BOOK CLUB: Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

Episode Transcript
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Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:17):
This is keeping it 101, a killjoys
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(00:39):
Increasingly, though, nativefolks are pushing us to forego
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let's start with land back. Andas always, you can find material
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Megan Goodwin (00:51):
What's up, Nerds?
Hi, hello. I'm Megan Goodwin,and I am a scholar of American
religions, race, gender andpolitics.

Hi, hello. I'm Ilyse Morgenstein
Fuerst, a historian of religion,Islam, race and racialization
and South Asia. Well, this isnew!

I know right like four years into this, and we're
still learning every day, stillkeeping it fresh. I love that
for us.

Well, the fresh thing that we're
smelling is not me, surely not

nor I, nor I

but today, nerds, if you're smelling
what the rock is cooking, thething that we are cooking is
something new. We are hosting abook club. We told you many,
many moons ago, like nine fullmoons ago, to read Jane Steele
by Lindsay Faye, and then wejust, gosh darn got overwhelmed

(01:41):
with the actual jobs and liveswe lead off of this parasocial
relationship platform.

Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a whole time. It was
a time and a half.

It was the best of times and the worst
of times, and now we're back onthe air times

it was. We're back from outer space. It was
the worst of times. But hey, welove this misandrist, queer,
Gothic retelling of Jane Eyre,and it's just rife with religion
and abuse, which I don't love,but I sure am happy to talk
about, well, happy No, I sure amgonna talk about, and also
Empire, which is a thing Ilyseknows a little bit about,

so Goodwin. How do you wanna do
this? What's our plan of attack?
Should we run it like one of ourseminars, or our lady love book
and wine book clubs, like we'venot done this as an episode? So
how shall we attack it?

Okay, so I don't know how your middle aged mom
life works, but I don't knowwhat you're talking about, so I
don't understand it, but I willrespond to it. pretty much my MO
what's going on? I don't know.
Here are my feelings about it.
What if we summarize the book'smajor plot and then we can move

(02:52):
on to the religion of it all?

Yeah, that sounds great. But if you
ever want to like party, grab abunch of moms without their
kids. It's mostly pajama snarkand one and a half glasses of
wine before everyone is tootired to function, except for
those of us with stamina.

I love that you have made wine mom book club
into a competition. It's alwayssports with you. ,

Well again, have you met me? And
also, Come on, ladies, if we'rehaving an evening out, we're
gonna go ready to take a nap. Weshould not have like, gut

schluffies at 7 (03:29):
30pm

this is very thrilling, and also, somehow,
even without the childrensticky, but, uh, yeah, let's,
uh, let's get into it.
The plot. Dun, dun, dun. ,

Okay so this is a book that fashions
itself alongside Jane Eyre, andthat isn't a stretch for the
reader. So each chapter, if youhaven't read it literally starts
with a quote from the originaland our protagonist, Jane
Steele, says early on in thebook, like chapter one, that
she's inspired by Jane Eyre towrite her own journal and tell

(04:10):
her own story. This is like JaneEyre, and frankly, all of
British literature, just all ofit a story of childhood abuse,
because as far well listen, asfar as I could tell, there are
zero children in the UK who didnot experience abuse in all
times, in all places and orfinancial hardship, social class

(04:30):
and sexism, especially aroundthe specific issues of
inheritance. I'm not trying toindict all of my British and
Scottish and Irish and Englishfriends, but um, I suppose Welch
friends as well, though I'm lessfamiliar with the Welch cannon,
but like y'all, have a lot ofproblems with your childhood
abuse narratives.

They are persistent. .

Yes.
Anyway, this book starts whenJane is a child living with her
very depressed and Laudanum'edmom on a property that is
supposedly theirs, as willed byher dead dad, but the aunt and
cousin live in the main house.
We follow her through thistroubled childhood, through her

(05:13):
troubled teen hood and into hertroubled adulthood. And if you
read British literature, youknow that women without a man
can't really hold property inthis era of literature that it's
set in. So like anything beforethe 1920s really, or wealth post
World War One. And so there's alot of who's your daddy and
who's the rightful inheritor andbastard child? Hell to the

(05:36):
fucking No. We'd rather run youout of town and hope that you
starve anyway. Jane Steele is asmart and clever and she had a
French mom, so everything in thebook basically racializes Her as
inferior and problematic, andshe really takes both a lot and
very little shit throughout theentire book.

she's just, I'm not sure that this says anything
good about me, but the firsttime I read this book, I
immediately finished it andstarted it over again because I
did not want to be away fromher, even though her life was
very, very bad. So, yeah, itwas, it was, uh, unlike Jane

(06:21):
Eyre, um, our protagonistreally, she, she seems to love
murder. Um, yeah,

she's at the very least cool with it.
Yeah, she's, she's,

she's deeply cool with murder when it is deserved.
And she meets a lot of peopledeserving of murder. So, yeah,
her first murder is of a childcousin who tries to sexually
assault her, also as a child,important, also as a child. Yep,
we assume because England, butalso because, as I point out in

(06:55):
my first book, abuse is rampantand happens everywhere because
we let it so, yeah, so just apost facto trigger slash
content. Note about the factthat this starts rapey and does
not get less violent. Althoughthe descriptions of the violence

