Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion Podcast

Welcome Back, Nerds!

January 13, 2021 Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst and Megan Goodwin Season 3 Episode 301
Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion Podcast
Welcome Back, Nerds!
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In which Ilyse and Megan provide a quick refresher on what we covered in seasons 1& 2 and set up the new format for season 3: intros to public scholarship, white evangelical racism in what's now the US, why early Christianity is way more complicated (and interesting!) than you might know, and why the study of Islam can, should, and does include djinns, magic, and astrology.

Storytime: Mary Hunt's WATERtalk, where she once again teaches us that "together, we are a genius."

Homework: check out the rad work of our season 3 guests & go follow them on twitter -- you won't be sorry. 

As always, be sure to visit keepingit101.com for full show notes, homework, transcripts, & more!

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Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion is proud to be part of the Amplify Podcast Network.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

This is Keeping it 101: a killjoy's introduction to religion podcast. This season, our work is made possible in part through a generous grant from the New England Humanities Consortium and with additional support from the University of Vermont's Humanities Center. We are grateful to live, teach, and record on the ancestral and unseeded lands of the Abenaki, Wabenaki, and Aucocisco peoples.

Megan Goodwin:

What's up nerds? Hi, hello, I'm Megan Goodwin, a scholar of American religions, race, and gender.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Hi, hello, I'm Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst a scholar of religion, Islam, race and racialization, and history.

Megan Goodwin:

IRMF, it feels like we've taken a little break. We're, well, no one has rested in the first weeks of 2021 after the Florida-man of a year we just had. It was a Florida-man. I hate you 2020. Die, die in a fire. But I feel like a break was necessary even if it was not perfect.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I- I am bad at breaks. But-

Megan Goodwin:

You are.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

But yes. Yes, indeed. We needed some time off to regroup, script, plan, coach my kids through a school break with no friends or family. And I think, eat my weight in carbs as someone's Lord clearly intended.

Megan Goodwin:

Respect. Jesus does love a carb.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I wouldn't know.

Megan Goodwin:

He is, I guess, technically a carb. Now that I think about it. Sorry, residual Catholicism. Anyway. Um, what- what- what are we up to today? How- how do we kick off Season Three?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Breaking my soul because Jesus as a cookie! I know but- Okay, okay, I'm better, I'm

Megan Goodwin:

He is though! better. Sorry I-

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Let's just- let's just jump in. Let's jump into Season Three with a kick off like that, how can we go wrong?

Megan Goodwin:

Excellent! Okay, crack those books open, kids. It's time for the LESSON PLAN.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Let's do a little bit of a review today, Megan. Not a- not a lot, because we can't summarize, you know, two seasons of podcasts. But I would love to make sure that our nerds know how we got here so that they all can see where we think we're going.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, dope, I like that. Um, but I also want to make some space to talk about the format for Season Three, which is new and different and experimental and I'm excited about it. There are reasons for experimenting with a new format and for bringing in new voices and we want to make sure you know what's up. So I guess our thesis is: only together, are we a genius, to riff on Mary Hunt. And after two seasons of us, Season Three is opening our digital doors to other folks so that we can all be better.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I love that.

Megan Goodwin:

I love it, too.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

So let's jump into the 101 ON TODAY. The segment where we do Professor-work.

Megan Goodwin:

Yes, let's. This is our 23rd episode, so if you're new, maybe we better recap some of the big themes.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Cool. So, uh, Megan, what are- what are our big themes?

Megan Goodwin:

Rude, rude. So rude. Fine, fine. Okay, uh, Season One, which was a year ago, but in COVID math, that's like 45 years and three months ago, we just kept saying that religion is what people do. And we- we still mean that. That means, basically, that religion isn't just belief, and in fact, it's way more likely to be practices and norms and mores and ideas. And that religion is always bigger than the individual. It's about communities and how people decide who's part of their community and who isn't. What communities delineate as appropriate versus what's not appropriate. How folks make meaning of the world through texts or divinities or each other, or places, or actions, how they make all of that meaning together.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah. And we also kept prattling on about how religion isn't done with us, which is related to this idea of religion is what people do, because as individuals, we may say, we're post-religion, or over it, or that it isn't important, but-

Megan Goodwin:

I mean, we would never say that, but we know some of you might say that,

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I was- I was thinking in that 'royal we,' I was thinking that proverbial we. The inclusive third-person plural. Anyway, THEY might say,

