Religious Studies News communicates important events of the field and examines critical issues in education, pedagogy, research, publishing, and the public understanding of religion. Sometimes that involves sharing what others are writing about the field and these issues.
In Open Tabs, RSN editors will share the articles they’ve been reading and thinking about. If you have recommendations for articles, podcasts, or other media you’ve recently encountered that examine issues that fall under the purview of RSN, email us.
What We’re Reading
“A Public Theologian for the Nones, Or: What I should have said to Lauren Jackson of the New York Times”
Published March 24, 2026, in Religion, Reimagined
In the latest edition of her Substack, Liz Bucar reflects on what public theology used to mean and what it means now. From the piece:
“If you haven’t read Lauren’s latest piece in her Believing series for The New York Times, go do that first. She’s asking exactly the right question for this moment: since we’re living through war, political upheaval, and a general sense that everything is breaking apart at once, where do we turn? What voices help us navigate collective crisis? That’s where she lands on public theology, and that’s where she interviewed me.
Lauren herself is a fascinating interlocutor for this question. She grew up in the Mormon church, and when we talked on the phone she mentioned she was driving a route she used to take to her local congregation. She’s someone who has her own complicated, textured relationship with religion, which is exactly why she’s asking the right questions. And why her newsletter exists at all. (More on that in a moment.)
She asked me, among other things, whether I consider myself a public theologian.
I gave her an answer. But I think I have a better one now, one I’ve been working on since we hung up.
The short answer is: yes. But only if we get to redefine the term.”
“When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities”
Published March 7, 2026, in The New York Times
In this report, documents show how A.I. was used to cancel most previously approved grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities as the agency embraced President Trump’s agenda. From the article:
“When the Trump administration went looking last spring for National Endowment for the Humanities grants to cut, it turned to a familiar scourge of professors: ChatGPT.
Last March, two employees from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency arrived at the agency with the mandate of canceling previously approved grants that ran afoul of President Trump’s agenda. But instead of looking closely at funded projects, they pulled short summaries off the internet and fed them into the A.I. chatbot.
The prompt was simple: “Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’” The results were sweeping, and sometimes bizarre.”
“For the first time, the Anglican Communion will be led by a woman. Here’s how women are celebrating”
Published March 24, 2026 in Religion News Service
From the article:
“On a bright morning in Hermosa Beach, Calif., sunlight enters St. Cross Episcopal Church at a slant, catching a bit of church history in the colored panes of a stained-glass window.
For the Rev. Rachel Nyback, the church’s rector, it is something closer to a record of quiet upheaval.
“What I love about this piece of stained glass is that you see the first woman who was called in the Diocese of Los Angeles to serve as a priest,” said Nyback, “and she was hired here at St. Cross.”
On Wednesday the Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch, will witness another historic moment: the installation of Sarah Mullally as the first woman to lead the global association of churches that trace their roots to Henry VIII’s 16th century break with the Catholic Church.
Mullally’s selection as archbishop of Canterbury comes as a joy and a surprise for many female priests in the Episcopal Church. Fifty years is, as Nyback observes, both a long time in the life of a person and hardly any time at all in the life of the church.”
“Scrubbing Chávez From Campus May Take Time”
Published March 24, 2026 in Inside Higher Ed
In this report, while multiple universities move to strip César Chávez’s name from programs and departments, history shows hurdles to come. From the article:
“Building, program and other names on campus communicate powerful messages about who and what an institution values, said Derek Alderman, a geography professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville who has written about name-change processes.
Alderman said prior to the allegations that emerged last week, having Chávez’s name on a building or other space captured not only his historical importance in the labor rights movement but also sent a welcoming message to Hispanic and Latino students. He said that’s important since “universities have not done a very good job of making them feel as if they belong.”
As universities stripped Chávez’s name from programs and events in the immediate aftermath of the allegations, some noted that his actions did not reflect the farmworker movement as a whole. That kind of distinction is important, experts say, as colleges grapple with his legacy.”