(07:16):
are never explicit, nodescriptions of the sexual
violence are never vivid. Theblood leaking from other places
is pretty Yeah. Also, my senseof what is and is not vivid is
maybe skewed slightly by thefact that I read a lot of yeah
and

I watch i Dear listeners as Megan
is your horror and gore andtension. Queen, I am your cheesy
rom com, and I know how the bookends before it starts. Queen,
there are a few graphicdepictions in this book that
might get your stomach boiling,or there's just a lot of
tension. And for those of us whohave been socialized to be women
or socialized in systems thatprey on qualities that are

(08:00):
considered feminine. We wouldimagine you can feel the horror
coming before it does. So it'snever quite in the camera lens,
so to speak, but it is. It'sright there. And I wouldn't say
it's something that made me haveto close the book, but you might
feel differently.

That's valid. It is. Yeah, there is a lot of
narrative tension, which is kindof interesting for a book that's
based on a book that I had reada million trillion million
trillion times, she did somereally interesting stuff with
it. Any hoodle, after shemurders her cousin who tried to
sexually assault her, she issent to a residential school
that would make Dickens son easywith how much casual, cruel

(08:37):
abuse just takes place all overthe place, just physical
beatings and food insecurity andpitting students against each
other. It's, it's pretty hungeragainst Yeah, repeated sexual
harassment of a young femaleteacher by the crusty old Dean,
warden, Headmaster, head,arbiter for Jesus. Yeah, you
know, we'll

get there. It's important to note
that a lot of these scenes ofthis childhood of hell,
particularly the ones thathappen in this boarding school,
are during all, all school, allSunday prayer sessions, which
they are called reckonings inthe book. In the reckonings, the
children have to confess theirsins, but if no one confesses
and acts like everyone's cool,they get the shit beat out of

(09:20):
them, yeah. So during thesereckonings, the headmaster
fashions himself as both thelord and savior of these
children, but also the messengerfor the actual lord and savior,

yeah, yeah, yeah.
And much like the actual lordand savior of Christianity, um,
he gets killed. I He would notcrucified.

He really does. He's not crucified,
but he is stabbed with a letteropener. It's fairly grizzly, and
I will honest, it's like alittle bit earned a had a
comment, a plus, a plus, Chicagolied, a plus, a plus from.
Removal of like a real turd fromboth the narrative and that
world's planet. Yeah,

yep, yep. He only had himself to blame. Because
this is the, this is the thingin this book. Everyone who gets
killed, more or less getskilled. Well, anybody who gets
killed by Jane Steele getskilled because they absolutely
made the world better by leavingit, yeah, so usually, I think it

(10:27):
is exclusively men that shemurders because it is a straight
up misinterest love story, blessit. Gets killed because he
deserved it, usually because hewas planning to do, or it
already done, something ripy anddisgusting. None of the murders
are really premeditated, or atleast not for very long. Most
are reactionary and responsiveto the brutality of sexual
violence, and particularly thegendered sexual violence

(10:49):
directed toward women, girls andfems, yeah,

yeah, it's very Earl's gotta die
vibes. I can't disagree withthat summary,

goodbye, Earl.
Yeah. So between all thekillings,

you know, like, casually, yeah, like
on Tuesday when I have a killingfree day

in between the murders, we learned that Jane
has a really close and lovingrelationship with her
lowenbridge classmate Clark.
Clark is a lady, by the way,this is also a sapphic love
story, at least for half of it,Clark leaves her upon
discovering that she did themurder of both Munt, that
horrible headmaster and Clarkand Jane Steele's wife beating,

(11:26):
miscarriage causing landlord andClark leaving just absolutely
devastates Jane. So we see herinvolved with men. She's trying
to scrape by through writinglurid tales for daily papers,
and she has to do anothermurder, this time of a judge who
is just going to casuallypurchase the very young child of

(11:47):
her friend who is a sex worker.
,

Yeah this story really had everything

it does. It really theaction never stops.
After all that, Jane sees an adfor a governor at Highgate
house, the very estate she grewup on and she she has been told,
is the rightful heir to. Sohijinks ensue. Love it. We have
a name change, we have a ruse,we have a mystery. How do we

(12:14):
prove ownership and parentage?
The new owner of Highgate houseis Charles Thornfield, an
Englishman born in British Indiawho serves as a surgeon during
the Anglo-Sikh wars, about whichwe know Ilyse will have things
to say, which is originally whyI made you read the book.
Thornfield also has as theworkers in his home a team of
South Asians and a small girlnamed Sajarah, the one who needs

(12:36):
to govern us. So we learn laterthat all these folks, including
Charles Dun dun dun, arethemselves Sikh. Religiously

Yeah, they're religiously Sikh, like
s, i, k, H, but not only doesshe just live here, it's not
like she lives here and it'shappily ever after. Oh no,
there's no more murder andintrigue a foot

There sure is.
Turns out there's an Indiantreasure!

which is both the best and least
suspicious kind of treasure inthese books.

