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Flipping Our Understanding Podcast with Vincent L. Wimbush
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Flipping Our Understanding – Vincent L. Wimbush [Podcast]

Darrell Ezell
April 27, 2018
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Flipping Our Understanding Podcast with Vincent L. Wimbush

Vincent L. Wimbush, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized scholar of religion, intellectual leader, and academic gadfly, with more than thirty years of advanced graduate-level teaching and research experience. He is author/editor of more than twelve books, including White Men’s Magic: Scripturalization as Slavery; MisReading America: Scriptures and Difference; Theorizing Scriptures; and African Americans and the Bible; and scores of articles and essays. He is founding director of The Institute for Signifying Scriptures (ISS) (www.signifyingscriptures.org). In this episode, Dr. Wimbush discusses ways we can flip our understanding of the scriptural text and apply it to our everyday life. He also discusses his teaching and research interests which focuses on the trans-disciplinary and comparative study of “scriptures” as a sharp wedge for critical research and theorizing in the politics of language, social formation, consciousness, and orientation.

Listen to the Interview with Dr. Wimbush

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Listen to the Commentary

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In this episode, we discuss:

  • Institute for Signifying Scriptures (ISS) (www.signifyingscriptures.org).
  • Modeling a transgressive and transdisciplinary approach to issues.
  • Developing a new approach to how we view scriptures.
  • How to confront the issues we face with interfaith connection and dialogue?
  • Using scripture to understand human formation.

Top 3 takeaways from this week’s episode:

1. Flipping our understanding of Scriptures.

Dr. Vincent Wimbush discusses ways we can develop and model a transgressive and transdisciplinary approach to issues and problems we need to confront. We need to model a different approach to how we study scriptures. Scripture is not limited to just the study of text but it is an effort to use scripture to understand the formation of the human and the formation of society and culture.

2. “Scripture to wedge human interaction”

Wimbush discusses how we can make scripture less associated with text and religion but use it as an abbreviation that opens up the complexion of human interaction. Scriptures are used as a wedge to open up dialogue in a different way. Wimbush discusses how scriptures help us figure out who we are and where we come from.

3. “Our Understanding Reversed”

Wimbush has flipped the understanding of scriptures from an apologetic project for elite religious formations to a point of exploding it to get a grip on human formation itself. How can we take the kinds of issues that were thinking about can be applied to domains far outside of what we think of in the modern world as religion?

Mentioned in the episode:

Darrell Ezell

Darrell Ezell is an expert in inter-religious affairs and diplomacy, professor, and author. His expertise are highlighted in his new book, Beyond Cairo: U.S. Engagement with the Muslim World (Palgrave Macmillan), a leading study on the role of U.S. diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim world after 9/11. He currently serves as the Dean for the Interfaith Action program at Claremont Lincoln University. Ezell has recently held academic posts at Tulane and Louisiana State University and worked at the U.S. Department of State and University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service (William J. Clinton Foundation). Prior to his government and NGO service, he has been active in grassroots peacemaking in New York City with the Interfaith Center of New York and Interfaith Worker Justice (Chicago, IL).

Claremont Core

Claremont Lincoln University

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Darrell Ezell

Darrell Ezell is an expert in inter-religious affairs and diplomacy, professor, and author. His expertise are highlighted in his new book, Beyond Cairo: U.S. Engagement with the Muslim World (Palgrave Macmillan), a leading study on the role of U.S. diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim world after 9/11. He currently serves as the Dean for the Interfaith Action program at Claremont Lincoln University. Ezell has recently held academic posts at Tulane and Louisiana State University and worked at the U.S. Department of State and University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service (William J. Clinton Foundation). Prior to his government and NGO service, he has been active in grassroots peacemaking in New York City with the Interfaith Center of New York and Interfaith Worker Justice (Chicago, IL).

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