The Journal of Southern Religion Podcast

In this podcast, Art Remillard talks with Mike Pasquier and Doug Thompson about changes happening at the Journal of Southern Religion. Pasquier, Remillard, and Luke Harlow are all stepping down from their respective positions at the JSR. In their places, Thompson will assume the journal’s editorial duties, and Carolyn Dupont will handle book reviews and podcasts. Meanwhile, Emily Clark will evolve in her role as managing editor, and Lincoln Mullen and Matt Cromwell will continue developing the website. In their discussion, Pasquier and Thompson talk about all of these transitions, while also considering the past, present, and future of the JSR.

In this podcast, Art Remillard talks with Christopher Graham about his article in Volume 15 of the JSR, ”Evangelicals and ‘Domestic Felicity’ in the Non-Elite South.” Graham just completed his doctorate in history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The discussion begins with Graham talking about how this article grew out of his broader interest in the lives of “common people” in the Civil War era. He then describes the evangelical print culture of the era and its influence on domestic life in Piedmont North Carolina. Graham concludes by thinking about how the “evangelical domestic ethos” forged in the 1850s might complicate our understanding of secession and Confederate nationhood.

In this episode, Art Remillard talks with Michael McVicar about his article in Volume 15 of the JSR, ”Take Away the Serpents from Us: The Sign of Serpent Handling and the Development of Southern Pentecostalism.” McVicar is an assistant professor of religion at Florida State University. The podcast begins with McVicar explaining how he became interested in this topic. He then offers an overview of the discussions and debates about serpent handling practices among early pentecostals. McVicar concludes by reflecting on the ways that his essay sheds light on how we contextualize and interpret marginal religious practices more broadly.

In this podcast, Art Remillard talks with Elaine Neil Orr about her debut novel, A Different Sun. Orr is Professor of English at North Carolina State University. She also serves on the faculty of the brief-residency MFA in Writing Program at Spalding University. The novel starts in 1840, and follows the transatlantic odyssey of Emma Davis Bowen, an idealistic young woman who marries a missionary and leaves her Georgia home for West Africa. There, Emma confronts a culture, landscape, and population that challenges and transforms her spiritual worldview. In our conversation, Orr discusses how her background as the daughter of medical missionaries inspired this novel. She concludes by thinking about how her future projects might further develop the characters created in this book.

In this podcast, Art Remillard talks with Tracy Thompson about her recent book, The New Mind of the South. Thomson is a journalist, book author, and editor, who, for fifteen years, reported for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Washington Post. She also blogs at The Blockhead Chronicles. Thompson begins our conversation by explain how her book is similar to, and unique from, Wilber J. Cash’s 1941 classic, The Mind of the South. She then discusses the South that she encountered while traveling through the region and studying its history and culture. The podcast concludes with Thompson pondering what it means to be a “southerner” in the twenty-first century.

In this podcast, Art Remillard talks with Nora Rose Moosnick about her new book, Arab and Jewish Women in Kentucky: Stories of Accommodation and Audacity. Moosnick is a visiting scholar in the Department of Sociology at the University of Kentucky. She begins the discussion by explaining how her family background sparked her interest in this topic. Moosnick then provides an overview of the unique women featured in the book, before offering her reflections on the challenges of collecting oral histories in an age of instant celebrity.

In this podcast, Art Remillard talks with Andrew Stern about his new book, Southern Crucifix, Southern Cross: Catholic-Protestant Relations in the Old South. Stern is an assistant professor of religion at North Carolina Wesleyan College. In this discussion, he explains how Catholics and Protestants in the Old South formed bonds that allowed them to heal, learn, worship, and rule together. Stern concludes by thinking about how his book contributes to both Catholic history and southern religious history.

In this podcast, Art Remillard talks with Joseph Williams about his new book, Spirit Cure: A History of Pentecostal Healing. Williams is an assistant professor of religion at Rutgers University. In this discussion, he explains how the history of healing practices in pentecostalism is marked by a variety of pragmatic exchanges with everything from mainstream medicine to metaphysical religion. Williams concludes with a preview of his next book project, which looks at concepts of prophecy within pentecostalism.

In this podcast, Art Remillard talks with Randall Stephens, who was the keynote speaker for the sixth annual North American Undergraduate Conference in Religion and Philosophy, held at Saint Francis University. Stephens’s address was entitled, “Evangelical Anti-Intellectualism in Modern America,” which draws from his book, The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age, co-authored with Karl Giberson. Stephens is Reader in History and American Studies at Northumbria University in the UK, and he is a former editor of the Journal of Southern Religion. Stephens begins the conversation by explaining how his keynote will contribute to the conference’s theme, “The Future of Reason.” He also talks about the book’s research, which includes interviews with David Barton and leaders of Focus on the Family. The interview concludes with Stephens discussing his newest project, an examination of rock music and American Christianity.

