Religion can affect a country’s politics, and vice versa. And though some politicians appeal to religion to gain support, such moves are far from a sure bet, says , a postdoctoral researcher with the 91̽»¨â€™s .

Thompson and a series of academic guests — from the 91̽»¨and beyond — will explore such themes in a new podcast series called “ReligioPolitics,” aimed at diplomats and international affairs professionals. He is a senior fellow with the Jackson School’s and studies religion’s relation to foreign policy.

The podcast is a six-episode series, and the first three episodes were made publicly available Nov. 14 on iTunes and other podcast platforms, as well as the project’s .

Each podcast episode will focus on one country, discussing how religion and those who promote it can impact the country’s politics domestically, regionally and around the world. The discussions have a two-part premise, the first being that religion and politics always influence each other, Thompson said.

“While the show focuses on explaining how religious actors impact politics, such close contact with power inevitably changes their religion, as well. Usually, these changes occur in ways neither side expected.”

Second, blending religion and politics is no sure path to sustainable power and “can quickly turn from successful to problematic, as several of our episodes demonstrate.”

The first episode is about Ukraine, Thompson said, “and the successful campaign by the recent president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, to create a Ukrainian Orthodox Church independent from the Moscow Patriarchate.” Thompson will talk with , affiliate professor in the 91̽»¨Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. Lemico is also a professor emeritus with Seattle Pacific University and adviser to the Honorary Consulate of the Government of Ukraine in Seattle.

, professor of history and international studies, will be the guest for the second podcast, talking about Hindu nationalism in India.

Guests for subsequent podcasts include Jackson School professor and of the policy institute to discuss evangelicals in the United States.

“The goal is to get each guest interviewee’s knowledge into a form accessible to diplomats and other international affairs professionals,” Thompson said, “as well as anyone following headlines but without an idea of the role religion plays in politics.”

The podcast project is funded by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.

For more information, contact Monique Thormann, Jackson School director of communications, at thormm@uw.edu.

says his weekly “” podcast got its start, as many things do, from a student’s idea.

Prakash is a professor of architecture in the 91̽»¨ . An architect himself, he is also an author, a theorist and an architectural historian.

He said he has always felt “energized” by discussions in seminars and at conferences of “impromptu topics at the edges of the known, discussed and well traversed.” But such conversations, he said, “usually dissolved in time, unable to survive the scrutiny and surveillance of the published work.”

Prakash said he was lamenting just that — and the lack of “new media conversations on contemporary architectural thinking” — in a seminar when a student suggested simply, “Why don’t you start your own podcast?”

Sixteen episodes after its September 2017 debut, Prakash’s “ArchitectureTalk” podcast has been downloaded about 6,300 times from listeners in more than a dozen countries. The recordings are available on all major podcast platforms, including iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Soundcloud and more.

Discussion themes range from general topics like historic preservation, modernism and urbanism to how fashion and art curation dovetail with architecture, the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, architecture in the Islamic world, and Seattle’s architectural culture.

The podcast, Prakash said, is intended not just for practicing professionals in the field but “architects, architectural thinkers, anyone interested in architecture, particularly from other disciplines. People in general.”

For one recent episode — perhaps his favorite yet, downloaded more than 600 times — Prakash , of India, the 2018 recipient of the , which is akin to a Nobel Prize of architecture. Prakash said he was amazed when the famous architect “was happy to speculate on the ‘best’ buildings of his long career, and then ventured to candidly discuss the very serendipitous way in which he was inspired to design them.”

Another memorable moment was when an associate professor of architecture at Washington State University, “upended my understanding of public and private when he suggested that in an Islamic city the street is private and the home public,” Prakash said.

91̽»¨talents are included in the podcast, too, such as when Prakash spoke with landscape architecture professor and urban design associate professor for a .” His producer for the podcast series is Elizabeth Umbanhowar, a doctoral student in landscape architecture.

Prakash said he listens daily to — and is inspired by — NPR interviewer , and agrees with her thinking that any story is interesting if you dig deep enough.

He said he’s always on the lookout for podcast guests and topics.

“It could be a story I have just read online, or a conversation with a friend at a bar. I am also looking for a vast multidisciplinary spread,” Prakash said.

​”In a sense, I am trying to see how people ​from different perspectives and backgrounds look — or could be made to look — at architecture.”

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To learn more about Prakash and his work, contact him at vprakash@uw.edu. Follow him on Twitter: .