Totally and Sajara is connected to the
treasure. Somehow. We thinkpossibly one of the old war
Buddies is back and sniffingaround for said treasure. He is
a real Butthead, yeah. So whilethey've all been training with
traditional Sikh weapons, moreon that in a second, dude tries
to pull shit and, well, pullshit and get dead. Yeah.

Yeah, Jane--Jane is a little bit
concerned at this moment in thestory. She starting to have some
like butterfly feels forCharles. She's really into all
the weird stuff that they're upto. She thinks she's unraveling
it, and so she's a little bitnervous that she offed yet
another butthead because whoopsWhoopsie, doodle. Charles might
not love me anymore, except dearlistener, don't worry. He does.
He gets it. He he thinks thatjustified murder is super fine.

Also, he has a secret room in his basement for
examining corpses, becausesometimes you need to learn
things about medicine. So it'sit's all sometimes bitches got
to die. And by bitches we meanmen who mean women, femmes,
girls harm.

yeah, that's, that's kind of it

alright, yeah, that's the plot. Let's, let's
talk about religion!IRMF! How about, why did I make
these choices for myself.

You did this to us, collectively,

--to us and me.
What if I talk about child abusein the name of God, and then at
the school, and then you cantalk about the Sikh stuff?

Great.
Yet again, I get assigned theeasy task, because you took all
of child abuse in the name ofGod,

right, so, okay, there is the initial both class
and not quite racialized, butinterestingly, nationalized
abuses that are happening amongJane's mother and her, she
thinks, uncle's wife.

Do you really not? Can I? Do you really
not read that as racialization?

I wasn't sure. I mean, it's racialization within
whiteness, right? But anyway,the French are clearly racially
inferior, yeah? ,

Well I was just curious, because for
me, and like, the way that I'mreading that, like, 19th century
of it all is like, Oh yeah, no.
This is when nationality wasrace. Like a race of people
could have a nation. But thatdoesn't mean it's not operating
within this guise of whiteness,where, like, whiteness is its
own thing, apart from brownness,and that's better. But also,
there are types of whitenessthat are shitty.

so Frenchness, in this home and in this book
definitely gets construed aslike dirtier and prone to giving
in to savage urges

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuers (15:48):
totally

and being a big old slut bag

loose--

which is also, of course, religionized, right?
Because it's a Protestant andCatholic division. So the--any
abuse that happens to Jane inher home is done in the name of
civilizing her and bringing herup in the way that she should be
brought up, the way that sheshould be grateful to be brought
up, big Imperial energy, becausethat was similar to how the

(16:17):
British treated the rest of theworld also, yeah, you know, it
starts at home. Empire starts athome.

So sorry, I cut you off. I just
thought that was interesting.

Yeah. No, it is.
It is interesting. Thank you.
Well. And I mean, we had talkedabout this a little bit before,
but in some ways, my bit of thisbook is both the most
emotionally challenging and theleast interesting, or at least
the least surprising, becausewhen we read stories, when we
hear stories about Britishboarding schools, we just assume

(16:47):
somebody's getting beat up,abused, buggered in some way,
treated horribly, and that thatis happening under the auspices
and with the justification ofreligious education. So there
is, in a lot of ways, nothingterribly surprising about Jane
being cast out of her family ofbirth after her mother dies, and

(17:10):
it turns out, not her aunt, buther step mother, because Jane's
mom and the aunt were actuallymarried To the same dude, so it
was an affair situation. It wasall very scandal. This was very
French, uh, she gets shipped offand put in this dangerous, soul

(17:35):
crushing

and known, right? Like I want to, I
want to pause on how familiar itis, not just to us as readers,
but to the characters in thebook, like the taxi driver,
yeah? Carriage driver, whobrings her from Highgate house
to the school, is like, goodluck to you. You might die. Have

(17:57):
a sandwich, because you're notgonna you're not gonna eat for a
while.

Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just everybody knows
that this is going to be a badplace for her, that she is at
the very least going to suffer,and that that gets presented as
something both good for her andgood for society, that this is
what you do with children nobodywants.

Yeah, it's virtuous.

Yep, yeah. So we're going to be returning to
that when we talk aboutadoption. What is interesting
and sets her apart from a JaneEyre character is that Jane
Steele is, from the jump,uninterested in God. She has
taken none of this in she is, Idon't think she recalls herself

(18:43):
an atheist, but she's far toopragmatic to bother with any of
this, and so there's no spacefor her to become disillusioned,
because she comes in predisillusioned, and knows from
the jump that the institutionalChristianity that has taken her
under its wing is intending toharm her as much as it can, and

(19:05):
is fine, if not eager for herdeath. Yeah. So that's it with
but again, pretty predictable,

though.
I do--I was curious in this ifit was like an atheism, or there
were a few places where I feltlike it was resignation to the
"truth" of Christianity, like Ia child did an accidental
murder, and therefore I am a badperson. And I like, like, I at
some points in the reading feltlike, Oh, she already buys into
the system completely, likeshe's actually bought that she's

(19:36):
going to hell, and she can't getout of it. Yeah, so at this
point, all actions don't matter.
So like, Why should she allowClark to get harmed, yeah, by
the headmaster when she'salready got sin on her, on her
soul. So like, What's one more?

