Traditionalism and Russian Orthodox Converts – Laurie Taylor talks to Mark Sedgwick, Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, about the radical project for restoring sacred order. Traditionalism is founded on ancient teachings that, its followers argue, have been handed down from time immemorial and which must be defended from modernity. How has this mystical doctrine come to have contemporary sway on the political right, inspiring ex President Trump's former chief strategist, as well as the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, sometimes dubbed as “Putin’s brain”?
They’re joined by Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, Assistant Professor of Religion and Anthropology at Northeastern University, Boston, who has uncovered an extraordinary story of religious conversion in one corner of Appalachia. Here, a group of American citizens has embraced the Russian Orthodox Church and through it Putin’s New Russia. They look to Russian religion and politics for answers to Western secularism and the loss of traditional family values.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Food bank Britain, Food poverty in Europe
The English Defence League; 'Real' immigrants
Political women and language, The morality of sleep medication
Good neighbours, The connection between sport and domestic abuse
Secrecy at Work, Drugs and Employment
Ale drinkers, Northern accents
'Queer' wars, Nigerian beauty pageants
Glasgow gangs - Russian gangs
Migrant women, Wedding paradoxes
The Flaneur - Walking in the City
Happiness and government, Good parenting
Ethnography Award winner, Transcultural football
The BSA and Thinking Allowed Ethnography Award Shortlist
Dance halls, Pick-up artists
Eviction, Self-build
Philanthropy - Charity
Small towns, Patient rescue and resuscitation
The debt collection industry, Spousal job loss
Refusing adulthood, How young people feel about being poor
Museums and nationalism, Imagining utopias
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