Comparative Religion Podcasts

Danny Hoffman, director of the Jackson School of International Studies and interim director of University of Washington’s Religious Studies Program hosts a conversation on researching and teaching Southeast Asian literary Islam today with UW faculty Nazry Bahrawi, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Languages and Literature, and Celia Lowe, Professor of Anthropology and International Studies.

Dr. Bahrawi was trained in comparative literature and specializes in in the decolonial study of genre fiction and literary Islam from Southeast Asia and its diasporas. Dr. Lowe is the outgoing Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and its Diasporas and currently serves as Associate Director of the Jackson School of International Studies. Her work concerns science and technology studies in Indonesia.

Recorded on May 26, 2026.

Our UW Religious Studies Series introductory and closing music are generously provided by Dr. John-Carlos Perea, chair of the UW Department of Ethnomusicology, from the title track of his 2014 CD Creation Story. For more, see johncarlosperea.bandcamp.com/album/creation-story.

Dr. Rhema Hokama is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Washington, and previously an Associate Professor of English at Singapore University of Technology and Design. She is the author of Devotional Experience and Erotic Knowledge in the Literary Culture of the English Reformation. Please join us for a conversation on the development of Protestantism and English literary culture within the context of the global Renaissance. Recorded on Mar. 3, 2026.
Transcript: Dr. Rhema Hokama: What is Religious Studies at UW?

Our series introductory and closing music are generously provided by Dr. John-Carlos Perea, chair of the UW Ethnomusicology program, from the title track of his 2014 CD Creation Story. For more, see johncarlosperea.bandcamp.com/album/creation-story.

Dr. Christopher Tounsel is an historian of Sudan and a scholar of Global Blackness who puts “race and religion as political technologies” at the center of his research and teaching.  Join us as we unpack what that work means today, on campus and off, from the Mahdist wars of 19th century Sudan to the 2016 election of Donald Trump.  Recorded on Jan. 29, 2026

Our series introductory and closing music are generously provided by Dr. John-Carlos Perea, chair of the UW Ethnomusicology program, from the title track of his 2014 CD Creation Story.  For more, see johncarlosperea.bandcamp.com/album/creation-story.

Dr. John-Carlos Perea (Mescalero Apache, Irish, Chicano, German) brings it all to his religious studies scholarship – his role as associate professor and chair of the ethnomusicology department at the UW; his talents as a multi instrumentalist jazz musician and composer; his research into intertribal Native American musical forms, jazz traditions and the work of Creek and Kaw saxophonist Jim Pepper. Join us for a musical first installation of our exploration of what UW religious studies can be.
Recorded on Jan. 14, 2026

This episode’s introductory and closing music comes from the title track of John-Carlos Perea’s 2014 CD Creation Story. For more, see johncarlosperea.bandcamp.com/album/creation-story.