No, actually, I, I agree with you, because the
the conversation very much is.
And she doesn't end up in anatheist place. But no, I think
you're very right. She acceptsthat her cousin's murder is on
her soul, so she's she's fuckedregardless, like she's going to
hell.

She's like nine by the way, yeah.

Well, it also, it kind of it. It jives with the
ending of the witch, which thefilm The "vvitch," which people
love to read as a feministmovie. And my students are
always really upset when Iassist that it's not a happy
ending. It's not like, Yay,we're all witches. Now she is
living within a Protestantworldview where she definitely,

(20:35):
100% thinks she's going to hellfor having bargained with the
devil. So that last shot thatyou see is not ecstasy. She is
losing her damn mind, yeah, andrealizing that, like her only
option was to make a covenantwith the devil, and maybe she'll
get some butter out of it or anice dress. But that's really
the best she can expect. So andJane's clothes also improve when

(20:57):
she leaves school very much. So

I Yeah, no, but I did read her as
not necessarily like questioningGod, but she definitely, in the
school questions the sanctity ofthese, like bullshit headmaster

(21:22):
run religious ceremony. Like shedefinitely feels like graded by
those and I think that that'swhere you see the parts that
support a reading of her, maybenot necessarily, as you said,
like she doesn't state that shedoesn't believe in God, but you
see her, and again, it's Notdisillusioned, because she comes
in pretty fucking jaded, yeah,but she's also just like, This

(21:44):
can't be it, yeah? Like, I don'tknow what it is, but this ain't
it, yeah.

Well, so And unlike Jane Eyre, you don't have
any students who are like, Yes,this is for our own good, and we
should repent harder. But youget shades of Jane Eyre in that
Jane, even when she's in thisfoster situation, whatever the
horrible boarding school thatshe gets sent to is, when she's

(22:12):
threatened, they say, You knowwhat? What are you going to do
to make sure that you stay outof hell? And I'm paraphrasing
here, but basically, basically,she's just like, I'm just going
to try to not die for as I can.
That seems like the best plan tome. So there's, there's an echo
in our Jane steel,

I think that's right. And I think
you see that echo in the fellowclassmates, right? Because some
of them take survival as doingtheir repentance and like
calling out other students, theclassic like, forgive me
headmaster for that, that kidsitting next to me has sinned.
She had a sandwich--

secret sandwich--

and so like you see that, you see the
lens of, we are all just tryingto not get killed. It's not even
we're all just trying to notdie. We are all trying to not
actively be killed by themurderous adults who are
actively trying to kill us inthe name of Jesus.

Well, and I think the other space that's really
interesting in that boardingschool vignette is watching the
characters for whom survival isan individual undertaking,
versus Jane and her friends, whoare all trying to keep each
other alive. They're they'rehiding food for each other,
they're making sure that ifsomebody you know has not eaten

(23:25):
in a very long time, they'llconfess to a sin. So they're
they're the one that's gettingpunished, and the other person
can get off the hook, kind ofthing. So that was that was
really touching. I like a team.

What else is there to say about the
abuse, besides the fact thatnone of us are surprised by it,
which is itself telling aboutthe pervasiveness, as you've
said in all of your publishedwork, like the pervasiveness of
abuse is not surprising, becausewe always let this happen,
right?

We do always let this happen. I think the other
thing to pay attention to, Idon't want to say this, so the
argument that I make in the book[Abusing Religion] is that
religion doesn't cause abuse,and I stand by that, but an
important follow up to that isthat religion can make abuse
harder to spot as abuse, andabsolutely provides

(24:14):
institutional and organizationalcover for systemic abuse. And
again, the fact that this isn'tsurprising is precisely because
so many of our institutions, andparticularly so many of our
institutions that are set up andcharged to care for children are
just accepted as abusing thosekids in the name of doing

(24:41):
something bigger or better forthem. There are hundreds of
stories like this. The one thatalways kind of came, comes to
mind for me, is _Doubt_ when youhave the Mother Superior talking
to the mother of the child, andthe mother of the child who's
either being abused by thepriest or is set up to become
abused by the priest. It's like,you know what? Let him have him.

(25:04):
This is a better school than Ican send my kid to otherwise, so
that this is just the cost ofadmission, and the way that we
as people are willing to barterthe bodily sovereignty and
dignity of children in the nameof a higher good, consistently

(25:29):
surprises and disgusts me. andthat's how I feel about that,
yeah, which is why I was happywhen that dude got murdered.
Because fuck that dude, moremurders of people who are
harming children? I think?

yeah, and quite honestly, most of the
people she murders are not justhurting women. They are hurting
children. Like this is actuallylike a women and children first
moment in the in the way that,like when her cousin comes at
her, he's a child, but so isshe. And Munt, the headmaster,
is harming children left rightin between. And obviously the

(26:04):
thing that sets them off is heis going to he they have
uncovered a set of letters wherehe has written to their favorite
younger teacher, and he'sbasically like, you exist in my
presence. That means you wantme. Like that. I

want you. Yeah, it's

your fault that I want you. You're
tempting me. And also, like, ifyou're not the devil, then you
should be letting me have you,so I'mma take you right, but
he'd been hurting childrenfirst, and then with the
judge...

