Religion & Teaching In and Beyond the Classroom
Given the renewed attention to teaching–including public teaching and online learning–that emerged during the pandemic, we want to end this yearlong series of discussions with the topic of teaching and public engagement. How are our fields thinking about re-imagining teaching in light of the pandemic/racial reckoning and how are faculty and universities preparing for the fall? This topic, of course, goes beyond the pandemic and we want to think about the role and impact of public teaching and how creative and thoughtful scholars are shaping the classroom, the blogsphere, and podcasts to better reach their core audiences.
Co-Host: Kate Bowler
Kate Bowler is Associate Professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School and a best-selling author. Her most recent book is The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities.
Co-Host: Philip Goff
Philip Goff, Chancellor’s Professor of American Studies, has been the director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture since 2000. An award-winning teacher, he has written about classroom textbooks and co-edited Themes in Religion and American Culture with Paul Harvey. Dedicated to public teaching, he has been a scriptwriter, consultant, and interviewee for documentaries related to religion in American life for PBS, BBC, and HBO.
Panelist: Caleb Elfenbein
Caleb Elfenbein is Associate Professor in the Departments of History and Religious Studies at Grinnell College, where he is also Director of the Center for the Humanities. His work explores religion, community, public life, and human welfare in different times and places. His most recent book is Fear in our Hearts: What Islamophobia Tells Us about America.
Caleb's full bio
Panelist: Gerardo Martí
Gerardo Martí is Professor of Sociology at Davidson College in North Carolina. He is author of A Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church, co-author with Mark T. Mulder and Aida I. Ramos of Latino Protestants in America: Growing and Diverse, and most recently co-author with Mark T. Mulder of The Glass Church: Robert H. Shuller and the Crystal Cathedral.
This event took place on May 20th, 2021.
Additional Resources
“Religion &”: Center Conversations on the State of Religion and the Current Moment
“Religion &” is a series of monthly conversations between leading academics and thinkers in multiple fields hosted by the Center to continue these critically important interventions. Every Third Thursday at 3p ET we discuss a topic that looks at the relationship between religion, the pressing issues of our day, and their impact on the fields we study.
Previous episodes of “Religion &” can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
A JOURNAL OF INTERPRETATION: This semiannual publication explores the interplay between religion and other spheres of American culture.
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