Religious Studies Department
McDaniel College, MD
Media
Interview with Brad Stoddard and Craig Martin, New Books Network Podcast​
Building on the success of Stereotyping Religion: Critiquing Clichés, this follow up volume dismantles a further 10 widespread stereotypes and clichés about religion, focusing on clichés that a new generation of students are most familiar with. Each chapter includes: A description of a particular cliché; Discussion of where it appears in popular culture or popular media; Discussion of where it appears in scholarly literature; A historical contextualization of its use in the past; An analysis of the social or rhetorical work the cliché accomplishes in the present. Clichés addressed include: "Religion and science naturally conflict", "All religions are against LGBTQ rights", "Eastern religions are more spiritual than Western religions", "Religion is personal and not subject to government regulation", "Religious pluralism gives everyone a voice", etc. Written in an easy and accessible style, Stereotyping Religion II: Critiquing Clichés is suitable for all readers looking to clear away unsophisticated assumptions in preparation for more critical studies.
Faith-Based Prison in the United States, The Revealer Podcast
What are faith-based prisons and why are they legal in the United States? Dr. Brad Stoddard, author of Spiritual Entrepreneurs: Florida’s Faith-Based Prisons and the American Carceral State, joins us to discuss why several states operate “faith and character-based correctional facilities.” We explore who goes to these prisons, how faith-based prisons theoretically promote religious pluralism, and how these institutions promote conservative Christian teachings—especially about gender and sexuality.
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Race and New Religious Movements, University of Alabama Religious Studies Department Podcast
In this episode, Richard Newton interviews Emily Clark from Gonzaga University and Brad Stoddard from McDaniel College about their new documentary reader Race and New Religious Movements in the USA. Not only do they discuss the reader and the documents they included, they also talk about the process of collaborating together on the project.
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Interview with Brad Stoddard and Craig Martin, New Books Network Podcast​
You’ve heard them all before. “Religions are Belief Systems.” “Religion is a Private Matter.” “I’m spiritual but not religious.” Our culture is full of popular stereotypes about religion, both positive and negative. Many people uncritically assume that religion is intrinsically violent, or that religion makes people moral, or that it is simply “bullshit.” In Stereotyping Religion: Critiquing Clichés (Bloomsbury, 2017), edited by Brad Stoddard, Assistant Professor at McDaniel College, and Craig Martin, Associate Professor at St. Thomas Aquinas College, several clichés are understood within a social and historical context, which enables us to see how they are produced and what makes them effective. In our conversation we explore several of these stereotypes, what makes them possible and desirable for communities that reproduce and curate them, secularization theory, the role of atheism, liberal political discourse about religion, critical thinking, and how “Stereotyping Religion” works in the classroom.
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“Religions are belief systems”, “Religions are intrinsically violent”, “Religion is Bullshit”… these are just some of the pervasive cliches that we might hear from time to time in the English-speaking world about our central topic of discussion on the RSP, ‘religion’. In this podcast, Chris is joined by Brad Stoddard and Craig Martin, the editors of the recently published Stereotyping Religion: Critiquing Cliches (Bloomsbury, 2017) to discuss these cliches, the ideological work that they do, how scholars could and should approach them, the construction of the book, and more.
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In a pilot project announced this summer, the Department of Education will partner with dozens of colleges to provide higher education to prisoners who can't afford to pay; eligible inmates will be able to apply for federal grants under the experimental trial. Hari Sreenivasan explores what both advocates and critics are saying.