Colleges/Universities

Learning Abstract :
Site visits are often used in Religious Studies as an experiential method for teaching students about a particular tradition or community: instructors send students out to visit community spaces of worship. There is no question that such activities can be valuable learning experiences for students. But instructors need to reflect on their own positionality and that of their students, and the community, before they send students into the field. Intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and disability can play a significant role in how students and community members may encounter each other, and preparation is needed to identify possibilities for conflict, harm, or miscommunication. Instructors should also think carefully about the impact on the community, and consider how the institution can meaningfully provide reciprocal support. Site visits in Religious Studies should be grounded from beginning to end as a collaborative research opportunity rather than simply as cultural immersion.

Learning Abstract :
My fellowship project addressed student-learning issues concerning the use of Virtual Reality (VR through "Google expeditions" and "Sites in VR") in classroom teaching. My students learned how the material turn in the study of religions is crucial. With the tools of virtual reality as well as reading materials, they established that religious discourses emerge not in some abstract territory, but in lived experiences and practices in the spaces of the world. I learned that while their traditional epistemological practices are strongly ingrained in their lives, my students' theological stances regarding the tripod of power (race, gender, and class) were much more variegated than I had expected. The focus on materiality in the study of religions have helped my students to see their materiality, embodiment, and lived contexts in various ways and to claim their spaces physically and metaphorically.

Proposal abstract :
Women of color in academia face particular challenges in creating boundaries between work and life, due to their social locations and the institutional demands and challenges particular to that positioning. Working from home due to the pandemic has only compounded these difficulties, making porous boundaries between work and home even more porous, and increasingly blurring the lines between labor and larger personhood. The aim of this grant is to create changes in our living and working spaces to manage the toll of teaching remotely from home, and to reflect critically upon these changes. This grant will help us reimagine, readjust and recreate what work will look like as we move forward into a (hopefully) post-pandemic world, with an eye to disappearing boundaries between work and personhood for faculty.

Proposal abstract :
This fellowship is associated with 2020-21 EC Theological workshop

Proposal abstract :
With this grant, Hindu Studies scholars with diverse areas of specializations will collaboratively interrogate our positionalities and rethink how to reorient conventional modes of teaching Hinduism to better align with our desire to address forms of oppression and marginalization. Our goals are twofold: (1) to develop effective practices for teaching Critical Hindu Studies as racialized scholars and (2) to help reform teaching within the field of Hinduism. To move us in the direction of accomplishing these goals, we are applying for this grant to fund a workshop with Equality Labs, a pre-conference workshop before the AAR Annual Meeting with an interdisciplinary set of scholars, and a follow-up meeting with grant participants. As an outgrowth of these extended conversations, we hope to create a cohort of scholars who can work collaboratively to develop pedagogies and create new resources that address some of the problems in conventional historical and thematic approaches to teaching Hinduism.

Proposal abstract :
Building on the momentum from our 2022-23 grant, we are applying for a new Large Project Grant to develop an approach to teaching Hinduism and other South Asian religious traditions that is grounded in social justice. We will focus on the intersecting social injustices of Islamophobia, casteism, and anti-Black racism, which circulate throughout the South Asian diaspora and shape how we and our students enter the classroom. The objective of this project is to create a space for racialized scholars to think through these issues, develop teaching resources, and share strategies for challenging injustice in the neoliberal academy. Focusing on these three areas, our objective as teachers of Hindu Studies is to work in greater solidarity with other anti-racist activist endeavors. We are committed to thinking about how engaged pedagogies can extend beyond the classroom as we work to pursue justice and challenge inequality in our respective campuses and communities.

Proposal abstract :
For this project, I propose to gain knowledge on implementing emphases on social justice and activism in undergraduate Religion and Biblical Studies courses at an Historically Black institution. I will investigate pedagogical strategies that will help me integrate these emphases via reading key articles and books and holding conversations with professors at other HBCUs to learn from their wisdom and experience. I will then introduce new pedagogical strategies in the classroom in the Fall 2023 semester and design an assignment that engages issues of social justice and activism. Teachers of Religion and Theology often speak of the desire to help students in their courses

Learning Abstract :
For this project, I propose to gain knowledge on implementing emphases on social justice and
activism in undergraduate Religion and Biblical Studies courses at an Historically Black
institution. I will investigate pedagogical strategies that will help me integrate these emphases via
reading key articles and books and holding conversations with professors at other HBCUs to learn
from their wisdom and experience. I will then introduce new pedagogical strategies in the
classroom in the Fall 2023 semester and design an assignment that engages issues of social justice
and activism.
Teachers of Religion and Theology often speak of the desire to help students in their courses

Proposal abstract :
This workshop aims to improve the pedagogical practices of collegiate faculty in religion. Primarily, it aims to enhance anthropological approaches to the study of religion in the classroom, with particular attention to undergraduate students. The goal of this workshop is to supplement strategies in how to teach anthropological material in the study of religion (from Clifford Geertz to Talal Asad) without becoming overly dogmatic: that is, how instructors can teach it while also engaging useful critiques and/or complementary views on the relevant approaches. The first day of the workshop will focus on syllabus discussion through an overview of arguments to be discussed and topics to be covered in given classes on the anthropology of religion. The second day will focus on specific in-class strategies for learning comprehension among undergraduate students from different—private and public—institutional backgrounds.

Learning Abstract :
This workshop aims to discuss anthropological approaches to the study of religion in the classroom, with particular attention to undergraduate students. The goal of this workshop is to examine pedagogical strategies in how to teach anthropological material in the study of religion (from Clifford Geertz to Talal Asad) without becoming overly dogmatic: that is, how instructors can teach it while also engaging useful critiques and/or complementary views on the relevant approaches. The first day of the workshop will focus on syllabus discussion through an overview of arguments to be discussed and topics to be covered in given classes on the anthropology of religion. The second day will focus on specific in-class strategies for learning comprehension among undergraduate students from different—private and public—institutional backgrounds.