Among the many highlights of this year’s southeastern regional meeting of the American Academy of Religion was a panel review of Charles Reagan Wilson’s Flashes of a Southern Spirit: Meanings of the Spirit in the U.S. South. In this podcast, Art Remillard talks with Professor Wilson as well as two of the panelists, Anne Blue Wills of Davidson College and Rodger Payne of UNC-Ashville. Wilson is Kelly Gene Cook Senior Chair of History and Professor of Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920 and co-editor of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. In this discussion, the panelists consider how Wilson’s focus on “the spirit” might be used in analyzing everything from southern stereotypes on reality television to the unique religious culture of Italian Catholics in the region. Wilson concludes the conversation, reflecting on what the reviewers taught him about “the spirit.” Amanda Porterfield reviewed Flashes of a Southern Spirit in volume 13 of the JSR.

In Fall 2012, Perspectives in Religious Studies featured six articles that examined the complex ways that southern evangelicals engaged with the culture of the New South. In this podcast, Art Remillard speaks with the editor of this special issue, Joe Coker of Baylor University. Coker discusses how his book, Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause served as backdrop for this issue. Remillard then interviews contributor John Hayes of Georgia Regents University about his article, “The Evangelical Ethos and the Spirit of Capitalism.” Hayes examines the role played by evangelicals in the emergence of a market revolution in the South. He also offers a brief glimpse into his forthcoming book on southern folk Christianity. The podcast concludes with Glenn Feldman of the University of Alabama at Birmingham explaining his article, “Making ‘The Southern Religion’: Economics, Theology, Martial Patriotism, and Social Indifference—(and the Big Bang Theory of Modern American Politics.” He emphasizes that the “distinct” brand of southern evangelicalism born in the New South still influences the region (and nation) today. The remaining authors and articles in the issue are: Paul Harvey, “‘The Right-Minded Members of that Race’: Southern Religious Progressives Confront Race, 1880-1930” Fred Arthur Bailey, “Schooling the Negro to His Proper Subordination: White Protestants and Black Education in the New South” Kelly J. Baker, “Evangelizing Klansmen, Nationalizing the South: Faith, Fraternity, and Lost Cause Religion in the 1920s Klan” Art Remillard, “Between Faith and Fistic Battles: Moralists, Enthusiasts, and the Idea of Jack Johnson in the New South.”

In this podcast, Art Remillard speaks with Maura Jane Farrelly about her new book, Papist Patriots: The Making of an American Catholic Identity. Farrelly is Assistant Professor of American Studies at Brandeis University, where she also directs the Journalism Program. During this conversation, Farrelly discusses how Catholics in colonial Maryland came to accept what Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray has called the “American consensus.” However, unlike Murray who stressed the role of natural law theology, Papist Patriots examines the unique and complicated experiences of Catholics in the colony. Farrelly concludes with a reflection on how her work—to include her JSR article, ”Catholics in the Early South”—might influence the broader telling of southern religious history.

In this podcast, Michael Pasquier speaks with Paul Harvey and Kelly Baker about using The Color of Christ in the classroom. Harvey, co-author of The Color of Christ, is Professor of History at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and founder of the Religion in American History blog. Baker is Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and author of Gospel According to the Klan. In this conversation, Harvey and Baker discuss ways to incorporate The Color of Christ into courses on religion in America. They also introduce listeners to the interactive website that accompanies the book. This is the third of three podcasts recorded at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Chicago.

In this podcast, Art Remillard speaks with Emily Clark about her article in volume 14 of the Journal of Southern Religion. Clark is a doctoral candidate at Florida State University and managing editor of the JSR. In this conversation, she brings us back to 1973, when a group of professors in the Religion Department at FSU established the Center for the Study of Southern Religion and Culture. For the next eight years, the Center held lectures and symposia and published The Bulletin of the Center of the Study of Southern Religion and Culture. Clark explains how reading through this “time capsule of southern religion” helped her to better understand the historiography, while also offering context for her dissertation, “The Creole Color Line: Religion and Race in Nineteenth Century New Orleans.” This is the second of three podcasts recorded at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Chicago.

In this podcast, Art Remillard speaks with Mark Silk about religion and the 2012 presidential election. Silk is Professor of Religion in Public life at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life. Among his many publications, Silk co-edited an eight-volume series on religion and region, which culminated in his 2008 book, One Nation, Divisible, co-authored with Andrew Walsh. Silk also blogs at ”Spiritual Politics,” which is hosted by the Religion News Service. In this conversation, Silk begins by discussing his unique career path, from a doctorate in medieval history at Harvard, to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and then back to academia. He goes on to offer insight on the major themes of the presidential race, such as the gaining influence of the religiously unaffiliated (or ”nones”), Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, and the possible declining influence of the “evangelical vote.” This is the first of three podcasts recorded at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Chicago.