Ministry with a certificate in Entheogenic Justice Companioning. They are a longtime Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism community member, and served as a coordinator of a Chicago BLUUHaven. They were a Worship Learning Fellow at the Church of Larger Fellowship (2021-2023) and she received a B.A. from University of Illinois in Global Studies and Environmental Sustainability. She currently serves as board president of Young Adult Revival Network. She is interested in the intersections of land, religion, and revolutionary movements, embodied ritual and queer bodies. She loves arts, science fiction, and her family. Follow LJ Williams: https://kumibylj.substack.com/?r=1gbn0e&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist Follow Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-august  

Azna Parveen is a PhD scholar in Architecture at the University of Manchester, UK. Her research explores the socio-cultural translations of Islam in the built environment through the perspective of oceanic trade along the Indian Ocean littorals, focussing on Malabar Coast of Kerala, India. Trained in architecture with a specialisation in Urban Design, she has previously worked as an architect and an academician. She was also part of a multidisciplinary team awarded a grant by India Foundation for Art to study the spatial and sensorial landscape of Kayalpattinam. Beyond academia, she is a published illustrator and storyteller, leading heritage walks independently and with organisations (past collaborators include Kochi-Muziris Biennale) to encourage inclusive and interdisciplinary conversations about architectural and urban histories and sustainable futures for heritage. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-august  

Deirdre Jonese Austin (she/her) is a writer, womanist minister, and Black feminist anthropologist and ethnographer raised in the South and in the Protestant Church. Her work, ministry, and research develop out of her own experience and explore topics at the intersection of faith, race, gender and sexuality, and justice. Jonese has a Master of Divinity degree from Emory University's Candler School of Theology. She is currently a PhD candidate at Duke University in Cultural Anthropology, pursuing certificates in Feminist and African and African American Studies. Her doctoral project explores how Black women dancers in the U.S. South cultivate the sacred in their relationships with their own bodies and sexualities, the divine, and other dancers, at Black churches and at pole-dance and fitness studios. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-august  

Jimmy Hoke is a freelance scholar whose uses their research, writing, and teaching to enact genuine change. Their work engages and creates queer, trans, and feminist approaches to the New Testament and Early Christianity. They are the author of Feminism, Queerness, Affect, and Romans: Under God?, which reconstructs how queer wo/men engaged with impulses in Paul's letters. They are the Treasurer of Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc. and teach courses at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Their current research and writing projects include exploring asexuality in first-century Judaism and Christianity, exploring the intersections of queerness and disability in the gospels, and reexamining the rhetoric of "sluttiness" in Paul's letters. Visit Dr. Jimmy Hoke online: https://www.jimmyhoke.com/ Visit Sacred Writes online: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-summer  

Samantha Carwyn is a graduate of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, where she earned a Master of Divinity with a concentration in Social Transformation and Church Leadership. Her thesis, Finding Sacred Inherent Worth Despite Adultification & Misogynoir, explores the intersections of gender, race, and the societal expectations placed on Black women. She is currently in care for ordination with the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. In her community, Samantha engages in transformative resistance through education, storytelling, and artivism. As a public theologian, she is committed to building bridges between the church, academia, and everyday people to cultivate meaningful conversations. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-summer Visit Samantha Carwyn: https://carwyncollaboration.com/home/  

Dr. Amy Fallas is a PhD in History at UC Santa Barbara. She holds an MA in History from Yale and her research examines religious difference, charitable networks, and historical memory in the Middle East. Her work has been supported by the American Research Center in Egypt, the American Society for Church History, the Orthodox Christian Studies Center among others. She is the Associate Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and serves on the steering committees of the History of Christianity and Middle Eastern Christianity units of the American Academy of Religion. Her scholarship appears in History Compass and Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations and her essays are published in the Washington Post, Jadaliyya, Mada Masr, the Revealer, Sojourners and more. On this episode, we mostly discuss her article Brothers in the Resistance, research in Lebanon about connections between Latin America and the Middle East, titled Hermanos fi al-Muqawama, She is based in Beirut. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort-2025-jan Visit Amy Fallas: https://www.amyfallas.com/  