Megan Goodwin:

Out there.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Out there. But, like, listen, y'all. Religion exists, and especially within the United States within systems and that means law, education, medicine and calendars. You didn't think for a minute nerds that calendar would escape my mention or would cause so much room for contemplation, anger, resentment and general mishegoss. But then, you hadn't met me a year ago. When you've harped on the idea that YOU might not be religious, and that's fine. But that doesn't mean that religion as a system and a set of ideas within major societal systems isn't acting on you or your communities.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, sure is. And there's- there's laws about it. Not just in the US, though. Like I keep telling you, I am an Americanist, which basically makes me a monster to Ilyse. It's fine, I'm comfortable with it. I am-I am a monstrous Americanist. And we keep talking about the US because I keep making us talk about the US. But laws about religious practice, about who can be a real, protected, proper citizen, these exists all over the world. Like in a rough little tally, we've talked about France, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, India, China, Pakistan- Pakistan(I can speak) China, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, specifically. To show y'all that religion is both what people do, and your personal religiosity, frankly, doesn't mean crap to the laws of nation states.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah. 100%. So if Season One was all about religion, being what people do, and being tied up in systems of power, like law, like medicine, like motherforking calendars, Season Two was a deeper dive into race and gender, to other ideas, like religion that are real and have real effects in the world, but that our social constructs change over time and vary by region.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah. We just spent a whole season with you all outlining how race and gender and sexuality are everywhere, for individuals and for communities. And so if you want to think about religion, also always there, you really cannot, you just CANNOT think about religion without also thinking about race and gender and sexuality. If religion is what people do, and people have race, and gender, and sexuality(which they do, even if their gender or sexuality is no thank you, please), then you have to assume that you need those frameworks to make any sense of people and what they're doing.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah, and again, we talked about all of that across a whole variety of places, nerds, you'll remember that Megan, the Americanist, got a couple of episodes to outline the history of one place and I got a couple of episodes to do literally the rest of the world, right? You remember? You remember that, nerds?

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, we get it. We get it. You're mad. You're mad at the way that American-centric histories and ideas allow PhDs to know something so particular and you always have to be both a specialist and a generalist because you're stuck defining"India." You can open your damn mouth, move on girl, but actually don't because you're cranky and right and I cherish you.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Alright, fine, fine. Anyway, gender and race and religion all play together, act on each other, shape how we do, well, each of those things.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah. I think that about covers where we've been. Ilyse is mad at America, and frankly, if you're not mad at America, what are you even doing with your life? Please. Ilyse, also mad at calendars, and hopefully has showed you why you should be mad at calendars. I appreciate you. And I, personally will not rest until y'all stop saying cults to describe literally anything you don't like, or start paying attention to how religious groups are shaping our healthcare. Truly, literally, infecting the rest of us with your gross COVID spittle is framed as religious freedom. Like you- you can't be done with religion if it's coughing on you at the grocery store.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Definitely not, definitely can't be.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, no, no. Gross. Wear a mask. The end. Bleugh. Okay, so that's where we've been. Here is where we are headed. We are headed toward applied learning, nerd friends. We are setting up some cool conversations about how religion shows up in spaces you might not expect (unless, you know, you're listening to the show and you know better. But I bet your mom is still surprised, actually), so spaces like ghost stories or political rhetoric or children's books. We're also going to find out if Jesus was a literal wizard so you stay tuned for that.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Oh, yeah, I'm definitely excited.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shaily's gonna tell us. I can't wait.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I mean, we already know that Jesus is a carb. So if he's a carb, AND a wizard?

Megan Goodwin:

Oh my God, Jesus is a biscuit. I let him sop me up! Latrice Royale, blessed.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

This is the most compelling Christianity has ever been to me, I just want to say that. Wizards and carbs? Like, that's the sell. If you're- so if

you're wondering missionaries:

that's the sell. But also don't do that. That's imperialism. Next!

Megan Goodwin:

Hey, Jesus is a biscuit, I let him sop me up. I would prefer not to have to sop up Christianity while I do that, but whatever. The point of this is not just to have weird interesting conversations with smart folks that we admire. The point is also that, but not just, we want to think with y'all about how religion is shaping our world, and about how invested many folks are in claiming that religion isn't important or active anymore. Like in Ilyse's oft-lamented school calendars. Love a runner. So, what's at stake in understanding religion as more than just texts, or in acknowledging that religion and specifically white mainstream Christianity has uniquely shaped racism and racist violence, especially in what's now the United States? What's at stake in thinking about religion, and not like, cults or magic, as a political force?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

All of that, and more this season, nerds.

