The Classical Ideas Podcast

Dr. Alex Gardner is the author of the brand new biography, "The Life of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great," out now from Snow Lion, an imprint of Shambhala Publications. Gardner is the director and Chief Editor of the Treasury of Lives, which we talk about extensively in this conversation. Gardner completed his PhD in Buddhist Studies at the University of Michigan. You can follow Gardner on Twitter at twi...

Lama Palden Drolma is a western teacher trained by Tibetan Buddhist masters. She the founder of Sukhasiddhi Foundation. She is a licensed psychotherapist, spiritual teacher, coach, and has studied Buddhism in the Himalayas with some of the preeminent Tibetan masters of the 20th century. She was authorized to become one of the first western lamas by Kalu Rinpoche. You can find Lama Palden's work on...

Jay Wexler is a professor at the Boston University School of Law and is the author of the new book, "Our Non-Christian Nation: How Atheists, Satanists, Pagans, and Others are Demanding Their Rightful Place in Public Life." The book is out from Stanford University Press. Visit Wexler online at  https://www.jaywex.com Visit Wexler on Twitter  here Buy "Our Non-Christian Nation"  here .  Follow Class...

Dr. Ira Helderman is a psychotherapist in private practice and he holds a PhD in religious studies. Buy "Prescribing the Dharma" (University of North Carolina Press)  here .  Visit Dr. Ira Helderman on Twitter here . Visit Dr. Helderman's site here .

Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of  Philosophy  at  Wake Forest University . Miller's research is primarily in contemporary ethics and philosophy of religion. For examples of some of his work, please see recent pieces in the  Wall Street Journal ,  Dallas Morning News ,  Slate ,  Prospect Magazine ,  Relevant Magazine ,  Michael Hyatt Magazine ,  The Conversation ,  Newsweek ,  Aeo...

Gesshin Claire Greenwood is the author of  Bow First, Ask Questions Later  and the popular blog  That's So Zen . She trained in Japanese Zen monasteries, including in the kitchen, for several years before returning to the United States to obtain a master's degree in East Asian Studies. She lives in San Francisco, where she cooks, teaches meditation, and works in the mental-health field. Find her o...

Stanley Lombardo  is Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Kansas. His previous translations include Homer's Iliad (1997, Hackett) and Odyssey (2000, Hackett), Hesiod's Works & Days and Theogony (1993, Hackett), and Sappho, Tao Te Ching (1993, Hackett, with Stephen Addiss), Poems and Fragments (2002, Hackett), a PEN Center USA 2003 Literary Award Finalist. Buy Lombardo's Epic of Gilgamesh...

Jason Josephson-Storm is Professor of Religion and Chair of Science and Technology Studies at Williams College in Massachusetts. He received his Ph. D. in Religious Studies from Stanford University in 2006 and has held visiting positions in the US, France, and Germany. He has three primary research foci: Japanese Religions , European Intellectual History , and Theory more broadly. He spoke to me o...

Sam Kestenbaum is an independent religion journalist. He writes for The New York Times and is a contributing editor and former staff writer for The Forward. He spent several years working in Asia and the Middle East, where he edited a newspaper in Sana, a website in Ramallah, and a magazine in Beijing.  In recent pieces, Sam explores enchanted politics in his profiles of of Jonathan Cahn, a doomsd...

Dr. Judith  Weisenfeld teaches in the Department of Religion at Princeton University where she is the Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion and Associated Faculty in the Department of African American Studies and the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies .  Weisenfeld is the author of New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity During the Great Migration, out now in...

Dr. Brett Malcolm Grainger is a scholar of American religion and an award-winning journalist. He is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University and the author of Church In The Wild: Evangelicals In Antebellum American  and  In The World but Not of It: One Family's Militant Faith and the History of Fundamentalism in America.  You can view his work at his Academia.e...

L. Benjamin Rolsky received his PhD from Drew University in American Religious Studies. His work has appeared in a variety of academic and popular venues including Method and Theory in the Study of Religion and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion as well as The Christian Century , The Los Angeles Review of Books , CNN Opinion , and the Religion and Culture Forum at the University of Ch...