Esther Brownsmith (she/her) is Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Dayton. Her first monograph, Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative: The Devouring Metaphor (Routledge, 2024), was awarded the AJS Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award. She is also editor-in-chief of Unruly Books: Rethinking Ancient and Academic Imaginations of Religious Texts (Bloomsbury, 2025), and her recent publications examine the book of Esther in the light of fan fiction studies, queer theory, and affect theory. Her research focuses on the stories of the Hebrew Bible and the cultural and literary norms that make them so resonant. Her latest project applies Sara Ahmed's "feminist killjoy" to the women of the Hebrew Bible, using biblical stories of unhappy women as a model for modern unhappy readers. Follow Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-summer Follow Esther Brownsmith on Bluesky @brownsmith.bsky.social You can get your copy of Trans Biblical directly from the publisher right here.   

Christopher B. Zeichmann (he/they) is a contract lecturer at Toronto Metropolitan University, who specializes in the study of the New Testament. His research focuses on a variety of questions related to sexuality, the Roman military, and the early Jesus tradition. His books include Radical Antiquity: Free Love Zoroastrians, Farming Pirates, and Ancient Uprisings (Pluto, 2025), Queer Readings of the Centurion at Capernaum: Their History and Politics (SBL Press, 2022), and The Roman Army and the New Testament (Lexington/Fortress Academic, 2018). Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-summer    

Raj Kumar Singh is a PhD researcher in Anthropology at the University of Delhi, currently studying the relationship between religion and economy in Mcleodganj, Dharamshala. He has published several articles and book chapters on Hindu nationalism, Tibetan Buddhism, and the relationship between Communism, Buddhism, and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-summer  

Swasti Bhattacharyya (PhD, RN) Professor Emerita of Philosophy and Religion, has been researching, writing, and teaching in religious studies and applied ethics for over two decades. She examines ethical issues from multiple philosophical and religious perspectives. Her work is rooted in her upbringing as a daughter of an immigrant Hindu father from India and a Japanese Buddhist mother born and raised in Hawai'i. She utilized her experiences as a registered nurse and as an applied ethicist in several publications presenting Hindu perspectives on bioethical issues and on cultural humility. Her current creative nonfiction project combines her academic expertise with her long-term relationships with the women of the Brahma Vidya Mandir ashram, an intentional, spiritually-focused women's community in rural central India. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester  

Tess Starman (she/they) is a recent PhD graduate in Sociology at Howard University and is an incoming assistant professor at Simpson College. Her research specializes on intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and power at the nexus of religion and politics. She studies progressive Christian attitudes, religious exiting, and religion's impact on political attitudes and engagement. We discuss her dissertation, entitled, "A Corrupted Faith: The Role of Power in the Process of Christian Disaffiliation and Rise of the Religious Nones," which examines the religious exiting process and non-religious identity formation of ex-Christians. You can find her work at tessstarman.com. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester  

Rebecca Wolfe is a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University. Graduating with a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2024, Rebecca's research agenda focuses on the areas of gender, sexuality, the body, and mental health, particularly in the context of religion. Rebecca's dissertation work examined bodily experiences of disordered eating and sexual dysfunction among people raised as women in purity culture, a Protestant evangelical movement. Rebecca has been published in academic journals including Health Affairs, Social Science and Medicine - Population Health, and Theology and Sexuality, and created public facing work on podcasts such as EDGES and Anthrodish, and through the Sage Knowledge video series. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester  

Dr. Celene Ibrahim is a multidisciplinary scholar specializing in Qur'anic studies, gender studies and interreligious relations. Her award-winning monograph Women and Gender in the Qur'an (Oxford University Press, 2020) received the Association of Middle East Women's Studies book prize and is being translated into multiple languages. She also authored Islam and Monotheism, an accessible primer on Islamic theology (Cambridge University Press 2022), edited One Nation, Indivisible: Seeking Liberty and Justice from the Pulpit to the Streets (Wipf & Stock 2019), and is featured in the Netflix docudrama Testament: The Story of Moses (2024). Ibrahim holds degrees from Princeton University (AB), Harvard Divinity School (MDiv), and Brandeis University (MA/PHD). She serves as a faculty member at Groton School in Religious Studies and Philosophy. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester Visit Celene Ibrahim: https://www.celeneibrahim.org/    

