What Explains Our Unshakeable Fascination with Cults? On the next Fiat Lux Redux, Tuesday, September 2 at 9am, California magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Pat Joesph speaks with Dr. Poulomi Saha, teacher of the popular UC Berkeley course Cults in Popular Culture and author of the upcoming book Enthralled: Our Cult Obsession and the End of Belief. They discuss this American obsession with cults and other groups that offer a sense of ‘total belief and total enthrallment’ and why people are drawn to these communities, especially in times of crisis. This California Live! event took place at BAMPFA Thursday, March 27, 2025, as a co-presentation of California Magazine and the Cal Alumni Association.
Dr. Poulomi Saha is Associate Professor of English and codirector of the Program in Critical Theory at UC Berkeley. A scholar of Asian American literature, postcolonial studies, and queer and feminist theory, they are the author of An Empire of Touch: Women’s Political Labor and the Fabrication of East Bengal, winner of the Harry Levin Prize for Outstanding First Book in the Field, American Comparative Literature Association.
This program was edited by Mike Gill. If you have questions or comments about Fiat Lux Redux, contact Lisa Katovich at lisa.katovich@gmail.com.
Fiat Lux Redux presents previously aired lectures, conversations, and podcasts originating on the campus of UC Berkeley every other Tuesday from 9am to 9:30am. These often-lengthy original programs have been edited to a 30-minute format by experienced KALX producers. The show’s name, Latin for “Let there be light”, is a reference to the University of California’s motto, which is also Fiat Lux. The show’s goal is to provide listeners with a window into the intellectual and cultural life of UC Berkeley and to showcase the wide range of subjects and diversity of thought and ideas that are present at UC Berkeley.
