The Classical Ideas Podcast

Simply stated, religion matters. Religion matters not only for personal reasons, but also for social, economic, political, and military purposes. Unfortunately, studies suggest that religious knowledge and cultural literacy for any religious tradition is either in decline or is non-existent in the United States, despite being one of the most religiously diverse nation on earth. Today, religion is implicated in nearly every major national and international issue. The public arena is awash in religious explanations and arguments for nearly every issue. The goal of The Classical Ideas Podcast is to empower students with the core knowledge of major world religions to improve citizenship and agency in a diverse society. Welcome to the show!

The Classical Ideas Podcast is a religion podcast hosted by Gregory Soden, with 363 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Gregory Soden hosts The Classical Ideas Podcast, a religion show with 363 episodes published.

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  Episode #360

  EP 360: Inari Origin Stories and Buddhist Public Scholarship w/Dr. Matthew Keller

  Sep 25, 202640 minS1

  Dr. Matthew Keller is Public Scholar of Buddhism within the Curatorial Department at the Detroit Institute of Arts! He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California in Asian Religions. This episode supported by Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/ Matthew Keller at American Council of Learned Societies: https://www.acls.org/fellow-grantees/matthew-keller/

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  Episode #359

  EP 359: Longchengpa and Lineage Prayers w/Dr. Renée Ford

  Sep 3, 202626 minS1

  Renée Ford, Ph.D. is a Lab Coordinator at the Contemplative Sciences Center, providing support for contemplative research at the CIRCL Lab . Renée's keen interest in understanding lived experiences in various contexts is a key motivation to her engagement here. She is trained in microphenomenology interviews, a type of interview that focuses on a short moment of experience and interested to apply this method in ongoing research studies. Renée completed her Ph.D. at Rice University in religious studies, and her dissertation focused on how affective states such as devotion and confidence function in Tibetan Buddhist tantric practices. Prior to joining the CSC, Renée has held fellowship positions at Aarhus University and Ruhr University – Bochum. She has conducted fieldwork in Nepal and India, conducting various types of interviews to capture lived experience and translation work. She also has taught courses in religious studies, including Buddhism and Hinduism, in multiple institutions. On this episode, we dive into a primer about Tibetan Buddhism, lineage prayers, and a bit about the life of the Tibetan scholar, Longchengpa. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org Visit Renée Ford online: https://csc.virginia.edu/people/renee-ford

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  Episode #358

  EP 358: Buddhist Military Chaplaincy in Korea w/Dr. Jonathan C. Feuer

  Aug 17, 202628 minS1

  Jonathan Feuer earned his Ph.D in Asian Languages and Cultures from UCLA in 2023. His current book project is entitled Buddhist Militarism, Violence, and Religious Freedom: The South Korean Buddhist Military Chaplaincy and his research interests include Buddhist modernity, South Korean history, and religion and violence. On this episode, we discuss Buddhist military chaplaincy in detail and preview what readers can expect with his forthcoming book! You can find his work at https://jonathancfeuer.com/ . Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/

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  Episode #357

  EP 357: Khemethaka Nunnery, Daw Gunawati, and pāramī w/Dr. M.K. Long

  Aug 10, 202637 minS1

  MK Long is a historian and ethnographer of Buddhism and gender. Her current project highlights vernacular auto/biographical writings of Buddhist women in Myanmar, examining their rhetorical strategies of self-presentation and how they theorize Buddhist authority, temporality, and belonging. Long's study of vernacular literature of the 1980s-90s foregrounds its conditions of production, not only its relationship to Buddhist biographical and narrative traditions, but also authoritarian censorship, state-driven reorganization of monastic institutions, and shifting citizenship regimes. This work is shaped and informed by Long's ethnographic fieldwork in a large, mission-oriented nunnery in downtown Yangon, Myanmar, and its network of branch nunneries throughout the country. Long's research has drawn support from the Social Science Research Council's International Dissertation Research Fellowship (SSRC-IDRF), the Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA), and The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies, awarded through the American Council of Learned Societies. Long earned her doctorate from the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University with a graduate minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in 2024. She holds an M.T.S in Buddhist Studies (Harvard Divinity School, 2016), an M.A. in International Relations & Religion (Boston University, 2014), and a B.A. in Religion (Smith College, 2010). Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/templeton-working-group

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  Episode #356

  EP 356: Buddhism and Experimental Music w/Dr. Julian Butterfield

  Aug 3, 202656 minS1

  Julian Butterfield is a scholar of medieval Chinese Buddhist literature with a special interest in how Mahāyāna Buddhist narratives depict and solicit feeling. His current monograph project recovers the aesthetic and affective dimensions of Lotus Sūtra devotion in fifth-to-eighth-century China, arguing that the transmission of this pivotal Buddhist scripture relied heavily on the cultivation of strong emotions among practitioners. A secondary, public-facing research project investigates the interactions of Buddhist media and musical experimentation from the nineteenth century to the present. Julian holds a BA and MA from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Religious Studies from Stanford University, where his research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and a Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. He is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Religion at Princeton University. Read: https://tricycle.org/magazine/eliane-radique-alien-roots/ Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/ Visit Julian Butterfield: https://julianbutterfield.com/

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