Amanda Hernandez is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and affiliate faculty member of the Feminist Studies and Race & Ethnicity Studies programs at Southwestern University. She is a proud graduate of San Antonio Community College. She received her B.A. in Women's & Gender Studies from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Baylor University. Her work focuses on the ways that white supremacy and sexism show up in U.S. Christian groups. She is the author of Intersectional Identities of Christian Women in the United States: Faith, Race, and Feminism (Lexington Books, 2024). Her work has been published in Conscience Magazine, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and Sociological Spectrum. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester Visit Dr. Amanda Hernandez: https://sites.google.com/view/amandadhernandez/ Buy the book: https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/intersectional-identities-of-christian-women-in-the-united-states-9781666941647/  

Dr. Sohini Sarah Pillai (she/her/hers) is Assistant Professor of Religion, Director of Film and Media Studies, and the Marlene Crandell Francis Endowed Chair in the Humanities at Kalamazoo College. Her research interests include Hindu traditions, epic narratives, Indian cinema, and women in religion. She is the author of Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative(Oxford University Press, 2024) and the co-editor with Nell Shapiro Hawley of Many Mahabharatas(SUNY Press, 2021). Ongoing projects include a co-authored sourcebook with Emilia Bachrach and Jennifer D. Ortegren entitled Women in Hindu Traditions (NYU Press) and a monograph about cinematic adaptations of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. She is also co-chair of the American Academy of Religion's Hinduism Unit and on the editorial board for Reading Religion. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester  

Formerly the Justice, Equity, and Transformation Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Calgary, Lucas is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Toronto Mississauga. He is the author of At Home with the Holocaust: Postmemory, Domestic Space, and Second-Generation Holocaust Narratives (Rutgers UP, 2025), which received the Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award. He is also the editor of Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors' Stories of Conversion Therapy (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2025), as well as the co-editor of Emerging Trends in Third-Generation Holocaust Literature (Lexington, 2023). His academic work has appeared in Modern Language Studies, Canadian Jewish Studies, Flannery O'Connor Review, Journal of Jewish Identities, and Studies in American Jewish Literature. His public-facing writing has appeared in The Advocate, Queerty, LGBTQ Nation, and Religion Dispatches, among other venues. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester Follow Dr. Lucas Wilson: https://www.instagram.com/lukeslamdunkwilson/ Buy Shame-Sex Attraction: https://bookshop.org/p/books/shame-sex-attraction-survivors-stories-of-conversion-therapy-lucas-wilson/21360797?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAafHdvzZaNVuiBkf8kq3JdOu8i5UQCVYQZqAkrljmmJjkpO-cLhb2xifbGfyfQ_aem_-PIMbnt_hKHPY2E7FMxa6A

Tazeen M. Ali (she/her) is assistant professor of Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research and teaching focus on Islam and gender, US Islam, and race and religion in America. She is the author of The Women's Mosque of America: Authority & Community in US Islam (NYU Press, 2022). She has also published in Religion & Politics (now ARC Mag), The Conversation, The Maydan, and Middle East Eye. Ali is currently writing her second book, Muslims on Screen: Racism and Sexuality in Anglo-American Islam, which analyzes entertainment media projects produced by British and American Muslims. She also serves on the advisory board of the National Museum of American Religion. Ali earned her PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University in 2019. Visit Tazeen Ali Visit Classical Ideas Visit Sacred Writes  

Alexiana Fry (she/her/hers) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen at the Faculty of Theology for a project entitled "Divergent Views of Diaspora in Ancient Judaism." Her first book, Trauma Talks in the Hebrew Bible: Speech Act Theory and Trauma Hermeneutics, released in October 2023 with Lexington Press. She received her Ph.D. in Old Testament from Stellenbosch University (ZA) in December 2021. Her dissertation project focused on the intersections of gender, sexuality, migration, and trauma in specific biblical texts, and she continues to explore these constitutive features in both ancient and modern contexts. Visit Alexiana Fry: https://www.alexianafry.com/public-scholarship Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort-2025-jan Classical Ideas Linktree: https://linktr.ee/classicalideas