Anthony Kaldellis is Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics at The Ohio State University . He is the author of many books, including The Christian Parthenon , Hellenism in Byzantium , and The Byzantine Republic . The focus of today's conversation is his latest book, Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium, out now from Harvard University Press. Buy Romanland:  here  or  here.     

Ben Connelly is a Minneapolis-based Soto Zen teacher in the Katagiri-lineage. He offers a wide variety of secular mindfulness trainings, including for police departments, corporate settings, correctional facilities, and addiction recovery groups. He teaches at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center and is the author of Inside the Grass hut, Inside Vasubandhu's Yogacara, and most recently Mindfulness...

Monk Yun Rou was ordained in China as a Taoist monk in 2012. His writings and teachings propagate Taoist ideas and focus on environmental conservation, and political and social justice.  Yun Rou began his formal martial arts training in 1980 and practiced a wide range of Chinese kung fu styles before settling on tai chi. A student of some of China's top tai chi grandmasters, he was named Tai Chi M...

Philippa J. Meek is a Doctoral fellow at the University of Exeter. Meek researches public perceptions versus the realities of plural marriage within Fundamentalist Mormon communities. This episode gives a detailed overview of the court cases Loving V. Virginia, Obergefell vs. Hodges, Lawrence vs. Texas, and then discusses what possible path forward there is for legalization of plural marriage in t...

Dr. Duane Bidwell works to reduce suffering and promote abundant life in all of his teaching, writing, and research. Experiences as chaplain, pastor, spiritual director, pastoral counselor, HIV/AIDS professional, and non-profit director inform his work as teacher-scholar-clinician. CST students have given him teaching and mentoring awards three times since 2014. He is an ordained minister of the P...

Mitch Horowitz  is a writer-in-residence at the New York Public Library, a lecturer-in-residence at the  University of Philosophical Research  in Los Angeles, and the  PEN Award-winning  author of books including  Occult America ;  One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life ;  Mind as Builder ; and the  The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality . Mitch has written on everythin...

Dr. Jolyon Thomas is the author of "Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan," out now from the University of Chicago Press. Dr. Thomas is assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania.  Follow Jolyon Thomas on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/jolyonbt Buy "Faking Liberties  here.  

Dr. Nora Rubel is the Jane and Alan Batkin Professor of Jewish Studies and Chair of the  Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester in New York. Dr. Ben Zeller is associate professor of religion at Lake Forest College in Illinois. They are co-editors of the book "Religion, Food, and Eating in North America" from Columbia University Press (2014).  Buy the book from Columbia...

Eric Ripert is chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin on 7th Avenue in Manhattan's Theater District , author of the autobiography "32 Yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line" from Random House, numerous cookbooks, and host of the television series AVEC Eric. Buy Eric Ripert's books:  Eric Ripert Books Follow Eric Ripert on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/ericripert/ Follow Eric Ripert o...

Philip Deslippe is a historian of American religion with a background in American Studies and literature. His research focuses on Asian, metaphysical, and marginal religions in modern America. Philip is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and writing a dissertation on the early history of yoga in the United States from the mid-...

Dr. Kate Kingsbury obtained her doctorate in Anthropology from Oxford University. She is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta where she teaches anthropology courses such as Introduction to Anthropology, Anthropology of Religion and Ethnographic Field Methods.   Kate Kingsbury on Academia.edu Follow Kate Kingsbury on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ProfKingsbury Dr. Andrew Chesnut earned...

Dr. Ann Gleig is associate professor of religious studies at the University of Central Florida. She is co-editor of Homegrown Gurus: From Hinduism in America to American Hinduism and has published widely on contemporary Buddhism. She is the author of "American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity," from Yale University Press.  Buy the book:  American Dharma Follow Dr. Ann Gleig on Twitter:  https://t...

Corey Ichigen Hess is an ordained Zen monk and body therapist. He lived a monastic life for many years at Sogenji Zen Monastery in Okayama, Japan. He teaches meditation classes and works with individual clients doing private embodiment process coaching sessions, Sourcepoint Therapy®, Structural Integration®, and Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy at his home on Whidbey Island in Langley, Washington. ...