There’s so much talk about the divine feminine out there. So what’s divine about being femme?

This week, we turn to Audre Lorde and Ashley Coleman Taylor to get a sense of what is divine about the Black femme through a Black queer and religious studies lens.

We talk about A LOT.

What’s the difference between popular culture takes and social media discourse on the divine feminine and Lorde and Coleman’s theorizing about the Black femme as divine? A lot. Most of the time, the girls are not talking about the same thing. And we get into how a lot of talk about the divine feminine defines itself over and against the Black femme embodiment like that of the rap girls (Sexyy Red, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, etc.).

I explore how Lorde and Coleman Taylor’s work offer a beautiful and capacious understanding of the divine femme! You’ll have to listen for that! And how this definition also opens up a third option for how people answer questions about being Muslim and queerness.

Chapters

00:00 Opening

00:40 Grounded in the Baddie Routine

03:34 Grounding Question: What Is Divine About the Black Femme

05:51 Who Is the Black Femme

14:02 Divine: A relentless commitment to becoming on your own terms

References

Coleman Taylor, Ashley. "Religio-erotic Experience and Transoceanic Becoming at the Shoreline in Audre Lorde’s Zami." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 91, no. 3 (2023): 680–697.

We’ve got another listener question! 💌 This week’s: What do Muslims mean when they say, “I fear no one but Allah?”

Drawing on my research on Black Muslima thought and history, I turn to two thinkers who have given the saying meaning within the context of U.S. anti-Blackness, imperialism, and gender violence: Safiya Bukhari and Amina Wadud.

I discuss how the phrase has been a rallying call to struggle against tyranny and oppression, an action-oriented understanding of what it means to be Muslim and embody Islamic monotheism.

Chapters

00:00 Opening

00:40 Grounded in the Fact That It Is That Deep

04:59 Listener Question: What Do Muslims Mean When They Say, “I Fear No One but Allah?”

07:53 Safiyah Bukhari’s Escape from Prison

15:43 Fearing No One, Not Even Snakes

20:46 Amina Wadud and the Tawhidic Paradigm

26:40 Closing

References:

Bukhari, Safiya. The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison & Fighting for Those Left Behind. The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2010.

Churchill, Ward. Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States. South End, 2002.

Husain, Atiya. No God but Man: On Race, Knowledge, and Terrorism. Duke University Press, 2024.

Wadud, Amina. Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective. OUP US, 1999.

Wadud, Amina. “Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam.” Praktyka Teoretyczna 08 (2013): 249–262.

Why I think studying religion is a social good…

Bet you thought I was gonna say something like “it helps you understand the diversity of the world.” WRONG. If you’ve been here for a while, you know DEI speak ain’t got a place here.

Now that I’ve got your attention.

The study of religion…

Is the study of what people do and the meaning they give to those actions. And once you know that, then you begin to see how power and authority are cultivated, maintained, and resisted in this world.

You understand how myths work, you begin to see how systems hold power over you by selling you fiction they market as truth.

You understand how rituals work, you begin to see that the most impactful social movements and thinkers have all ritualized resistance in some way.

You understand how authority works, you start moving in a way that aligns with what you think should have authority over your life, not what you’re told should have.

You understand how knowledge is produced, you start producing your own and finding meaning + purpose in knowledge they’ve told you has none.

The study of religion is a social good because it helps one see the world as it is and turns your attention to all the possibilities of what it could be.

It’s the study of critique not rooted in despair or ambivalence. It’s the study of how the spiritual AND the material are one and the same. It’s the study of how the status quo is maintained and resisted.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

00:40 Grounding in my own answers

01:59 Why is it important to study religion + spirituality?

05:15 Myth of the Millennial Pick Me

12:04 Rituals that give the everyday meaning

15:10 Authority to move how YOU wanna move

21:25 Knowledge also comes from within

References

Ali, Tazeen M. The Women’s Mosque of America: Authority and Community in US Islam. NYU Press, 2022.

Lorde, Audre. “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power (1978).” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (2020): 53–59.

Pérez, Elizabeth. “Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions.” In Religion in the Kitchen. New York University Press, 2016.

Episode 3: What’s the Difference Between Religion and Spirituality

Episode 4: Listener Question: How to Make a Writing Practice (or Any Practice) Spiritual