oh before we even get to the judge, yeah? Because
again, I don't want this to getset up as, like, all of the men
in authority are the bad guys,and all of the women are the
victims. Because what we findout is that the reason Jane gets
pushed to finally murder Munt,the headmaster, is because the
teacher who's being preyed uponsets her up to find out so she's

(26:55):
manipulated by an adult womaninto intervening into a
situation that the adult womandidn't know how to handle. Yeah,
so

no, you're totally right. That's
like a really great corrective.
But then when she murders herand Clark's landlord, who's a
drunk and like a real piece ofshit,

who regularly beats his wife--

Ilyse Morgenstein Fue (27:14):
regularly beats his wife, except the time
where the girls, these younggirls who are like, what 17 at
the time, have to clean up theblood, because she has
hemorrhaged a pregnancy. Andshe's like, Don't worry, he'll
never do this again. Because shecomes to find out--Jane comes to
find out--this is the secondmiscarriage that has been caused

(27:35):
by beating

well, and the very reason that the woman was
so eager to have them in thehouse is because apparently he
beats her less, if there areother people there, so

but so again, it's like this, like,
destruction of a pregnancy ormurder of a fetus, and then,
right? So, like, but there'salways this tie of the both/and.
Much like when the judge, Ithink the judge is the next
murder Yes, is threatening herbest friend, they all live in
this, like, house for ladies.
Ladies of ill repute. And he'slike, Yeah, I'm sniffing around

(28:06):
your kid. You got old, yeah. Andwhat are you gonna do? Better a
prostitute? Surely your daughteris also a prostitute, and I'm a
fucking judge. And Jane waslike, meh, casually, you're just
dead now. Like, right? I poisonyou.

I shall take care of that, yeah.

no one's gonna mess with this 11
year old, right?

Well, and it's, it's one of those places where
every time Jane murderssomebody, which is several
times, it is because the personthat she is murdering is acting
in a way that, frankly,socially, they expect to be able
to act, right? Your older adultcousin, the headmaster at your

(28:48):
school, a judge, has the coverof propriety, which obviously is
propped up in very whiteChristian Protestant ways in the
UK. And Jane, with the exceptionof that first murder, I don't
think ever act. No, there's onelater on, but most of her
murders are in the interest ofprotecting other people in a way
that she was not herselfprotected. Yeah, it's she's, she

(29:12):
has a very sympathetic characterfor being so murdery.

Yeah.
I mean, there's like five, sixmurders in the book?

I lost track.

I lost track also.

yeah, it's the judge and then the guy who
attacks the house, right? But Ican't remember if she has to
just do another murder afterthat. So

it's like cousin, landlord, Munt,
judge and Charles Thornfield,because she kills him too,
right?

Not Charles.

Oh no, that's the boyfriend, the bad
guy, friend of Charles, fivemurders total, yeah, and it's
clear she's like, I would domore. Like, this is not like,
I'm not done yet. Yeah? Cool.

(30:07):
I feel like maybe we can move onfrom abuse

sure, sure!

because you you wanted to read this book
back and forth or back to backand then immediately, like as
the whole thing was going andreader, I need you to know that
Megan does not often share withme the books that she reads.
Because we do not read the samebooks,

no.

and even when I read like books that
are the equivalent of emotionalcutting, like when I read all of
the Booker Prize winner, forexample. So they're always about
imperialism and violence, andit's like doing work. I don't
share those with Megan becausethose are not the books that she
chooses to read. So if Megan issharing a book with me, it is
either the most depressing thingyou have ever even heard of, or

(30:51):
it is something that she is sojazzed about because there is
something that my little specialinterests will intersect with,
and this is both of thoseactually!

soul killing, but also interesting, yeah.

Will you tell the dear listeners why
you asked me to read this book,both with you and with our
podcast?

Well, so it is very unusual, and I had not been
prepared for finding a SouthAsian religion subplot in a
retelling of a British gothicromance. So imagine my surprise
and delight when we find outthat, like a solid I don't know,

(31:30):
third of this book actuallyhappens in Punjab and gets
decently into the history ofBritish imperial violence
against Sikh people. And I'mgoing to be honest, my first
thought was, oh, wow, this isreally interesting. I bet Ilyse
would like this and also, she'lltell me which parts of the

(31:51):
history are wrong. So it was, inpart, trying not to do my own
homework because I knew that youwould read it and then fill me
in.

Is that what I'm doing right now?

Yes, it is, please and thank you.

So Charles Thornfield is born in
British India, specifically inthe region of India that we come
to know as Punjab. And he ispart of the East India Trading
Company and their army. So he'sa surgeon in the army. Now, if
you do not know why the EastIndia Company has an army, I
cannot walk you through that,but they--but one of the things

(32:26):
that he talks about is that heand his who we come to find that
later in the book, are notthey're not just workers,
they're not just servants. Theyare, in fact, like members of a
princely family who he wasreally close with while he was
growing up, and by bringing themout of India, he's essentially
like, making sure they haveaccess to sorts of freedom that

(32:47):
weren't available to them. Soit's set or He is a veteran of
the Anglo-Sikh wars. Hold on toyour butts, listeners, we'll
give you a little bit of arundown. Because for the most
part, this is actually prettyaccurate history. Like, I don't
think all the battle stuff wassuper accurate and some of the
like, fight scenes are a littlebit goofy. They're like, a

