This paper studied a new dimension of international students, who are citizens of another country but came back to Turkey for religious education where their parents or grandparents are citizens. Did a five-year religious education process based on the main sources of Islam lead to a change in these students' religious attitudes and behaviors, and…

Much knowledge production, both academic and non-academic, is driven by a need to simplify the world in order to enable people to navigate the complexities of everyday life. Such simplifications not only risk offering less reliable representations of the world, they can also turn into disruptive and harmful images of the world. In this article,…

The Ritual in Practice Project, adapted from Elizabeth Corrie's Ascetic Withdrawal assignment, asks students in an introductory Religious Studies course at a public university to create a unique ritual practice, engage in it for a month, reflecting on it throughout the project. This activity attempts to circumvent what Jeanine Weakes Schoer calls…

While many college courses on "world religions" have as their foundation an assortment of institutionally-authoritative, primary sources selected from a canon of sacred texts, this paper argues for a critical reevaluation of such textually-based teaching methodologies in light of the religious literacy standards set by the American…

While defining "spiritual solidarity" and its importance for students in a context of growing extremism, this article explores the impact of using a new teaching tactic: "Human Books." The pedagogical purpose of "Human Books" is to propose an interactive learning experience joining formation and information, where…

A lively conversation has arisen in recent years among theologians concerning ethnographic theology. While liberation theologians have scarcely participated in it, an emphasis on lived experience -- which ethnography aims to understand -- lies at the heart of theologies of liberation. This article addresses the question of employing ethnographic…

This series of three essays by educators from Georgia, Texas, and Alabama examines teaching Asian Religions in the American South. Through reflection on individual experience, each essay offers concrete strategies for the classroom that can be utilized by fellow educators working in the American South, but can also inform pedagogy in other North…

This article discusses an experiential teaching method that uses secular activities that are simple, accessible, and analogous to religious practice in order to facilitate comparative religious study. These "analogous activities" -- for example, social rituals, stillness, yoga, a social media fast, singing, nonviolent communication, and…

In our ostensibly secular age, discussing the real-world contexts and impacts of religious traditions in the classroom can be difficult. Religious traditions may appear at different times to different students as too irrelevant, too personal, or too inflammatory to allow them to engage openly with the materials, the issues, and each other. In this…

In this article, I explore an ethical and pedagogical dilemma that I encounter each semester in my world religions courses: namely, that a great number of students enroll in the courses as part of their missionary training programs, and come to class understanding successful learning to mean gathering enough information about the world's religious…

The learning goals of a well-designed course in the liberal arts include not only the imparting of knowledge but also the development of critical thinking and disciplinary expertise. A class on Luther can help students acquire those intellectual skills associated with the discipline of history and the liberal arts more generally as they consider…

This conversation between the editors of "Teaching Theology and Religion" and Joanne Maguire Robinson continues an occasional series of interviews that has previously featured Jonathan Z. Smith, Stephen Prothero, Mary Pierce Brosmer, and Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore. The exchange takes as its point of departure the teaching statement…

In the undergraduate religious studies classroom at the University of Leeds students are introduced to the complexity of religion in locality. One of the most engaging ways to do this is through a place-based pedagogy utilizing independent fieldwork as part of the learning process. However, undergraduates, like seasoned researchers, must learn to…

This essay analyzes student learning through place-based pedagogies in an American Religions course. In the course, students analyzed cultural meanings and practices of regional religious communities and participated in sensory awareness and ecological learning in a campus garden. Embodied learning increased student understanding and appreciation…

After illustrating the joys of teaching religious studies abroad with an anecdote from my trip to China, I warn of some of its inherent pedagogical and ethical challenges. I argue that teaching some of the "new directions" in religious studies scholarship might address these challenges. These include a turning away from the abstract…