CFP: Political Issues

Teaching Theology and Religion

Special Call for Papers

“Political Issues in the Classroom”

Have you ever had a class session when you decided to completely abandon what you had planned because of the sudden outbreak of a significant political or cultural event? – when the controversy has nothing to do with the explicit contents or aims of your course, but is suddenly stirring public discussion of religion and politics?

Teaching Theology and Religion, an international peer reviewed journal published by Wiley-Blackwell, seeks 5000 word essays that address the topic of whether and how you address issues of political and cultural controversy in your classroom.

When the Islamic State (ISIS) suddenly bursts into the news cycle again, when some politician makes some statement about Muslim immigrants, when transgender bathrooms suddenly become a cultural discussion point, when the Pope releases an encyclical that provokes extensive media commentary, or when religiously motivated demonstrations disrupt your campus or community: Do you make your classroom a forum for discussion of political and cultural controversies? Do you discuss or promote or allow for arguments about the role of religion and the scholar of religion in political or cultural controversies? Do you take time out of your syllabus to analyze and discuss how the academic study of religion and/or the scholar of religion as an engaged citizen might relate to such events and issues within the study of religion and the study-of religion-classroom?

One way you might structure your essay would be to analyze a specific critical incident in which public discussion of religion suddenly encroached on your classroom. What did you decide to do? Analyze the moves you made in the classroom, the decisions you made, how the students reacted, how the classroom session played out, and whether it impacted the overall impact of the course as a whole. What did you learn from the experience? What would you do differently next time? How do these sorts of class sessions contribute to your learning goals for that course, and your broader purposes as a teacher and scholar?

5000 word minimum

Guidelines, Style Sheet, and Process for Submissions