Megan Goodwin:

So delighted.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

And, we've also got a new format. So

Megan Goodwin:

Please. Next time, IRMF and I are talking starting next time, we've paired episodes off with the first of each pair being the two of us setting up a problem in religion, you've heard us chat about before, even more deeply. The second episode of each pair will be us chatting with a leading expert on that very issue. We're rocking the season in that way, because no two people can know everything. And let's be honest, we know a lot. But sometimes it's also informative to hear things from new perspectives, with nuance sets of experience, and wit experiences we just don't- w just don't have. Also, we'r talking to cool, smart, fo ks about their work, which is frankly, a good time. So j in us, won't y about public scholarship, especially on religion, we'll be thinking about why projects like this here pod, which is supported, as you probably remember, by a research grant, specifically because it is research and scholarship. So why are projects like this pod important? Why public scholarship is not an option for some people and why it is mandatory for others, and why your work is not in fact, too complicated to talk about in public. I'm going to do that again. And why your work is NOT in fact, too complicated to ta k about in publi

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yes, yes. And we're doing this all because in this season's third episode, Dr. Simran Jeet Singh will be here to chat with us all about that, and more, at a more granular and personal level. So see, we're up to setting you all up to get the most out of these rockstar experts joining us all throughout Season Three. We're hoping that giving you background in the first half of a pair will make our conversations all the more riveting and useful in the second half.

Megan Goodwin:

Applied Learning, nerds! And teacher friends, we're also hoping these paired sets help you teach within a theme, which is a recurring request we get. Shall we entice the nerds with a few more details about what's in store for the season?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Uh, yes. If we're talking public scholarship, there's perhaps no one as present in American religions in the public eye than Anthea Butler. We'll set up her visit with an episode diving more deeply into evangelicalism, white Christianity, race and religion, in the US. Then she'll come on and- what?

Megan Goodwin:

No, just yes, I'm really excited!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Oh, I thought you said stop.

Megan Goodwin:

No, it's like yes, I need it. I need it. Pump it directly into my veins.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Then she'll come on and we'll chat about her brand new book almost out pre-order now available on iTunes, etc. White Evangelical Racism. It's not really available on iTunes, that's a deep track RuPaul joke, it's available through UNC Press.

Megan Goodwin:

And you should get it. Then we've got two episodes where we're talking text, magic religion, and what we think we know. The first pair is about the Bible, Christianity and magic with Dr. Shaily Patel as our resident Biblicist badass. We'd use any excuse to chat with her, but these two episodes are specifically for you, Bible nerds, who keep asking us to do Christianity things that aren't imperialism and like, you know, we can't-we- we can't do that, but Shaily can(well, she's gonna talk about imperialism anyway) BUT Shaily is going to rock your worlds. And then the second pair of episodes on religion and magic is more Ilyse's jam, with a deep dive into Islam, jinn, and texts, followed by Dr. Ali Olami joining us. You probably know him from his weekly Wednesday threads on medieval Islamic magic, astrology, and jinn and if you don't know, now you know, nerds.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

So again religion is what people do, religion isn't done with us, you cannot think about religion without also thinking about race, gender, and sexuality, and we are about to go topically next-level with professors Singh, Butler, Patel, and Olami to build up and out on all this. Whoo. That's a lot. What do you say, Megan? Is it time?

Megan Goodwin:

Oh, it's time. Settle in class. It's STORY TIME.

Krusty the Klown:

Hey, kids, it's story time!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Alright, this is a really short one today Goodwin. And I picked it because this lil phrase is, I guess, I mean, like, I want to call it yours. You borrow it, you've made it the little pennant of our Foody Goodwin MOFU gang, from Mary E. Hunt, who herself borrows it from The Grail, a Catholic-rooted women's organization. I have to say she said it so frequently, that finding just one place she said it was actually kind of complicated. So instead, I just yanked this particular set of lines from an interview with her, Keica Ali, and Monique Moultrie about their version of the Guide For Women in Religion.

