RSN Podcast
The Roots of Reproductive Injustice with Elizabeth O’Brien
Elizabeth O’Brien, associate professor of history at UCLA and winner of the 2024 AAR Best First Book in the History of Religions Award, speaks to Kristian Petersen about her book, Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770–1940 (The University of North Carolina Press, 2023).
RSN Podcast
The Sovereignty of Hope: Scholarship, Precarity, and the Future of Academic Freedom
This panel — one of Leela Prasad’s presidential plenaries, held at the 2025 AAR Annual Meeting in Boston — explores hope not as naïve optimism, but as a form of sovereignty—a declaration of intellectual and ethical autonomy as well as accountability.
RSN Podcast
Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature with Max K. Strassfeld
Max K. Strassfeld, associate professor of religion at the University of Southern California and winner of the 2023 AAR Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Textual Studies, speaks to Kristian Petersen about their book, Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature (University of California Press, 2023).
RSN Podcast
The Ethics of Tainted Legacies with Karen V. Guth
Karen V. Guth, associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross and winner of the 2023 AAR Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Constructive-Reflective Studies, speaks to Kristian Petersen about her book, The Ethics of Tainted Legacies: Human Flourishing after Traumatic Pasts (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
RSN Podcast
Studying Religion in Performance with William Robert
William Robert, professor of religion at Syracuse University and winner of the 2023 AAR Book Award in Religion and the Arts, speaks to Kristian Petersen about his book, Unbridled: Studying Religion in Performance (The University of Chicago Press, 2022).
RSN Podcast
Saints at the Border with William Calvo-Quirós
William Calvo-Quirós, associate professor of American culture at the University of Michigan and winner of the 2023 Best First Book in the History of Religions Award from AAR speaks to Kristian Petersen about his book, Undocumented Saints: The Politics of Migrating Devotions (Oxford University Press, 2022).
RSN Podcast
Stories of Sickness and Disability at the Juncture of Worlds with Mary Dunn
Mary Dunn — professor of Modern Christianity in the department of theological studies at Saint Louis University, director of the Center for Research on Global Catholicism, and winner of the 2023 AAR Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Historical Studies — discusses her book Where Paralytics Walk and the Blind See with Kristian Petersen.
RSN Podcast
American Secularism and Its Believers with Charles McCrary
Charles McCrary, assistant professor of religious studies at Eckerd College and winner of the 2023 Book Award in Analytical-Descriptive Studies from the American Academy of Religion, discusses his book Sincerely Held: American Secularism and Its Believers.
RSN Podcast
The Role of Western Universities in the Education of Scholars of Islam
Megan Brankley Abbas talks about her award-winning book Whose Islam?: The Western University and Modern Islamic Thought in Indonesia which discusses the question of authority in Islamic studies, both religious and academic.
RSN Podcast
A Comparative Study of the Cántico Espiritual and the Rasa Lila with Gloria Maité Hernández
Gloria Maité Hernández, associate professor of languages at West Chester University and co-winner of the 2022 AAR Book Award in Textual Studies discusses her book Savoring God: Comparative Theopoetics.