Peach (they/them) is a PhD student at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge and the Woolf Institute. They are conducting ethnographic research into the dynamics of resistance and compliance in women's interfaith organisations in the contemporary British public sphere. One of their key interests is how often-dismissed 'convivial' activities like crafting and food-sharing create conditions for meaningful relationship building in interfaith spaces. Recently they have been puzzling over the interactions between interfaith organising, counter-extremism policy and (anti-)carceral feminisms in the UK. They are funded by the Polonsky-Coexist and Woolf Institute scholarships. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort-2025-jan Follow Peach Hoyle: https://bsky.app/profile/peach-hoyle.bsky.social Visit Cambridge Community Kitchen: https://cckitchen.uk/ Visit Classical Ideas: https://linktr.ee/classicalideas  

Dana Lloyd is assistant professor of Global Interdisciplinary Studies and affiliated faculty at the Center for Peace and Justice Education at Villanova University. She is the author of Land Is Kin: Sovereignty, Religious Freedom, and Indigenous Sacred Sites (University Press of Kansas, 2023) and the co-editor of American Examples: A New Conversation about Religion, vol. 3 (University of Alabama Press, 2024). A scholar of law and religion, Lloyd is now writing about how law and religion construct mothers and motherhood through an interplay between ideas about care and neglect. She is a co-PI for the research project "Critical Perspectives on Care: Social Reproduction Theory in a Global Context." Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort-2025-jan Visit Classical Ideas: https://linktr.ee/classicalideas Visit Critical Perspectives on Care: https://www.cpcsymposium.com/copy-of-speakers-1    

Aisha R. Lovens (she/her/hers) is a PhD student in African American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric at Christian Theological Seminary. She is a dynamic same-gender-loving minister, scholar-activist, womanist, and preacher committed to transformative theological inquiry. Her research centers on sex rhetoric in Black churches and theological institutions, with a particular emphasis on womanist theology and its liberative possibilities for marginalized communities. Her work seeks to challenge oppressive structures, amplify silenced voices, and foster a more inclusive and embodied understanding of sacred discourse. With a passion for preaching, teaching, and advocacy, she is a visionary leader who brings a depth of insight, intuition, and discernment to her ministry. She is dedicated to empowering communities to engage in critical reflection and bold action and seeks to create spaces for authenticity, healing, and liberation. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Norfolk State University, a Master of Divinity, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort-2025-jan Classical Ideas-Sacred Writes seasons 1-8: https://linktr.ee/classicalideas  

Kelsey Hanson Woodruff is a PhD candidate in Religion at Harvard University. Her dissertation is a historical and ethnographic study of digital communities of post-evangelical feminists in the twenty-first century. She is also writing a biography of millennial author Rachel Held Evans. Hanson Woodruff's work has been supported by the Louisville Institute, the SSRC's Religion, Spirituality and Democratic Renewal fellowship, and the Weatherhead Center. Her research and teaching interests include evangelicalism and post-evangelicalism, religion and gender, and religion and American politics. Visit Kelsey Hanson Woodruff online: https://www.kelseyhansonwoodruff.com/ Visit tge 2025 Sacred Writes Carpenter Cohort online: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort-2025-jan Seasons 1-8 of Sacred Writes/Classical Ideas episodes: https://linktr.ee/classicalideas

Dr Angela Puca is an academic and a university lecturer who has taught at several universities worldwide and has been based at Leeds Trinity University since 2016. She holds a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in philosophy. In 2021, The University of Leeds awarded her a PhD in Religious Studies on Italian Witchcraft and Shamanism, published by Brill. Her research focuses on magic, witchcraft, Paganism, esotericism, shamanism, and related currents. Author of several peer-reviewed publications and co-editor of the forthcoming 'Pagan Religions in five Minutes' for Equinox, she hopes to bridge the gap between academia and the communities of magic practitioners by delivering related scholarly content on her YouTube Channel and other social media platforms. CONNECT & SUPPORT💖 BECOME MY PATRON! 🎩 https://www.patreon.com/angelapuca SUPPORT ON KO-FI ☕️https://ko-fi.com/drangelapuca ONE-OFF DONATIONS 💰 https://paypal.me/angelasymposium JOIN MEMBERSHIPS 👥 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPSbip_LX2AxbGeAQfLp-Ig/join YOUTUBE CHANNEL 📹 https://www.youtube.com/@drangelapuca/featured MY MERCH 👕 https://drangelapuca.creator-spring.com/

