Religion and Broken Solidarities

In this episode, Contending Modernities editor and writer Josh Lupo and Professor Atalia Omer, Co-Director of Contending Modernities, interview three contributors to their edited volume, Religion and Broken Solidarities: Feminism, Race, and Transnationalism. The volume explores distinct moments in time across various geopolitical settings when solidarity failed to be realized between marginalized communities because of differences of race, nationalism, religion, and/or ethnicity. These contributions are intended to open up paths for imagining new forms of solidarity now and in the future. 

 

In conversation with Ruth Carmi (Ph.D. '23), the editors discuss the reasons why alliances between Mizrahi Jews and Palestinians have been so difficult to achieve, in spite of both groups’ marginalization by the Israeli government. With Brenna Moore, they reflect upon Black Catholic attempts to create transnational partnerships that challenged the White Protestant status quo in early twentieth-century geopolitics. Finally, with Melani McAlister, they consider the role of the literary imagination in helping us contemplate paths beyond the trappings of our current political order.

 

In each of these exchanges, the authors also reflect on their findings in light of the current political moment, rather it be in the recent challenges to the authority of the supreme court in Israel, the Black Lives Matter protests of Summer 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, or in the growing calls to substantively address the threat of climate change. What is revealed in these conversations is that challenging the structures that marginalize the most vulnerable in our society requires an intersectional analysis that refuses to treat any marker of identity or belonging as siloed off from others.