Religious Studies News

From my perspective, then, religion is monumental. It is ubiquitous, yet often unacknowledged. It is complex and diverse. It is problematic, and at the same time, it has great potential to ameliorate challenges of modern life through conviviality and enlightenment. For these reasons and so many more, I teach religious studies in the manner that I do, with an eye toward educating students for humanity. I want them to think critically about religion and about the world. Through these pedagogical processes I have learned much, too. Students want to be challenged. They want to be respected, which these interactive teaching methods communicate to them. And they relish opportunities to say and do something meaningful, through critical reflections and group projects, about the ways that they envision the world. Many if not most of them value the tools that they gain in the study of religion. For instance, conceptualizing and articulating complicated ideas through oral, technological, and written forms of communication, problem-solving, navigating creative group dynamics, and learning to have one’s perspective expanded in ways that have the potential to reshape the world — in small but meaningful ways — are all valuable assets that can be used in multiple courses of academic study and in numerous professional career paths.

Such a perspective on teaching religious studies at a large state university also requires self-awareness and self-conscious attention to the ways in which my own embodiment participates in the teaching process. For instance, I am well aware that I may be the only African-American professor many of these students will have in their entire academic career, and that many of my students, who come from the deep South, may not have ever been in a situation in which a black person was in an authoritative position as the purveyor of information and the leader of the class. And I certainly am not naïve about the implications for teaching. Again, the matters that I raise are both professional and personal. To this end, my attire is always professional. Many of my colleagues around the university are much more casual in their dress, and for me, wearing a shirt and tie is a matter of preference — I believe that the job is professional and requires that my attire be commensurate. Yet I am also conscious of what attire may say about my [black] body to my students and how this is a consideration that others — differently embodied — may take for granted. Would I be taken seriously in such a cultural and geographical setting, teaching subjects that are so personally and theoretically contested for many? Would a woman be able to take attire for granted?

Finally, I teach while being fully intentional about the ways in which my social location and embodiment may be impactful as they interact with the subjects that I teach — how being a heterosexual African-American man may function as a meaningful signifier in relation to teaching about the ways in which religion sometimes (re)produces unhealthful gender (regarding men and women), heterosexist, and racial norms. Therefore, I see teaching religion at a state university as both a challenge and an opportunity. It is a challenge in the sense that religious studies is probably the most misunderstood intellectual field in the university, and such a misreading of religious studies as confessional — and, worse yet, as not a viable arena for research and intellectual inquiry — continues to be a barrier that has to be navigated and overcome, given prevailing ideas of the separation of “church” (which is synonymous with what some think of religious studies) and state. On the other hand, teaching religion has enormous potential to orient young students to an increasingly diverse and complex world and to impart to them the impact that religion has on most every aspect of public and private life. I can only hope that state universities such as mine continue to invest in research and teaching in the field and see it as one of the most, if not the most, important scholarly areas in the university, given the reach that religion has in perhaps every realm of human life.