Embodied Pedagogies in the Study of Religion: Transforming the Classroom

Embodied Pedagogies in the Study of Religion provides a forum for creative, renowned teachers (professors and instructors) of religion to discuss ways in which they think about the embodied dimension of teaching and learning specific to their areas of expertise and how they have shaped their curriculum to engage and reflect their thinking. The goal of this volume is multiple: It will showcase deeply thoughtful and creative approaches to teaching and learning that will inspire other teachers and vivify the teaching and academic study of religion. It will raise complex epistemological and ontological issues that underpin the craft of teaching but are rarely discussed and even more rarely discussed with sophistication and about the craft itself. It will raise these issues in relation to multiple traditions that hold different and at times conflicting epistemologies and ontologies, thus opening a truly cross-cultural comparative dialogue. This cutting-edge volume is an open-ended conversation that embraces the exploration of different pedagogies with different kinds of content and quests for different forms of learning and understanding. Ultimately this volume will contribute to a developing conversation in religious studies that moves beyond rigid orthodoxies to a place of open creative, productive, and enacted exploration, cultivation, and theorization.