Megan Goodwin:

Which y'all should read, if you haven't already it's real good.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Absolutely. So in this little quote, it's super tiny, but let me set it up. Mary Hunt, a lesbian feminist theologian talks with the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual(WATER), a group she co-founded and still co-runs. She's talking here about collaboration, being a scholar, and what's expected in the academy. Ahem, The rail [a Catholic-rooted w men's organization] always s ys "Together, we're a genius.".. so even though individual work is prioritized by scholars, tenure committees, institution, and etc, Dr. Hunt continues, "Bu collaborative work takes th best of what each person has t offer and melds it into a n w product is really exciting." he said. Alright, Goodwin, what an you make of this tiny lit le interview segment that I pul ed out? Why is this line in particular your j

Megan Goodwin:

I love this so much. This, yes, again, rewired my brain. So I first heard Mary say this as part of her discussions with the Human Rights Campaign [HRC], uh, and their religion and faith Scholarship Program (rest in peace), which brought together junior scholars working on religion and sexuality for about a week at Vanderbilt for, I think, two or three years running. The HRC brought in senior luminaries in religion like Mary Hunt, and Emilie Townes, and Laurel Schneider, and Jenna Jacobson, and Tracy West, like you're getting a sense of just how amazing this experience was. And all of these amazing scholars came in to talk to us about their work, while we also workshopped our own writing together. And it's- it's awesome to have a week to focus on your dissertation with other smart folks who care about your specific sub-field. But the bigger takeaway for me was the relationships, honestly, that I built with those folks. I'm still in conversation with many of them. I'm still learning from them, I'm still challenged by the smart questions they're asking both specifically about my work and just generally in the field of religion and sexuality. So like, selfishly, my work is better and smarter and more useful because of their contributions and challenges. But more than that, it's been awesome to see spaces in the Academy where groups like this, formally organized like HRC, or Mark Jordan did an amazing religion and sexuality writing seminar for a bunch of years. And participating in both of those changed my life, no joke. But also just, I have loved and do love seeing the way nerds find one another. Where groups, lift one another up, ask difficult and productive questions of one another, just generally build an academy worth saving, in my opinion. And here I'm thinking about, like, our very first episode lo, one year ago, where you and I defined religious studies and theology in specific ways. And we had a bunch of really smart folks pop up and say, you know, I'm not sure if I would define it in those ways and how else can we think about this, so like, Jorge popped in, Jorge Rodriguez, Jake Erickson, who I actually know through HRC, all of them helped us kind of nuance our thinking, and just push the conversation forward, which is awesome. I'm also thinking specifically of an experience I had this summer where I was writing something for the website for feminist studies and religion. And Yohana Junker was the person assigned to peer review my piece and originally, it was supposed to be kind of blind, peer reviewed, but she had brought in so many really interesting questions and provocations, that what was supposed to be a sole-authored piece wound up being, like, I asked, and she agreed, to be listed as co-author because frankly, the- the piece was more, and better, and more useful, specifically because of the collaborative piece, which felt like a small, but I don't know, at the- at the time and looking back at it, it felt significant and like a tiny way that we can start decolonizing scholarship where like, it doesn't have to be about me and I found this stuff and look at what I think. It's about just like making us smarter and more thoughtful and more considerate and just... yeah, I don't know. There's something, I think, profoundly humbling about knowing that you can't know everything, especially when the academy makes admitting that you don't know everything feel profoundly unsafe. But once- once I got past that ego-space, it was also a giant relief. Like, I cannot know everything as one person. Cool. But you can know a hell of a lot if you don't have to know it alone. So yeah, together, we're a genius.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I love that you brought that line into my life because I don't exist in the same scholarly spaces as you. I mean, now we do more and more, because of this podcast, because of your book, because of both of our... I think coming into our own, in a post-grad way where you can just kind of like slough off the things you're supposed to talk about, and really just talk about the stuff you care about. But, this- this, like, Mary Hunt's not a scholar that- that I've read, or that I've worked with, or that writes about things that I naturally care about, right? Like, I don't do Christian or Catholic theology, I don't really study, like, queer formations in the US, like, I don't do any of that.

Megan Goodwin:

Right.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

So when you brought together, we are a genius to us. I was like,'Who is this Mary Hunt? That's a great line.' But I think this question of, like- I think the second part of that quote- I liked this quote, so when I was hunting for where she said it originally, and it's all over the place, and there's, like, a deep dive of the Women s Alliance for Theology, Ethi s and Ritual, like all of the r newsletters are online an so I got a little bit distracte, because I do this stuff in t e middle of the night, but l ke, the one that I really li ed was this interview, because t is question of like, indivi ual work is prioritized b all of the material realities in the jobs that most of us work So whether or not you get the p um job of a tenure track job, or you just exist in a com ittee, solo-authorship, solo-tau ht classes, solo-grants, every hing is are "you the singular author here?"