(33:08):
little bit goofy doofy. Like, awhole bridge falls, like, okay,
whatever.
Yeah,it's it's not real, but the

Very dramatic.
historical Tableau is so bothare two Anglo, Sikh wars. You
will be shocked to know thatthey happen between the Sikhs
and the British but specificallythe British East India Company.
Yes, the company has an army.
And no, as again, we do not havetime to get into it. And yes,
having a company that had anarmy fundamentally change how

(33:35):
the world operated. There areloads of books about that, and
we can give you homework anyway.
We know that you haven't heardof either wars of the Sikh
Empire unless you yourself aresick or from South Asia, even
though you most certainlylearned about the East India
Trading Company, becauseAmerican and UK educations do

(33:56):
not teach anything well aboutnon Americans or non Europeans,
especially their militaryhistory. We like the idea that
they are not militaristic atall, unless they are revolting
against us.
So what was the Sikh Empire? TheSikh Empire was a formal
regional power based in Punjabfrom about 1799 till 1849 when

(34:17):
the British Empire--sorry, whenthe Sikh Empire fell to the
British East India Companyduring the second Anglo Sikh
war. You should care about thesetwo wars that have been in sort
of sort of short succession,because A, these wars subjugated
at least partially, the majorityof six to the British and B, it

(34:37):
sets up the wildly problematicgoverning structure for Jammu
and Kashmir that we are stillliving with today.
Yeah. Oh, whichwe talk about in the book, which
is forthcoming from Beacon onnovember 5, 2024 it is called
Religion Is Not Done With You.

Yeah, that's right at the end of
chapter two, lots of folks areoften confused by a Sikh Empire
like was it? Founded inreligion. How does a religious
Empire work in the 19th century?
What are Sikhs? And then there'salso the racialization of six,
as I and I quote martial race,which both harms and helps
Sikhs, vis a vis the British inthe 19th and 20th century.

I'm sorry. Time out. Time's out. Martial?
martial race, as in a race thatis inherently warlike is what
I'm hearing you say,

Yes, that is accurate.

Would you maybe unpack that one a little bit for
us, because

what do you mean that's like,
generally non problematic.

What in the white supremacy is moving on here. ,

Okay as you all know by now, the
British defined all religionsracially, period. I don't have
any more breath on this podcastfor that right now. We have done
several, many episodes about it.
I have written many, many booksand other things about it. I
promise, the British definedreligions racially.

Also, chapter two.

yeah, also chapter two. Muslims, for
example, were known as violentand traitorous. Hindus were
docile, effeminate and heathensin need of reform. Sikh were
martial, as my colleague,Harleen Kaur puts it, Sikh were
part of a quote "British craftedracial category through which
they were constructed asbiologically and culturally

(36:23):
suited for Imperial service andconsequently received privileged
status within the colonialhierarchy." That's an end quote,
and I will link you to thatreally good article.

Wow, wow. Okay, so the British, bless their
little hearts, literally decidedthat a religion was a race, and
that that race was uniquely,inherently biologically suited

(36:57):
to help the British rule therest of South Asia,

that is correct.

Well, I hate that. I hate that. Okay!

and there's, there's so much more to
say about how martial race getsconstrued and set up. And we're
obviously giving you the downand dirty version, because this
is supposed to be about a bookcalled Jane Steele, not about
the Anglo Sikh wars and alsoabout how Sikhs' racialization
within the British structure ofrace helped them divide and
conquer and hold Punjab firmly,but not violently, because we do

(37:33):
not want to spend more resourceson the kind of relentless
violence that would be required,like as in a war. So I want to
say a few things to be reallyclear. The Sikhs being labeled
as a martial race, which hassomething to do with their
religion, right? So, like, whenwe did, what is Sikhi all the
way back with Simran Jeet Singhin season four, he talked about,

(37:55):
in part, like the five Ks,right? And carrying a knife on
you. British people were like,What do you need to carry a
knife for if you're not, youknow, inherently warlike, right?
So some of this is based inhyperbole of things that they
were observing. But I want to bereally clear that even though
Sikhs in some instances and insome places and in some times

(38:17):
get the benefit of theirracialized stereotypes seeming
like they play well with theBritish, that does not mean that
all Sikhs support the British,nor does it mean that the
British were like good to Sikhpeople. That's patently untrue,
and also like a silly claim ifany of you were to make it and
cite me, and you would never,because you are not silly. But

(38:39):
the British were in India forhundreds of years with varying
degrees of control that variedin both region and time. And a
lot of folks are confused by theBritish simultaneously trusting
and distrusting Sikhs. But likereal talk, that is actually just
how racism works.

Yeah, some of the Sikhs were some of the good
ones, right? Yes. So yeah,exactly.

