S4 E1 – Crossing Borders

Assembly

Crossing Borders is the inaugural episode of the Assembly Podcast Season 4 “Synthetic Religions” that explores how political theology is an expression of a contestation over the natural and the unnatural, pivoting ever so intensively since the advent of biotechnology. This particular episode journeys onto the undulating and rolling hills of Western Pennsylvania and the flat commercial areas of sprawling metropolitical regions across the US to explore how a crossing over the boundary between the built and the natural environment is what ultimately gives rise to the phenomenon of American Religion. Co-hosts Amanda Furiasse and Sher Afgan Tareen are joined by M. Shobhana Xavier, author of Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism: Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Contemporary Shrine Cultures (2018) and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, author of several books including The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (2005) and most recently Church State Corporation: Construing Religion in US Law (2020). This document contains resources for the materials discussed in this episode. We hope you find them useful for teaching, research, and/or community engagement.