“Flowing Against Fascism: What Martin Buber has to teach us about community, resistance, and survival”
Published March 17, 2026, in Religion Dispatches
In this essay, Ilyse R. Morgenstein Fuerst, an AAR member and historian of racist state violence, writes on what 20th century Austrian philosopher Martin Buber can teach us about collective action and finding meaning in all the meaningless violence through investing in human relationships. From the essay:
“In the press of the crowd, I connected with the man our government was illegally detaining. We were trapped, mere inches from each other—he, being forced out of shelter, and I, screaming all manner of insult at cops about whom, frankly, I could have said (and definitely thought) a lot worse. Our exchange was rushed and brief but intense.
In English, he said: thank you, we appreciate you, we feel loved.
In Spanish, I said: I’m sorry, we love you, we will protect your kids. And I held his eyes until law enforcement dragged him forward, away from all of us and toward an unmarked car.
And, because I am who I am, I thought of Emile Durkheim and Martin Buber—Jews like my rabbi and me, who offer us clarity and solace in the face of seemingly-endless state violence. If I had thought about it in advance, I would have expected the Durkheim: he teaches us that community helps people feel things, make sense of ourselves and each other, and structure and reinforce connection. Singing together at a protest, feeling a sense of unity through community action, is what Durkheim called collective effervescence. So is the catharsis of shouting “get a new job, you Nazi pig” at law enforcement officers with your comrades. So is the decision not to move when, as a group, we noticed that the cops had corralled us, isolated the street, made it difficult if not impossible to leave safely.
But Durkheim isn’t sufficient if we want to understand the fullness of moments like the one I shared with my neighbor whose name I would only learn later. For that we need Buber, who teaches us that human relationships are where we find meaning—that in moments like these, the difference and space between us dissolves. That the face of the Other, our neighbor, is the face of God.”
“Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Ritual”
Published March 9, 2026, in Religion Dispatches
In this story by AAR member and PhD candidate Odalis Garcia Gorra, we are treated to a close reading of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance through the lens of ritual. From the story:
“This 13½ minute performance encompassed Puerto Rico’s past, present, and future. We open on a Dominican man standing in front of sugarcane stalks singing and playing his guitar, then rise with an aerial shot (filmed in the Dominican Republic) that pans over sugarcane fields being macheted by Brown and Black men in pava hats moving in rhythm. The scene evokes the Caribbean’s colonial past: Spanish imperialism and the plantation economy that is its legacy. Bad Bunny grounds the ritual that is this halftime show in the land and the shared history of the people who became the Americas, whose ancestors—Indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans and South Asians, and immigrant farmers—toiled to make this place their home.
[…]
The camera takes us from these everyday rituals to a more formal but no less joyous one: a wedding ceremony in which a couple actually gets married on a stage that recalls the emblematic Spanish fort in Old San Juan (known colloquially as El Morro). As Lady Gaga sings a salsa-infused “Die With A Smile” and then “Baile Inolvidable,” intergenerational dancers move to the music. Benito wakes a child sleeping on a chair at the margins of the party, reminding us of the informal moments that make formal ritual celebrations both memorable and human.”
“The Chilling Effect Is the Point: Annette Gordon-Reed on self-censorship, fear, and the university under siege”
Published March 18, 2026 in The Chronicle of Higher Education
In this interview with Evan Goldstein and and Len Gutkin of The Chronicle, Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor of history and law at Harvard, speaks about her new collection, Jefferson on Race, and the issues beleaguering the preservation of America’s past.
“Goldstein: As the president of the Organization of American Historians (OAH), you’re one of the field’s chief public advocates. What is your role, and the role of the academy more broadly, at a moment when the federal government is dictating the content of museum exhibits?
Gordon-Reed: I’m used to being embattled, but one of the things that I have found over the years is that most Americans want an open, no-holds-barred story of America. They want to know the truth. Even people who disagree with me come to my talks. I don’t think that they’re going to feel good about having the government protect them from stories that are less than admirable.
I’ve tried to engage people over the past 30 years all across the political spectrum. This is a complicated story and they should like that complication. It’s childish to want something that is simple. It was never simple.”
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