SCHOLAR-TRANSLATOR
making COMPLEX RELIGIOUS TOPICS ACCESSIBLE for CURIOUS AUDIENCES SEEKING DEEPER MEANING.
RECENT SPEAKING CLIENTS
LIZ’S KEYNOTE AREAS
Religion Reimagined
Younger generations are transforming religious engagement through digital platforms, deconstructing traditional faith, and creating new forms of spiritual community. Understand the deeper cultural shifts driving these changes and what they reveal about our collective search for meaning in uncertain times.
Religion and Health
Contemporary health movements like "Make America Healthy Again" and deploy religious ideas about purity, contamination, and bodily wisdom out of their original contexts. The wellness industry promotes spiritual practices as methods of self-optimization. Learn what the genuine benefits of sacred approaches to well-being within religious communities actually are—including community accountability, moral frameworks, and deeper meaning.
Religious Appropriation
There are hidden costs of borrowing sacred practices without understanding their origins, from yoga studios to sage burning rituals. Learn concrete frameworks for distinguishing between respectful appreciation and harmful appropriation, empowering your audience to engage authentically with spiritual traditions.
Why the Spiritual Salad Bar Isn't Serving Us
Examine why picking and choosing spiritual practices without their original context often leaves us spiritually malnourished rather than fulfilled. Drawing from Beyond Wellness, explore how the “spiritual but not religious” approach strips away the very elements that make practices transformative: community accountability, moral frameworks, and deeper meaning systems. Learn what genuine spiritual nourishment requires and how to build authentic practices that satisfy both individual seeking and collective wisdom.
POPULAR TOPICS
The Monsters Under Our Mats: The Ethical Implications of Yoga
Unpack the complex history of how yoga transformed from a comprehensive devotional system connected to several religious traditions to a wellness trend focused primarily on self-care. Examine real-world case studies—from guru controversies to legal battles—that reveal the tensions between cultural preservation and spiritual accessibility. Learn how to practice yoga ethically while understanding its religious roots, and discover what both practitioners and instructors need to know about honoring yoga’s sacred origins
Psychedelic Sacraments: When Ancient Medicine Meets Modern Therapy
Navigate the complex intersection of indigenous plant medicines, clinical psychedelic therapy, and spiritual seeking. Explore what happens when sacred substances become therapeutic tools, the ethical implications of psychedelic tourism, and what a religious context can add to our experiences with altered states of consciousness.
Spiritual Fitness: Why Your Workout Needs More Than Good Vibes
Explore how fitness culture has become a substitute religion, complete with instructor gurus, transformative promises, and devoted communities. Drawing from the history of “Muscular Christianity” to modern boutique fitness, discover what happens when we strip physical practices of their spiritual contexts and why the magic of belonging requires more than just showing up to class.
From Liberation to McMindfulness: When Spirituality Stops Serving Justice
Examine how Buddhist meditation became an app telling you to "just breathe” and why wellness concepts like "Earth School" reframe structural oppression as individual soul lessons. Drawing from scholars of religion and social justice theory, discover how wellness culture and New Age spirituality strips Eastern religious concepts of their ethical frameworks and community accountability, creating what's known as "spiritual bypassing"—using spiritual ideas to sidestep rather than address genuine pain and systemic inequality. Learn to recognize when spirituality reinforces rather than challenges domination, and explore what authentic practice rooted in collective responsibility actually requires.
AFTER AN HOUR WITH LIZ, YOUR AUDIENCE WILL BE ABLE TO:
Navigate authentic spiritual practice versus cultural appropriation with concrete frameworks for ethical engagement with traditions outside their own.
Decode the wellness industry's bold claims using scholarly insights to distinguish genuine practices from repackaged religious traditions stripped of essential elements.
Understand how religion shapes culture and politics with fresh insights into the hidden religious influences driving contemporary debates and social movements.
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"Dr. Bucar drew a standing-room-only crowd of 150 people. Her speaking style is engaging without losing the nuance and sophistication of her research. Her examples resonated deeply with our diverse, multi-religious community, who only reluctantly left at the end of a very lively Q&A."
Deeana Copeland Klepper, Chair of the Department of Religion
Boston University
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"Liz’s talk was scholarly yet readily accessible. She fielded challenging questions with generosity and grace, and stayed long after Q&A to chat with people. She gave students a truly memorable conversation about the complexities of intercultural sensitivity and religious appropriation."
Chris Jones, Associate Professor of Religious Studies
Washburn University
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"Liz made a deeply significant topic both engaging and accessible. Weeks later, students were still bringing up her insights in class. I recommend her as a speaker wholeheartedly—not only to academic audiences but to anyone seeking thoughtful conversation."
Roshan Iqbal, Chair of the Religion Department
Agnes Scott College
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"With an incredible sharpness and sensitivity toward the complexity of the subject, Professor Bucar made religious appropriation insightful both for our students and the general audience of the city festival 'Baroque Influencers' (Antwerp, 2023). Both audiences engaged with her in a vivid Q&A, where she didn't shy away from difficult questions."
Gilke Gunst, Coordinator of Religion, Culture & Society Project,
University Centre Saint-Ignatius Antwerp, Belgium
LIZ’S OFFICIAL BIO
Liz Bucar is a leading expert in religious ethics, a professor of religion at Northeastern University, and a prizewinning author. Her writing, teaching, and public lectures cover a wide range of topics—from sexual reassignment surgery to the politics of religious clothing--but generally focus on how a deeper understanding religious difference can change our sense of what is right and good.
Liz has written for The Atlantic, Teen Vogue, The Los Angeles Times, and Religion News Service, among others, and her work has been discussed in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and Instyle Magazine. She has written four books, including her most recent, Stealing My Religion: Not Just Any Cultural Appropriation. She is also the Director of Sacred Writes, a grant-funded project that provides media training for religion scholars.
Liz received a degree in government from Harvard and a Ph.D. in religious ethics from the University of Chicago.