Shaonta' Allen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Dartmouth College. She also holds affiliations with the African and African American Studies Department and the Consortium of Studies in Race, Migration, and Sexuality. She received her B.A in Sociology from the University of Washington, her M.A. in Sociology and a graduate certificate in Women and Gender Studies from Middle Tennessee State University, and her PhD in Sociology from the University of Cincinnati. Her scholarship draws on Race, Religion, Social Movements, and Intersectionality literatures to explore how identity markers like religion inform Black political ideology construction. Shaonta's current book project examines the experiences of Black Christian Millennials during Black Lives Matter. Her research has been published in Sociology Compass, Humanity & Society, and Religions. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-summer-2024 Visit Dr. Shaonta' Allen: https://linktr.ee/ShaontaTheSociologist

Binu 'Ben' Varghese is a PhD student in religion and society at Princeton Theological Seminary. His research focuses on intersections of race, politics, and religion among Indian diasporas in transnational contexts. He draws his theoretical formulations from the colonial history of Dutch slavery in India and alternative readings of Indian American history and memories. In addition to his research project, Binu is also interested in religion and capitalism, and religious nationalisms in India and America. He is currently serving as the editorial assistant of the Journal of World Christianity. His upcoming research essay is titled "Liminality as Decoloniality: Decolonizing Indian American Christianity," which will be published in The Routledge Handbook of Politics and Religion in Contemporary America. We also discuss "Indian Flag at the Capitol Insurrection and ANti blackness among Indian Christians" from the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-summer-2024

SueJeanne Koh is the Graduate Futures Program Director of the Humanities Center at the University of California, Irvine. She develops programming for humanities doctoral students focusing on professional development and diverse career pathways. She is also the Director of Adult Education and Resident Theologian for St. Mark and New Hope Presbyterian Churches (PC(USA)). In this capacity, she creates opportunities for both churches to collaborate on racial justice and other pressing social issues. She has written articles and book chapters on settler colonialism and theology, Asian American theology, as well as co-written a piece on contingent labor with Franklin Tanner Capps (JAAR). With Capps, she is currently working on a book project on Christian nationalism, informed by blood discourses and legal proceedings significant for Asian American racial formation. Visit Suejeanne Koh: https://x.com/suejeannekoh Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-summer-2024

Farha Ternikar (Ph.D., Sociology, M.A. Religious Studies) is the director of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at Le Moyne College, Syracuse. Her current manuscript "Faith and Food Networks: Muslim women's acts of resistance and resilience in the American Diaspora" examines how in addition to race and gender, global Islamophobia continues to play an important role in how we can understand the role of food for Muslim communities both in the United States and India. She teaches courses in feminist theory, and race, gender and pop culture. She is the author of Intersectionality and the Muslim South Asian Middle Class: Beyond Hijab and Halal (2021), and several articles including "Beyond Hijab and Modest Fashion", "Feeding the Muslim South Asian American Family", and "Hijab and the Abrahamic Traditions". Her piece "Muslim American Women," co-authored with Inaash Islam, was recently published in Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures.   Links:  Book: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793649393/Intersectionality-in-the-Muslim-South-Asian-American-Middle-Class-Lifestyle-Consumption-beyond-Halal-and-Hijab Article: https://fisherpub.sjf.edu/gatherings/vol1/iss1/9/ Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-summer-2024

Robert Monson is a writer, musician, and scholar that looks closely at Black and womanist theologies as well as Black disability theology. His work engages Black religious identities, Christian nationalism, disability, and more. He is currently a PhD student and is a host for two podcasts: Black Coffee and Theology and Three Black Men: Theology, Culture, and the World Around Us. Visit Robert Monson online: https://www.threads.net/@robert_the_contemplative https://musingsfromabrokenheart.substack.com/ Visit Sacred Writes online: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-summer-2024