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

And so what I love about this line is, like, it is inherently, um, maybe this is gonna sound like an overreaction, but the idea that together, we are a genius, not singularly. So no, no shade to all the rad people that won the MacArthur Genius awards this year.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

But when that is a goal in the academy, to be named a literal genius, to say that "together, we're a genius" is actually profoundly radical. It is profoundly radical to say, you might know a hell of a lot, Megan. But actually the thing that you do with others, the- the ways that your work is built upon and shared, and not in this Academy way where you, like, you like ping-pong it out, right? Like I write something and I hit it with my racket, and then you write something and you hit it back, and then we keep that conversation going. But in order to see it as a conversation, you'd have to get like, nine different journals, and like three different books, and, like, line them up. Like, that's not collaborative. That's- maybe it's like building blocks, where we're together building some sort of structure, but each brick is its own entity. This"together we're a genius," I think, named for me, what has been a real, like, impulse in my work, which is, you build teams.

Megan Goodwin:

Right.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Like I can't win a game on my own, I need a team. And so I just- I just love how radical that is. That every single thing in the job that I have currently, tells me you should be doing this on your own. But every impulse I have to be a better thinker, a better scholar, a better teacher, a better colleague, a better mentor, says the opposite. And so I love having a pithy little phrase that you- that you actually put on a picture of us so that I can like have it in my office and say,"okay, that's the goal." The goal is collaboration and forging ahead in networks rather than competitiveness and the lie, the misogynistic white supremacist lie, that any one person could be excellent on their own without support, without community, without networks.

Megan Goodwin:

Yes, yes to all of that. So, thank you, Mary Hunt, and thank you The Grail, and just thank- thank all y'all who help make this work worth doing.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yup. Together, we're a genius.

Megan Goodwin:

Pandemic made us soft, y'all. Anyway, enough about that. What about me? What about Tyra? It's PRIMARY SOURCES.[singing] Primary Sources!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I almost thought you were gonna forget to sing it and I was super mad.

Megan Goodwin:

So primary sources is a segment where we talk about how all of this affects us as human people and not brains on sticks.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Goodwin, why don't- why don't- why don't we keep riffing on this idea of- from storytime. I was kind of thinking that this primary sources could be even more about how we learned to do this work, but not, like, the important books like how do we learn how to use an archive, but the little things you pick up and then looking back, where it is IT- it is the thing.

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah, yes. Let's do that. Tell me about the thing. No, you go first.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Okay.

Megan Goodwin:

Please and thank you.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Cool. I want to talk about genealogy. So on this here pod, I've talked a lot about where I come from and how where I come from is adoption. And I'd also-

Megan Goodwin:

Wait, you're adopted?!

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I know? SHOCKING! And I've talked a lot about, like, the work that that has done as a scholar, but I- I want to name that the possibility of that, the deep thinking that I've done around that is- is not just therapy and years of living in my body with my experiences, but it's actually because of the late great Dr. Ruel Tyson, a faculty member at UNC who was a legend and had like, Megan correct me if I'm wrong, he had like a Foghorn Leghorn, North Carolina accent It was-

Megan Goodwin:

No straight up, Ruel Willoughby Tyson, who came to the University of North Carolina to become a gentleman.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yes. No, like, y'all he was that old.

Megan Goodwin:

No picture the- I need you to see the suspenders.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah. No, like...

Megan Goodwin:

It was that level.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yes. There was something like dandy-ish about him.

Megan Goodwin:

Mhm, mhm, mhm.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Anyway, I took one of the Ruel's last seminars that he was teaching at UNC. And it was one of these, um, you know what Goodwin? I don't even remember what it was called. It was like a gateway, I think, to theory, to the culture- to theory? What the hell was it?

Megan Goodwin:

It was- you needed like a religion and culture class?

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yes. Yes.

