Dear Revealer readers,

This August, after 21 years, Angela Zito is stepping down as co-director of the Center for Religion and Media at NYU, the place that has served as The Revealer’s home since its genesis in 2003. Angela co-founded the Center for Religion and Media with Faye Ginsburg, originally one of ten “centers of excellence” across the country first funded by Pew Charitable Trusts and then with an endowment at NYU. The Center for Religion and Media has a proud history; numerous scholars, journalists, and activists have benefited from its presence and offerings. And one of the Center’s most visionary and long-lasting projects is The Revealer, a publication that, if not for Angela Zito’s determination, would not still exist today.

In 2003, when many in the media were responding to the United States’ invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq following the September 11 attacks, the Center for Religion and Media launched The Revealer to offer correctives to how mainstream media talked about religion, to “reveal” more incisive and researched perspectives about religion around the world. Angela hired journalist Jeff Sharlet to helm the publication as its first editor. Over the next five years, Sharlet invited numerous scholars and journalists to contribute to The Revealer and to offer readers more nuanced perspectives about religion than they might find elsewhere.

After Jeff’s departure from NYU, The Revealer could have ended. But Angela believed in its importance and ensured it would continue. She hired writer Ann Neumann to serve as The Revealer’s next editor. Neumann brought her own talent for reportage and literary nonfiction to the publication and expanded the types of stories The Revealer publishes. Ann shared the following about working with Angela on The Revealer:

“My personal curriculum vitae for Angela includes all of the discipline-defining events of her scholarly life, but also a separate category called, say, Above and Beyond, or Who Does That? In this category I list the ridiculously high number of times Angela taught me something—a lesson, a truth, a trick, a way of seeing—I hold like a talisman in my ‘surviving this world’ pocket. There’s the time she told me that one can experience a particular liberation after the loss of a parent. My father had died, I suspected she was heartless, then, in weeks, I understood that she was right as the sun. Or the time she said to me—after I had been a shit person, undecided, unreliable, scared and stuck—that ‘we should all get to do what we want.’ It is of great note that she was my boss at the time. Then there’s the time she graciously promoted me into a job I didn’t think I could do, but under her direction ultimately figured out. And then also the way those ‘figuring out’ skills became a career, a satisfaction, a future, a dream. Angela’s intellectual contributions at the Center for Religion and Media have helped change how these two juggernauts of American life are studied and discussed. Her uncommon ability, throughout her career, is centering community—a way of being in the world that has changed so many lives, including my own.”

After Ann stepped down as editor, Angela hired Kali Handelman who served as The Revealer’s editor for the next six years. With Angela’s support, Kali transformed The Revealer into its current form as a monthly online magazine. About working with Angela, Kali writes:

“Angela taught me that it was possible to lead through collaboration. From Angela I learned how to use energy and resources (by which I really mean capital — social and financial — salaries, honoraria, real estate, all of it) to support work one believes in. I learned how to do this explicitly — by hosting events and publishing work — but also more quietly, by connecting people with one another and with resources. At the Center for Religion and Media, and especially The Revealer, Angela created a place where so many people had the chance to figure out what we want to do and have been provided with the resources and support to do it. Our accomplishments are, in no small part, a credit to Angela. She created something durable and flexible, ahead of the curve, but somehow also at the same time responsive to what people ask and push for. I’m confident it will go into the future just as sharp and strong and bold as it started, and that it will carry forward Angela’s singular balance of brave critique and open-minded generosity.”

When Kali left her position as editor, Angela could have decided the time had come for the magazine to fold. But instead, and to my great delight, she insisted on its importance. She knew the world needed astute writing about religion and a place where academics and smart journalists could share their expertise. She believed in The Revealer’s value, and when I took over as editor in the last months of 2019 my only goal was not to ruin the publication. Angela encouraged my ideas and supported my decisions to try new things like themed special issues and to launch a podcast to complement the magazine.

In my first year as editor, as the Covid-19 pandemic spiraled during the Trump presidency and my sense of dread for the world worsened, Angela provided me with the inspiration for how I would ultimately edit and shape The Revealer to this day. She shared one of her favorite quotes from writer Raymond Williams: “To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.” I had seen that quote at the bottom of Angela’s emails, but one day we talked about it and since then it has informed how I see my role at The Revealer and the responsibilities that come with it. In these years of right-wing hate, growing Christian nationalism, climate change, and the push for fascism, we could easily publish articles month after month that leave readers with despair. But a sense of doom can paralyze people and give them the impression that other political options aren’t possible, which would let the fascists and bigots win. So, from Angela’s cue, The Revealer has aimed to inform people while also showing pathways to better possibilities and avenues for hope. I take it as one of my key responsibilities that we must illuminate the current workings of the world alongside better alternatives. If you’ve read an article in The Revealer in the past few years or listened to our podcast and had a sense of hope, you have Angela Zito to thank.

With these thoughts about Angela’s influence on The Revealer’s legacy in mind, I am pleased to share our Summer 2024 issue with you. The issue opens with Oren Kroll-Zeldin’s “The Symbolic Significance of Jewish Students in the Pro-Palestine Campus Protests,” where he shares reasons why so many Jewish students participated in the spring protests against the war in Gaza and why their visibility as Jews matters. Then, in “Layers of Dune,” Patrick D’Silva explores this year’s blockbuster film Dune 2 and considers how it and the larger Dune franchise deploy anti-Muslim tropes and engage in cultural appropriation. Next, while thinking about mass media, in “From Drake to Zac Efron: ‘Looking Jewish,’ or Not,” an excerpt from Millennial Jewish Stars: Navigating Racial Antisemitism, Masculinity, & White Supremacy, Jonathan Branfman reflects on people’s surprise when they learn a celebrity they didn’t expect is Jewish and what that reveals about Jewish identity, race, and antisemitism today. And, as we start to think about the back-to-school season, in “Live by the Coin, Die by the Coin: Religion and Gen Z Coin Boys,” Corey Wozniak reflects on a trend among Gen Z where they make life decisions based on a coin toss or a tarot card reading and what that says about young people in the face of climate catastrophe, how they view the future, and unexpected religious rituals among today’s teenagers.

The Summer issue also includes two new episodes of the Revealer podcast. In the first, “Elisabeth Elliot: Evangelical Icon and Her Alarming Third Marriage,” Liz Charlotte Grant joins us to discuss evangelical leader Elisabeth Elliot’s teachings about the supposed ideal Christian marriage, the disturbing details of her own marital life, and people’s reactions to our viral article about Elliot that we published in February. In the second episode, “Jewish Bodies and Jewish Celebrities,” Jonathan Branfman joins us to discuss bodily and racial stereotypes of Jews, how some Jewish celebrities navigate these stereotypes, and what lessons representations of Jews in the media reveal about antisemitism and racism today. You can listen to both episodes on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

As summer comes to a close and we look ahead to a fall that will inevitably include more protests and political turmoil, I return once more to Angela Zito’s wisdom and the insistence that we locate and spread hope. Her inspiration to provide alternatives to despair will continue to inform our work. And here at The Revealer, one sign of positive things to come is that Elayne Oliphant, associate professor of Religious Studies and Anthropology at NYU, will step in as the new co-director of the Center for Religion and Media alongside Faye Ginsburg. That means we have a bright future. And it will be a future shaped by the astute foresight, incisive wisdom, and indelible legacy of Angela Zito.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.