Natalie Avalos is an assistant professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies in the Ethnic Studies department at University of Colorado Boulder. She is an ethnographer of religion whose teaching and research examine Indigenous religious life, land-based ethics, healing historical trauma, and decolonization. She received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a special focus on Native American and Indigenous Religious Traditions and Tibetan Buddhism and is currently working on her manuscript titled Decolonizing Metaphysics: Transnational Indigeneities and Religious Refusal, which explores urban Indigenous and Tibetan refugee religious life as decolonial praxis. She is a Chicana of Mexican Indigenous descent, born and raised in the Bay Area. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-summer-2024 Visit Natalie Avalos: https://natalieavalos.wordpress.com

Emma Thompson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Islam subfield of the Department of Religion at Princeton University. They are also pursuing a graduate certificate from the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Their work focuses on Islam in South Asia along with Islam, Gender, and Sexuality. Their research draws on anthropological fieldwork and social media archives to examine how queer activists in Northern India navigate religion and secularism, especially situated within the context of rising Hindu nationalism. In addition to the dissertation project, Emma's interests include secularism studies, religious racialization and identity, queer and trans studies in religion, and religious nationalisms. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-summer-2024

Dr. Michael Brandon McCormack is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Pan-African Studies, Associate Professor of Comparative Humanities , and former Director of the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research at the University of Louisville. He earned his Ph.D. in Religion in 2013 from Vanderbilt University. His research explores the intersections between Black religion, popular culture, the arts, and activism. His work has been published in Black Theology: An International Journal, the Journal of Africana Religions, the Black Scholar, and the recent volume, Moved By the Spirit: Religion and the Movement for Black Lives. His most recent research focuses on the relationships between religion and discourses of afro-pessimism, afro-futurism, "Black optimism," and notions of "Black joy" as resistance. Moved By the Spirit: Religion and the Movement for Black Lives https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793647771/Moved-by-the-Spirit-Religion-and-the-Movement-for-Black-Lives Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-summer-2024  

Phoebe Farag Mikhail is a Coptic Orthodox Christian and the author of Putting Joy into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Spirit from the Early Church (Paraclete Press). She holds an M.A. in International Education and is a lifelong learner of theology, currently taking courses at Pope Shenouda III Coptic Orthodox Theological Seminary in New Jersey. Her writing has appeared in Sojourners, Plough, Christianity Today, and other publications. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-summer-2023 Visit Phoebe Farag MIkhail: https://beingincommunity.com/

Dr. Strozier is a lecturer at Georgia State University. She is continuing her research in the areas of religion, gender, sexuality, and health focusing the disproportionality of black women's maternal mortality, and women's reproductive decisions, using digital platforms. Her pedagogical focus is anti-racist and decolonial teaching strategies, while shifting humanities curriculum to focus on professional skill development within the gaze of critical skills. Dr. Strozier is dedicated to research and teaching as forms of activism. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-fall-2023 Visit Dr. Ashlyn Strozier: https://www.instagram.com/gapeach82/

Bhakti Mamtora (Ph.D., Religion, University of Florida) is Assistant Professor of South Asian Religions in the Department of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Arizona. Broadly, her research interests include print culture, book history, migration, and transnational religion. Her current book project employs archival, textual, and ethnographic methods to examine the genesis and reception of the Swāmīnī Vāto in the Swaminarayan Sampraday during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She has published journal articles in Fieldwork in Religion and Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts, and entries in Hinduism in Five Minutes and Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/acls-cohort-winter-2024

Samira Mehta is an Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies and Jewish Studies at CU Boulder. Her research focuses on the intersections of religion, culture, and gender, including the politics of family life and reproduction in the US. Her first book, Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States (UNC, 2018) was a National Jewish Book Award finalist. Her book of personal essays, The Racism of People Who Love You (Beacon Press, 2023) was called "the epitome of a book meeting a moment" by Oprah's "Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2023." Mehta's current academic book project, God Bless the Pill: Sexuality and Contraception in Tri-Faith America examines the role of Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant voices in moral logics of contraception, population control, and eugenics in the mid-twentieth century. Mehta is the primary investigator for a Luce Foundation funded project, Jews of Color: Histories and Futures. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-fall-2023 Read Dr. Samira Mehta: https://www.beacon.org/cw_contributorinfo.aspx?ContribID=12658&Name=Samira+K.+Mehta

