Reclaiming The Radical Socialist, Martin Luther King Jr.
Louis A. Ruprecht, Jr. “This book unearths a radical King that we can no longer sanitize.” The King West portrays here was “anti-imperial, anti-colonial, anti-racist, and [a] democratic socialist,” but he was also courageous in every sense of that term, even and especially in the face of death. “Could it be,” West asks, “that we know so little of the radical King because such courage defies our market-driven world?”
7 Questions for Andrea R. Jain
Andrea R. Jain One difficult thing about writing Selling Yoga, though it was not surprising, is that contemporary popular culture defies the ability to locate any cultural object at one site or sites. And in the case of pop-culture yoga, we cannot locate it in my chosen sites alone. However, as a practical move, I had to select my examples as windows into the incalculable sites of the construction, dissemination, and practice of yoga. I had to carefully select from case studies in my effort to demonstrate that the postural practice we most associate with yoga today underwent global popularization as a consequence of its coincidence with transnational cultural developments.
Religious Cultures Under the Radar: Jews of African Descent
Judith Weisenfeld On October 4, 2015, the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, a body overseeing a group of congregations of Jews of African descent, voted to elevate Capers Funnye, rabbi of Chicago’s Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation and first cousin to Michele Obama, to the position of Chief Rabbi. Installed on October 24 at a ceremony in his home synagogue, Funnye became the third Chief Rabbi in the history of the Israelite Board, which has its origin in the Commandment Keepers Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation founded in Harlem in the early 20th century by St. Kitts native Rabbi Wentworth Matthew and the first Chief Rabbi.
Progressive Priests and Pastors in Recent Popular Media
S. Brent Plate But I am interested in the complexity of human identity, and the ways these complexities allow a variety of practices, beliefs, and behaviors. Simply for the sake of accuracy, it is important to represent diverse channels of human character. Religious identities intersect with sexual, ethnic, racial, gendered, and national identities, and none of these are monolithic. In spite of what we might think based on media representations, not all Christians are conservatives, and not all Christian clergy are narrow-minded, abstaining teetotalers in ignorant servitude to some “Church,” some tradition.
7 Questions for Anthony Petro
I wanted to write something about religion and sexuality for my doctoral work, but I never thought about writing on religion and the AIDS crisis until I watched a film by Gregg Bordowitz, an artist and professor at the Art Institute of Chicago. . . . One of the scenes featured a gay black man standing at a microphone, describing how horrendous the AIDS crisis was at the time – in the 1980s – and then he spoke about God. Not in a negative way, but as a positive force, as a source of grace, even for gay men with AIDS.
The Muppets are America
Hussein Rashid The Muppets are back on TV, and now seems to be a good moment to talk about how they represent what America is, not what it was. Their recent family news and music videos display the multi-cultural United States that is our new normal. First, of course, is the shocking news that Kermit and Miss Piggy have broken up, and that Kermit has a new girlfriend. It is a sad day, but also speaks to the fact that the US has a high divorce rate.
Seven Questions for Ted Smith
The deepest roots of this book, Weird John Brown, are in my attempts to think about how to live as a white man in a United States that is so deeply disfigured by slavery and its legacies.
Giving up the Ghost?: Being Human in the Age of Intelligent Machines (Part I)
Sylvester Johnson For several centuries now, at least, a thriving humanities tradition has been established on the notion that being human is in large measure predicated on the ability to think and reason. In contemplating the nature of human ontology, Rene Descartes (1596–1650) famously quipped that the human subject can be known to exist precisely because of thinking, which requires a thinker as subject—Cogito ergo sum.
Indian Summers: Inqilab Zindibad Edition
Michael J. Altman and Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst This is our first in a series of discussions about the PBS Masterpiece series Indian Summers airing Sunday nights at 8 pm EST on PBS. Sacred Matter’s managing editor Michael J. Altman and Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Vermont, will offer their reviews of the series as it airs in the United States. NOTE: THERE ARE SPOILERS
Graceland Graffiti: Elvis Fans as Place-Makers and Memory Agents
Derek H. Alderman, Hannah Gunderman and Donna G’Segner Alderman
In describing Elvis Presley in Wilson and Ferris’ 1989 Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Stephen Tucker wrote: “Presley is probably the most famous Southerner of the 20th century.” Elvis occupies third place on John Sheldon Reed’s list of the twenty most influential Southerners of the past century, eclipsed by only Martin Luther King, Jr. and William Faulkner.