Explore AAR Podcasts
The AAR publishes recordings of interviews with book award winners, select Annual Meeting sessions, and other podcasts related to the academic study of religion.
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.
RSN Podcast
Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South with Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh
Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh, assistant professor of religious studies at Stanford University and co-winner of AAR’s 2022 Best First Book in the History of Religions Award discusses her book The Souls of Women Folk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South.
RSN Podcast
Metamodernism and the Future of Theory with Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm
Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, professor of religion and Chair of Science and Technology Studies at Williams College, discusses his book Metamodernism: The Future of Theory which won the 2022 AAR Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Constructive-Reflective Studies.
RSN Podcast
Art as Embodied Experience with Kathryn R. Barush
Kathryn R. Barush joins Kristian Petersen to discuss her award-winning book Imaging Pilgrimage: Art as Embodied Experience which expands the concepts of “pilgrimage” and art as lived experience.
RSN Podcast
Buddhist Chaplaincy in Japan with Adam Lyons
Adam Lyons joins Kristian Petersen to discuss his award-winning book Karma and Punishment: Prison Chaplaincy in Japan which seamlessly blends in-depth fieldwork with meticulous archival research and is a profound meditation on the relationship between carcerality, religion, and the modern State.
RSN Podcast
Texts “of” and “after” Terror with Rhiannon Graybill
Rhiannon Graybill joins Kristian Petersen to discuss her award-winning book Texts after Terror: Rape, Sexual Violence, and the Hebrew Bible which critically and authentically engages with many of the Hebrew’s Bible’s most disturbing narratives, while displaying remarkable loyalty to the promise of remaining interested in the question of what comes after sexual violence.
RSN Podcast
Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran with Niloofar Haeri
Niloofar Haeri joins Kristian Petersen to discuss her award-winning book, Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran which examines the everyday prayer practices of Iranian women as the basis for reflecting on the relationship between prayer and poetry.
RSN Podcast
Building on Jonathan Z. Smith with Sam Gill
Sam Gill joins Kristian Petersen to discuss his award-winning 2021 book, The Proper Study of Religion: Building on Jonathan Z. Smith which builds on Smith’s work by considering the significance of Smith’s tendency towards jest and play, the centrality of incongruity to Smith’s theories of religion, and how to academically evaluate the category of “experience.”