Megan Goodwin:

And that was the one that was available.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

No, I anted to take it because it asn't- whatever. I wanted to ake that class. It was where we ere going to do a lot of like oucault. But instead, we read ike a buttload of Nietzsche, nd we read it so slow. And I ant you to know, dear nerds, hat I like that kid in "Little iss Sunshine," I had an actual ietzsche poster, like, as a ollege student who smoked too uch weed because I thought I as fucking cool. I was not. A) was not but B) I thought I was ike, down with Nietzsche. I was ot- I was not down with ietzsche, and by the end of hat class I was done. But the inal project of that class was, want you to write a genealogy. he rule was, it could not just e an intellectual genealogy. ou had to weave your personal enealogy into your intellectual enealogy because Ruel had not otten the memo either of bjectivity, nor of like ostmodern critique. So he just ad this assignment, that had ike, clearly been kicking round since like, 1958, where, ike, you were just gonna write our own personal history as an ntellectual history and your ntellectual history as a ersonal history. And this is uch a silly assignment, and I uarantee you if you asked nyone else in that class, they ould not remember it. Because his was literally, like, truly ike, this man's last year each- or second-to-last year eaching, everyone kind of hought it was a blow off class. ut that assignment broke my rain open. It did, it broke my rain open. Because the idea hat it became the first place I ctually, out loud, like, as a cholar theorized what it meant o have this wacky birth ertificate, which- which marked hen I wasn't me. Right, because ike, my birth certificate has a ouble thing. And it's clear hat if someone else had adopted e my name would be different, y parents would be differ- verything on that sheet would e wrong, even if the date and ime were different. So that lass really broke open for me he possibility of thinking, ight like, you know, that class as a class where everyone said conditions of possibility" too ucking much because we were ust reading Foucault and no one eally did the reading so it's ike, "conditions of ossibility" like I- it was, I as-

Megan Goodwin:

Grad school.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Dreadful. Yeah, yeah. That class too, like, well we could talk to Kathy Foody about it later, but that class was... Um, sorry, to those friends who are listening now and don't remember being that much of a slacker, you were, it was a bad class. However, that assignment, that one word- of like thinking about your intellectual genealogy as personal and your personal genealogy as intellectual, really changed how I thought about my work, it changed how I thought about community of scholarship, it changed about how I thought about the idea of like forebears and resonances. And I- I think about it often when I think about grad school, so even in this like kind of miss of a class with a professor who, quite frankly, because of ageism was being written off left, right and in between, both by students in the class and by his colleagues.

Megan Goodwin:

And the university frankly.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Oh, yeah.

Megan Goodwin:

The religion department.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

It was- It-

Megan Goodwin:

I have many notes.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yeah, but I think even in all those spaces, it was such a gift to have an old school class, so we didn't read a book a week. We read like three books in a semester, but you read them line by line in that, like, old school slow scholarship, you should memorize this passage, what do you mean you can't memorize the whole passage-way?

Megan Goodwin:

Yeah.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

And just broke up in my brain. And- and I'm really grateful. Man, good teaching sometimes comes in strange places. Anyway.

Megan Goodwin:

Sure. Sure does. I- I'm like very touched that you brought Ruel up. I had forgotten about that class until you mentioned it. I did not take that class. But I was Ruel's last research assistant.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Yup.

Megan Goodwin:

And my research assistantship was, like, organizing his papers and his books so that they could move him out of the department and into the center that he helped found. And then out of the center, and just like back home. He definitely thought my name was Ginger, despite working for him for like, three years.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I mean, you are a very tall ginger lady. So I feel like-

Megan Goodwin:

100%

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

maybe it's just a- a sweet, inappropriate nickname.

Megan Goodwin:

It was not a nickname. Definitely, introduced me to people as Ginger, including his son. But-

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Oh no...

Megan Goodwin:

I mean, like, Ruel was a kind of scholar that we just- there's not space for in the academy anymore. Like he- he came to the University of North Carolina to become a gentleman. He went on to found the Department of Religion at the- (religious studies now) at the University of North Carolina, he would just have chats about what it was like to hang out in the basement with several neighbors. And, yeah, and you read the Nietzsche line by line. Like that's, anyway, I miss him. And yeah, I think like, I think my primary source is similarly, just being grateful for- for all of its many problems, and shortcomings, and- and they are many, they are legion, our grad program at UNC was a space that really helped me learn to appreciate collaboration has happened in a lot of spaces. But I'm thinking specifically about the dissertation writing group that you created, lady.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

Oh, get out.

