Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion Podcast · Profs. Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst and Megan Goodwin

CROSSOVER: Ten on Religion with Dr. Mark Banas

·50 min·2 clips

Ahmed Ahmed doesn't identify as Muslim, but at the airport 'you better believe that he is treated like a Muslim.'

1. Keeping It 101 appears as a crossover on Dr. Mark Banas's '10 on Religion' YouTube channel, which posts new episodes about every two weeks. 2. Megan Goodwin, author of Abusing Religion, and Elise Morgenstein First, author of a book on Indian Muslim minorities and the 1857 rebellion, are interviewed by Banas, a former community college instructor. 3. The conversation moves from each host's research to their friendship, their podcast, and their co-authored book Religion Is Not Done With You. 4. Goodwin argues that religion doesn't cause abuse, and that focusing on marginal communities lets Americans believe abuse is something 'only monsters do.' 5. On the FLDS case, she says coverage that treated Warren Jeffs as the whole problem missed the community members who were complicit, and she describes how long-standing persecution of Mormon fundamentalists led some to dismiss warnings as 'Gentiles trying to discredit the prophet.' 6. Morgenstein First uses Ahmed Ahmed, born to Muslim parents but not identifying as Muslim, to show that he is 'treated like a Muslim' at airports, and she says Islam has been politicized in the US since 1979, with roots in the surveillance of enslaved Muslims' literacy. 7. The hosts met in 2007 when Morgenstein First, a prospective graduate student, slept on Goodwin's apartment floor in Chapel Hill, and they launched Keeping It 101 in January 2020, just after Morgenstein First received tenure in July 2019. 8. The podcast was planned as five episodes for classroom use but grew to seven seasons and over 100 episodes, and a pandemic-era need for distance-friendly material drew a wide audience. 9. Writing Religion Is Not Done With You took nine drafts and about nine months on chapter one to settle a shared voice, after which the rest took three months and was finished in Edinburgh during Morgenstein First's Fulbright. 10. Listeners interested in religious literacy, American religion, or humor in academic teaching will find the most here.

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