Sikhs were seen at various times as
more trustworthy than Hindu andMuslim counterparts. But that
doesn't mean that they get to betrustworthy. They're just
relatively more so than theseother notably larger and more
politically powerful groups. Allconquering armies and Imperial
regimes need partners. Sometimesthat was Sikhs, especially in

(39:24):
service positions, which I'mgoing to lump in the military.
There I have been in Britishacademic spaces, please mind
spent the better part of theyear in the UK as part of a
Fulbright. So I've been in manyBritish academic spaces where
military historians inparticular--and it's always the
military historians--and theywax philosophic about Sikh

(39:46):
regimens in the British Army asa way to both demonstrate how
diverse the military was, evenif it was segregated, these
blowhards do not know whothey're talking to, or as a way
to think about theCommonwealth's role within
Europe's Wars. And that'simportant, because even as
people in the West site howSikhs fought in, say, World War
One, few people cite that inapril of 1919, not fucking, six

(40:11):
months after Armistice Day, theBritish committed an obscene and
grizzly massacre against unarmedSikhs at Amritsar, literally the
most holy site in all of Sikhismaround a major holiday Vaishaki,
which is like it is anunspeakable massacre. Hundreds

(40:35):
and hundreds and hundreds ofpeople were killed at their
place of worship. Many, manymore were injured, and most
folks who are like goodhistorians, point to this
incident as the real turningpoint for popular and political
support for independencemovements across South Asia. So
I want you to hear that eventhough the British, in many
ways, will talk about how theyhave favored Sikhs as a

(40:58):
religiously constituted racialgroup that did not save Sikhs
from these brutal treatment,including this, like honestly,
one of the worst massacres inSouth Asia under British rule.
Anyway, all of this matters toour girl Jane, because part of

(41:19):
the revelation about her life inthe manor with her Sikh
employers and you know, loveinterest, is that her training
in weaponry. Yeah, there's like,Sikh traditional weapons. And
all of the Sikh people are like,Yeah, of course, we know how to
use this, like, five part whipthat will take someone's back
off. Like, and and the like socalled butler--all of these

(41:41):
folks are construed later to beleaders of the Sikh Empire, and
not just like casual ninjas orsomething. So I want you to hear
that this racialization of Sikhsas martial race shows up in this
book, and it ends up beingpositive for our main character.
But that is not without its ownlike, problematic literary and

(42:03):
cultural history.

It's dope that so many of the women living in that
house know how to defendthemselves in some very
spectacular and, like, frankly,I would watch this movie sort
of, well, yeah,

no.
Like, the weapons they describe,I have, like, some of them are
legit, and I've seen them in,like, weapon museum. I do do a
little bit of militaryhistories. Like, I go to weapons
museums, that's right, I go toweapons museums

so New Jersey weapons.

But like, Well, I mean, listen, if
you got a good switchblade,like, I've been to the oranges,
you know what? I mean, like, II've been to East Rutherford.
Like, I know what's up, butlike, I think that there's a
space where--it's meant to bereally empowering, and I do find
it really sympathetic towardsSikhs. It's not--it's not

(42:51):
racist. But I read this as a19th century historian, like,
Oh, this feels it's like, closeto the bone in a way that I
can't quite articulate neatly.

Well, I mean, you have the main characters who are
very sympathetic, but doing kindof a benevolent racism toward
their Sikh friends and likefamily members, honestly, where
they have been accepted in asconverts to Sikhi themselves.

(43:23):
Um, they--should be lessshocking than it is--they but
are treating all of theirmembers of their household as
full humans and and not in awell, not in the dehumanizing
way that Jane was raised by heraunt, for example. But yes, even

(43:45):
the celebration of the Sikhcharacters as fantastically
martially able does come out ofa more complicated history of
racialized religion.

But I will say I found one of the
things I found in that thatfelt, and I'll be totally
honest, I liked this book. I didnot love it in the way that you
loved it.

I really love Jane Eyre, though. So

yeah, and I'm like, meh on Jane Eyre,
because, like,

I don't understand you.

Yeah, you do. I just don't have
patience for this kind ofnonsense. But like, one of the
things that felt bothinteresting and sympathetic, and
if I can mix Indian metaphorshere, it felt a little close to
like noble savage tones, is thatwhen you see Jane move from this

(44:39):
abusive Christianity andProtestant white Christianity
into this white-mediated brownreligion, yeah, and the white
mediated brown religion in thebody of Charles this, this man
who becomes her love interest,and they like run away together
having killed everybody bad.
He's, like, down with themurders, yeah, because they are

(45:01):
justice based, but he also seesthat as a part of righteousness.
So we go from like, virtuousnessand righteousness, being,
listening to your elders,following these rules,
repenting, like, accepting thatyou're a bad person, that you're
going to hell, and like, somehowJesus fits into that. I don't
really know. Don't ask me aboutthe goyim. But then at the end,
she's so worried that this guy,Charles, is not going to accept

(45:23):
her, that she sort of likeblurts out all the people she's
killed. And like, in this veryloving scene, he's like,
brushing her hair with hisfingers, and he's like, tell me
about each murder. And she does.
And he's like, great, that wasjustified. Great, that was
justified. But he is portrayedas so religious. So part of what
I find interesting, curious,worthy of our attention, is that

(45:48):
we move from this likeunderstanding of a religious
background, where it'soppressive, you're supposed to
suck it up on behalf of thewhole, on behalf of
civilization, you should acceptabuse.