Megan Goodwin:

Good job, there. Yeah for real. I am, I am given to understand that many, many grad programs are not the sort of space where students would feel comfortable sharing works in progress, much less the truly shitty first million drafts of a dissertation proposal, as I did. And yeah, like that- the work in the writing group is about making our writing better. And that's great. But we also learned- we learned about what everybody else was working on. And we did that, like, not just to make their writing better, but so that we could promote each other in conference spaces or social media. And it, like- it felt awesome to be able to say to you know, somebody that I'm meeting at a conference, whatever, because I talked to everyone, "Oh, hey, like you're working on Second Temple, or like Post-Second Temple Judaism. Do you know about Carrie Duncan's work on female synagogue leaders? Cuz you should." Or, like, "Oh, you're doing religion-media stuff, Jenna Supp-Montgomerie has this awesome project, about the transatlantic telegraph that would like rock your world." Jenna's book, by the way, is out now. It is called When the Medium Was the Mission it came out through NYU, you should check it out. She's a smart lady. And so like, obviously, that collaboration is most intense with you and Foody. And it feels- it really feels like- that working with you all is what makes it possible for me to do pretty much anything at this point. Like, knowing that I don't have to get it right the first time, that I can send you, again, a truly shitty draft, and you won't think I'm stupid, you'll just- you'll just help me make it better. And like knowing that I'll read your stuff, and I will be smarter about religion despite still having to look up when the Great Rebellion was,(1857 I had to double check). Like that- that is priceless to me. So again, yeah, we're just like- together we're a genius and- and #blessed the end.[singing] Primary sources. But don't pack up your stuff yet, nerds. You've got HOMEWORK!

Simpsons:

Homework, what homework?

Megan Goodwin:

Remember, you can find everything we're assigning here and a whole lot more in the show notes for this episode, links, citations, non-paywalled options for stuff you need a university login to get to, occasionally silly pictures of us, all of that and transcripts because accessibility isn't just good pedagogy, it's mandatory.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

I'm honestly going to treat this like I would treat my opener in the first week of classes,

y'all. So here's my homework:

you need to read the syllabus, which will be posted up now in a couple places on our website, so you can tell what's coming, where we're going, and you might want to think about what to assign. You want to probably look through our past show notes if you're new, or if you want a refresher, or, again, if you are teaching this term and want to figure out what to assign, what's open, what's open-access. We've done A lot of work in the shownotes, and I urge you to go use them. And, just like I tell my students if you're totally new to religion, hi, hello, welcome. I always like to recommend Malory Nye's Religion, the Basics. It's a really good sim- simple primer but it's not, um, it's not short on theory. So it's not- it's simple but not simplistic. And then I guess I'll say go follow our Season Three guests [on Twitter] so you can find Dr. Anthea Butler@AntheaButler as one word. You can find Shaily Patel@vox_magica. You can find Simran Jeet Singh at @sikhprof. And you can find Ali Olami @aaolomi and I'll link- I'll put links to all of their profiles in our shownotes.

Megan Goodwin:

Awesome. I will also pull out some cool threads that our guest stars have written so you can get a sense of what they do, but also it's still pandemic so like that's plenty. Go take a nap. Oh, and speaking of folks to follow highly recommend the NAP ministry that's @thenapministry on Twitter as well. Thanks for coming back for Season Three nerds. We appreciate you. We also appreciate transcription Queen Katherine Brennan, whose work makes this pod accessible. Can't get enough of us? We are always, truly always, on Twitter.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:

You can find Megan on twitter@mpgPhD, and Ilyse, that's me@profirmf or the show@keepingit_101 find the website at keepingit101.com. Please do drop us a rating or review in your podcaster of choice, it helps. And with that, peace out, nerds!

Megan Goodwin:

And do your homework! It's on the syllabus.

Moira:

Now we have been given the essential task of sending our preceptors-

Alexis:

Our teachers.

Moira:

That's what I said thank you. Sending our scholastic skippers some panegyrical words-

Alexis:

Okay, no one's gonna understand what you're talking

Johnny Rose:

Okay, wh-why don't I start? Okay, we just wanted to about. express from the bottom of our hearts just how necessary you all are in shaping young minds.

Moira:

Sculpting,

David Rose:

So thank you. And may you continue to brighten-

Moira:

Illuminate.

David Rose:

And, God, illuminate the paths for many more to come.

Alexis:

So in celebration of all you precipitators, prep-

Moira:

Teachers.

LESSON PLAN
THE 101
STORY TIME
PRIMARY SOURCES
HOMEWORK
BONUS