Sophie Bjork-James (Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology, City University of New York) is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University. She has over ten years of experience researching both the US based Religious Right and the white nationalist movements. She is the author of The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism's Politics of the Family (Rutgers 2021, winner of the Anne Bolin & Gil Herdt Book Prize) and the co-editor of Beyond Populism: Angry Politics and the Twilight of Neoliberalism (2020). She has been interviewed on the NBC Nightly News, NPR's All Things Considered, BBC Radio 4's Today, and in the New York Times. Her work has received support the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the American Academy of Religion, the National Science Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation. Visit Sophie Bjork-James online: https://sophiebjorkjames.com/ Visit Sacred Writes online: https://www.sacred-writes.org/acls-cohort-winter-2024

Chauncey Handy is Assistant Professor of Religion at Reed College. As a Chicano scholar of the Hebrew Bible, Chauncey's work focuses on the intersection of race/racialization, theories of ethnicity, Latinx theorization of identity, and the reception history of the Hebrew Bible (for example his Bible, Race, and Empire course at Reed). He earned his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary and is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Reed College. He is working on turning his dissertation, Mestizo Poetics of Belonging: Deuteronomy's Construction of Israelite Ethnicity, into a published book. In this project, he considers the nature of ethnicity as presented in the text of Deuteronomy through the lens of Gloria Anzaldúa's articulation of mestizaje (racial-ethnic intermixture). His argument emphasizes the value of socially located approaches to Hebrew Bible and seeks to theorize engagement with religious categories of belonging that advocate for a just society. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-fall-2023

Vic Thasiah is a professor of religion and a lead faculty member in the environmental studies program at California Lutheran University. He is also the founder and co-president of the nonprofit environmental organization Runners for Public Lands. His research focuses on Chinese nature poetry, Native American perspectives on land and running, and environmental philosophy and activism. He is currently working on a book titled Ground Truth: The Natural World, Outdoor Recreation, and Environmental Activism. Read Drag Sun, Tiger Moon: https://www.irunfar.com/dragon-sun-tiger-moon-fastpacking-the-backbone-trail Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-fall-2023

Sonja Thomas is an associate professor of women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Colby College, where she teaches courses on South Asian feminisms, transnational feminisms, gender and human rights, feminist theory, and postcolonial and native feminisms. Sonja is associate editor for South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, and the author of Privileged Minorities: Syrian Christianity, Gender, and Minority Rights in Postcolonial India. She has written articles on tap history and blackface abroad (specifically in Asia). She is currently researching and writing her second book on Catholic missionary priests from India serving in rural Montana and North Dakota. The project is titled Indians and Cowboys: Race, Caste, and Indian Missionary Priests in Rural America. She is also conducting research on the 1961 Babe Ruth World Series hosted in her hometown, Glendive, Montana. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-fall-2023 Read Wondering About the Appearance of the Indian Flag at the Capitol Riots? by Dr. Sonja Thomas Check out Sonja Thomas' book: https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295743844/privileged-minorities/

Sarah Dees is a scholar of American and Indigenous religions and assistant professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University. Her research focuses on the history of the study and representation of Native North American religious traditions, including the relationship between the production of knowledge about religion and policies limiting the free exercise of religion. Her first book manuscript examines the study of Native American religions in the assimilation era by a Smithsonian research agency. She has taught classes on American religions, Native American religions, religion and museums, method and theory in the study of religion, religious freedom and discrimination, and religion and health. She is also interested the intersections of religion, culture, art, and music. You can see what she's up to at www.sarahedees.com. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-fall-2023

Tamisha A. Tyler (she/her/hers) is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology and Culture, and Theopoetics at Bethany Theological Seminary in Richmond, Indiana. Her research interests include Theopoetics, Theology and the arts, Afrofuturism, Black popular culture, and Science Fiction. Her dissertation, Articulating Sensibilities: Methodologies in Theopoetics in Conversation with Octavia E. Butler, explores Butler's work in the Parable Series as an embodied, artistic, and theopoetic response to the theological, economic, and ecological upheaval in Butler's dystopic world. She is part of the Level Ground artist collective in Los Angeles, CA and her work can be seen in Feminism in Religion's blog, and Fuller Magazine. Her latest project explores religion in the literary world of Octavia Butler. Visit Tamisha Tyler online: https://www.tamishatyler.com/ Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/luce-cohort-fall-2023