Yes

to, on behalf of civilization, we
protect our own because, like,that group of people living in
the Highgate Manor is, like,Charles, all of the Sikh
employees who are like, I don'tknow, members of the royal
family. And then this littlegirl, everyone's like, like,
literally, they get into like,Power Ranger formation, like we

(46:20):
protect us. We protect us is thevibe. And so I both find that
really charming and reallyalluring, but also a little
like, why are all the brownpeople, the people that are,
like, noble here? Like, what isthat? What work is that doing?
And I don't, I don't think it'sdoing bad work. It doesn't have
like, Hiawatha vibes, or like,last of the Mohegan like

Yeah Last of the Mohegans -- That's what I was
thinking up.

it doesn't have THAT going on but
it, it, it's not fully removedfrom that, either, if I'm being
honest, where like Sikhi here islike, murder's good. Like, you
get the impression that likeCharles is okay with the killing
because they were just killing,and I'm part of a martial
religion, so of course, I'd bedown with the killing.

yeah

whereas Christianity is just warlike and
violent, but doesn't say thatout loud. That's like the
underbelly of it, but it's notthe stated purpose, and that
feels like the tension of like,why we're unhappy, but I don't
know, maybe I'm just riffing onnothing.

I mean, no, I think there's a lot going on
there. I also like, I don'tknow. It was just it was such an
unexpected turn from a book thatfelt so close to Jane Eyre, even
with the liberties that theystart immediately taking to
like, Oh, I did not expect toend up in Punjab. Okay, this was

(47:43):
not, and I, I did not expectSikhi to be presented as the
superior religion, which it verymuch is. Sikhi also gets not
detached from Empire, right?
Because Charles, main companion,is very critical about the way
that Sikh martial forces soldout Sikhs to the British Empire

(48:04):
and got so very many peoplekilled. Yeah, it just it is
doing a way more nuanced thingwith religion than I expect a
book about queer misandristmurder to have done. So that was
part of my delight. Was this wasI thought I knew what I was
getting, and it just took acomplete left turn for me. And
it's, it is clever, and it isoften very funny, and the scenes

(48:31):
where she is being vulnerablewith the people that she loves
are just so heart wrenching.

Yeah

she like her reconnecting very briefly with
Clark and realizing that Clarkabsolutely had the hots for her,
and they never acted on it theway that she is unabashedly
attracted to Charles, and alsoresolved to run away because
she's no good for him. Like,it's really striking. And I

(49:06):
don't read a ton of romance, sothe fact that I was so sucked
into this just, it was reallydelightful, and I liked it a
lot. And I just, yeah, I justreally like this book.

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuer (49:17):
amazing.
Well, on that note, we've gotsome homework. Nerds,

Simpsons (49:27):
homework. What homework?

I'm not going to read everything
that I put in the script,Goodwin, because there's a lot,
but I will put it in the shownotes, my number. I'll like
specifically rec three thingsand it Goodwin, if you have
things to rec, please do afterI'm done. The first is Kim
Wagner's, Kim Wagner's Amritsar1919: an empire of fear in the

(49:51):
making of a massacre, which is apretty new book, or new ish book
at this point, is fantastic. Itis, to me, the best contemporary
read of the Amritsar massacreand it should be mandatory
reading for anyone who'sinterested in British Empire or
South Asia or even just thinkingabout race. And then there's a
few things on martial races.
Amanda Lanzillo has a whole bookcoming out, but she has this

(50:13):
really great open access articlewith AJAM media on artisanship
and how race gets definedthrough what you do. Harleen
Kaur, who I cited at the top,has something that I think is
open access, but if not, I'llget you the PDF. And then
there's a piece from PradeepBarua, who is an oldie. It's

(50:35):
like from the 90s, but it'scalled inventing race, the
British and India's martialraces. And he goes through all
of the spaces where warlikenesswas either harnessed or
punished.

Hmm, I feel like you might have also written a
book that is pertinent to thisconversation.

It's not about martial races per se,
but it is about the 19thcentury, race and racialization.
And yes, it is called IndianMuslim minorities and the 1857
rebellion. Goodwin. I'm I'mcurious, I think you wrote a
book about abuse and religion?

Ah, fair, I did write a book about abuse and
religion. It is called AbusingReligion. It is available
wherever books are sold, throughRutgers University Press. The
only other thing I was going torecommend, honestly, was our
podcast Sikh of not knowingabout Sikhi, where we learned a
bunch about Sikhi from ourfriend and friend of the pod,
Simran Jeet Singh, so if youwant to know more about Sikhs,

(51:31):
you should listen to thatepisode and check out the show
notes, because we put a bunch ofsources and resources in there.

You can find us across all social
media platforms these days, ourwebsite is keeping it 101 dot
com. Our book Religion Is NotDone With You is available with
Beacon Press, if you want tohave us visit your campus or
local bookstore, please checkout our website for more details
on how to get that done. Pleaserate and review this podcast. It
helps people find us, and withthat: peace out, nerds

and do your homework. It's on the syllabus.

Try not to do any murders

unless you really have to, in which case God
understands.

I'm glad you didn't say we support
you. We do, but we're not sayingit on The pod.

Unknown (52:16):
I That Earl had to die goodbye.

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