Advertise on podcast: Walter H. Capps Center (Audio)

Ethics, religion, and public life affect democratic society in important ways. Walter H. Capps was a professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He died on October 28, 1997, just under a year after being elected to Congress. Capps showed how religious thought and civic engagement can shape public life. This documentary introduces viewers to the life and legacy of Capps, including his view on politics and value of civic life, the impact of the Vietnam War, and the study of religion. His legacy helps explain the importance of informed public dialogue and points toward tolerance, civility, and the common good. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 41702]

As chatbots trained on Large Language Models become more sophisticated, their responses can sometimes seem uncanny, as if they come from a source that is mysterious, inexplicable, or even divine. Webb Keane, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, examines what happens when people treat artificial intelligence as a kind of “metahuman.” He explains how this reflects a broader human tendency to project authority onto technologies we do not fully understand. Keane explores how that sense of authority emerges through social interaction, and how the unequal ways humans and metahumans address one another can make AI’s power feel intuitively real. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 41542]

What does it mean to rethink religion from the ground up? University of Colorado's religious studies professor Sam Gill draws on biology, philosophy, and decades of research and dance practice to argue that we are moving, whole organisms before we are divided into mind and body. Gill proposes that humans possess a biologically enabled capacity to hold together what we know to be different as if it were the same—a dynamic that underlies the powers of metaphor, masking, dancing, ritual action, symbol, and language. Through vivid examples from Hopi initiation, Javanese shadow puppetry and dance, and Navajo prayer ceremonials, Gill shows how religious actions create worlds, identities, and enduring cultural coherence. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 41541]

The extractive linear economy and policies focused on endless growth have produced unparalleled socioeconomic inequality and the climate crisis. Communities around the world are calling for new economic models that are regenerative towards people, place, and ecosystems. Ancestral ʻŌiwi (indigenous Hawaiian) economic systems were built around people's relationships and understandings of wai (water). Kamanamaikalani Beamer, Director of the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi, explores the lessons that can be drawn from the Hawaiian Ancestral Circular Economy and the resurrection of peoples' ancestral relationships to love and protect water. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 41295]

How are Indigenous communities in the U.S. facing challenges to their ways of life in the current political moment? Focusing on questions concerning repatriation, land access, education, and diverse forms of sovereignty, our panelists explore the intersection of Indigenous religious traditions and law. The discussion begins at the regional level, with specific reference to Chumash contexts, and then expands outward to borderland settings, Oklahoma, the Great Lakes, and the Pacific. The panelists are Greg Johnson, Director, Walter H. Capps Center, Cristina Gonzales, Registrar, Santa Rosa Rancheria, Amrah Salomón, Assistant Professor of English, UCSB, Walter Echo-Hawk, Former President of Pawnee Nation, and Vicente Diaz, Professor of American Indian & Indigenous Studies, UCLA. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 41294]

How should federal governments attempt to right, or at least remedy, past wrongs? Is it appropriate for victims of group-based harms or their descendants to press current generations to atone for the sins of their predecessors? Grace Kao, Professor of Ethics and the inaugural Sano Chair in Pacific and Asian American Theology at Claremont School of Theology, explores these questions by drawing upon the emerging human rights standard for reparations, theological resources from her Presbyterian faith tradition, and four case-studies of acknowledged wrongdoing against AAPI communities. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 40876]

Is sacred space protective space? This question lies at the heart of the Sanctuary Movement. From the 1980s to the present, this practice has protected undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation by offering them refuge in churches, where federal immigration agents to this day still fear to tread. In this lecture, Lloyd Barba, Assistant Professor of Religion and Core Faculty in Latinx and Latin American Studies at Amherst College, asks how these houses of worship in the 1980s protected migrants from immigration enforcement authorities. What histories and testimonies rendered such spaces sacred and lent houses of worship qualities of safe refuge? And what is the applicability of these practices today? Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 40877]

What are the future horizons for indigenous repatriation work? What are best practices in repatriation settings, and how might they inform repair work in other contexts, such as education or land returns? This panel discussion looks at the work of Chumash leaders and broader Indigenous repair work nationally and globally. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40662]

What’s next for the battle over abortion? In this lecture, Mary Ziegler argues that undoing Roe v. Wade was never the endpoint for the antiabortion movement. Since the 1960s, the goal has been to secure recognition of fetuses and embryos as persons under the 14th Amendment, making abortion unconstitutional. The battle for personhood also aims to overhaul the regulation of in vitro fertilization and contraception, change the meaning of equality under the law, and determine how courts decide which fundamental rights Americans enjoy. Mary Ziegler is one of the world’s leading historians of the U.S. abortion debate, and an expert on the law, history, and politics of reproduction, health care, and conservatism in the U.S. She is the author or editor of numerous articles and seven books on reproduction, autonomy, and the law. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 40704]

Through a focus on Spanish-speaking Catholics, Amanda Baugh sheds light on environmental actors hiding in plain sight. Drawing from ethnographic research conducted across Los Angeles, Baugh, Professor and Associate Chair of Religious Studies and Director of the MA Program in Sustainability at California State University, Northridge, demonstrates that minority communities are not merely victims of environmental problems. Instead, many Spanish-speaking Catholics embrace what Baugh calls “la tierra environmentalism,” an embodied ethic of living lightly on the Earth that is rooted in a sense of love and respect for God, fellow humans, and the rest of God’s creation. A focus on la tierra environmentalism challenges scholars and activists to rethink who counts as environmental leaders and what counts as environmentalism. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40423]

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence went viral in conservative media in June 2023 when the L.A. Dodgers announced plans to honor the local house of the order at the team’s annual Pride Night. Reporting on the ensuing scuffle focused largely on sports, politics, and culture wars, not on religion, and it largely misrepresented or overlooked the international order of queer and trans nuns at the heart of the story. In this program, Melissa M. Wilcox, Professor and Holstein Family & Community Chair of Religious Studies at UC Riverside, talks about who these nuns are and why they keep rankling the right and delighting the left. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 40374]

How did Ronald Reagan’s vision of the American Dream lead to Donald Trump’s success? Looking back to 1983, Diane Winston, professor of journalism and communication at the University of Southern California, discusses how evangelical religion, the news media, and social turmoil culminated in MAGA’s Second Coming. Winston shows that many journalists uncritically adopted Reagan’s religious rhetoric and broadcast his otherwise unpopular evangelical ideas about limited government and individual responsibility. Winston’s lecture is based on her recent book, Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan’s Evangelical Vision. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 40173]

The modern world is not disenchanted. On the contrary, it is full of gods and heroes and myths and magic. In this talk, Philip Gorski sketches out a new narrative of Western modernity that can account for this state of affairs: the fragmentation of the sacred. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39810]

E.J. Dionne asserts that after three decades during which conflicts over religion played a tremendous role in American politics, the country seems to be approaching a truce and, perhaps, even something akin to peace. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 19866]

Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter discusses why the 2008 presidential race is of such historic significance. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Show ID: 16391]