On Religion

Constance Kassor is an assistant professor of religious studies at Lawrence University, where she teaches courses on Buddhist thought and Asian religious traditions. Her research focuses on Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, and she is currently involved in several projects related to the Madhyamaka philosophy of the 15th-century thinker, Gorampa Sonam Senge. She is also interested in religion and comic...

Sarah F. Porter (she/her/hers) is a Ph. D candidate in the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University with a concentration in New Testament / Early Christianity and a secondary field in archaeology. She holds an M.Div. from Vanderbilt University Divinity School with a certificate in gender, sexuality, and religion, and she earned her B.A. in English and Religion from Southwestern Uni...

Ericka Shawndricka Dunbar (she/her/hers) is an adjunct professor at Spelman College (Atlanta, GA) in the Religious Studies Department. She received her Ph. D. in Biblical Studies (Old Testament) in May 2020 from Drew University. Her dissertation is interdisciplinary and focused on how the discipline of biblical studies is increasingly responsive to social issues, namely, sexual trafficking. Dunbar...

Suzanna Krivulskaya (she/her/hers) is Assistant Professor of History at California State University San Marcos, where she teaches courses in U.S. and digital history. She received her Ph. D. in history from the University of Notre Dame. She specializes in modern U.S. history and studies the relationship between sexuality and religion. Her current book project, tentatively titled Disgraced: How Sex...

Lynne Gerber (she/her/hers) is an independent scholar. She is the author of Seeking the Straight and Narrow: Weight Loss and Sexual-Reorientation in Evangelical America (Chicago, 2011). She is currently working on a history of religion and HIV/AIDS in San Francisco. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Abel R. Gómez (he/him/his) is a Ph. D. candidate in the Religion Department and earned a Certificate of Advanced Studies from the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at Syracuse University. His research focuses on sacred sites, ritual, and decolonization in the context of contemporary Indigenous religions. Abel is currently completing his dissertation, an ethnography of sacred sites protection m...

Ambre Dromgoole (she/her/hers) is a doctoral candidate in the Departments of Religious Studies and African American Studies at Yale University. She graduated from Oberlin College & Conservatory in 2015 with a B.A. in Musical Studies and Religion, where she received the Jonathon Kneeland Prize for Religion and the Africana Studies Award for Artistic Excellence and Community Service upon graduation....

Mark Van Buren is a Mindful Living Trainer, yoga/meditation instructor, personal trainer, and musician, that has been promoting health and wellness for years. He runs workshops and retreats around the New York City and New Jersey regions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gary Gach is the author of Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Buddhism.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Susannah Crockford is an anthropologist with interests in spirituality, politics, ecology, economics, and survivalism. She's the author of Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donovan Schaefer is an assistant professor in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Schaefer is the author of Religious Affects: Animality, Evolution, and Power. Brian Carwana is the Executive Director of Encounter World Religions. Brian has a PhD in religion and politics from the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Megan Goodwin, Ph. D., is Program Director for Sacred Writes, a Luce-funded project promoting public scholarship on religion hosted by Northeastern University. Her first book, Abusing Religion: Literary Persecutions, Sex Scandals, and American Minority Religions is available through Rutgers. Visit Dr. Megan Goodwin's website here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maia Kotrosits is assistant professor of religion at Denison University and is the author of the book The Lives of Objects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Newheiser is a research fellow in the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University. His first book, Hope in a Secular Age (Cambridge UP, 2019), argues that an uncertain hope is required to sustain commitment of any kind: personal, political, or religious. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joe Drape is an award-winning sportswriter for the New York Times. He is the author of six books, including the New York Times bestsellers Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen and American Pharoah: The Untold Story of the Triple Crown Winner’s Legendary Rise. His book Black Maestro was the inaugural winner of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award. Today we talked about his...

Andrea Miller is an editor at Lion’s Roar magazine and is the author of Awakening My Heart: Essays, Articles and Interviews on the Buddhist Life, out now from Pottersfield Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harold D. Morales' research focuses on the intersections between race and religion and between lived and mediated experience. He draws on these critical lenses to engage Latinx religions in general and Latinx Muslim groups in particular. He is currently focusing on developing public scholarship initiatives through his research on mural art and social justice in the city of Baltimore and through th...

Richard W. Newton Jr. is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. His research examines the making of social difference in light of the anthropology of scriptures. He curates his website at: https://www.sowingtheseed.org  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steven M. Taylor is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University, and the author of several best-selling books on psychology and spirituality. He is the current chair of the Transpersonal Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society. His books include Waking From Sleep, The Fall, Out of the Darkness, Back to Sanity, The Calm Center and The Leap. His latest book is Spiritu...

Yujiro Seki is the documentary filmmaker of the film "Carving the Divine." "Carving the Divine" offers a rare and intimate look into the life and artistic process of modern-day Busshi – practitioners of a 1400 year lineage of woodcarving at the beating heart of Japanese, Mahayana Buddhism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hersch Wilson is a thirty-year veteran volunteer Firefighter-EMT with the Hondo Fire Department in Santa Fe County, New Mexico. He is also a storyteller, committed to explaining how First Responding can change how we see and experience our own lives. In his “real job” he is a writer, speaker, and consultant. He is the author of Firefighter Zen, out now from New World Library. Learn more about your...

Meido Moore Roshi was a disciple of the lay Zen master Tenzan Toyoda Rokoji, under whom he endured a severe training in both Zen and traditional martial arts. He also trained under Dogen Hosokawa Roshi, and later under So'zan Miller Roshi. All three of these teachers are in the lineage of the famous Omori Sogen Roshi, perhaps the most famous Rinzai Zen master of the twentieth century. Meido serves...

Liz Bucar is the Director of Sacred Writes, Professor of Religion, and Dean’s Leadership Fellow at Northeastern University. Bucar is an expert in comparative religious ethics who has published on topics ranging from gender reassignment surgery to the global politics of modest clothing. Bucar’s current book, Stealing My Religion: Not Just Any Cultural Appropriation (Harvard University Press, 2022),...

Dag Hammarskjöld served as secretary-general of the United Nations from 1953 until his tragic death in a suspicious plane crash in 1961. During those years he saw the fledgling international organization through numerous crises with skill that made him a star on the international stage. As readers of his now-classic diary, Markings, are aware, Hammarskjöld understood political leadership as an hon...

Guo Gu (Dr. Jimmy Yu) is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center (www.tallahasseechan.com) and is also the guiding teacher for the Western Dharma Teachers Training course at the Chan Meditation Center in New York and the Dharma Drum Lineage. He is one of the late Master Sheng Yen’s (1930–2009) senior and closest disciples, and assisted him in leading intensive retreats throughout the United Sta...