Category Archives: Courses

The emotional roller coaster of the peaceful Syrian revolutionaries of 2011

24 Monday Nov 2014

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Today a MESA panel discussed how the people committed to the Syrian revolution of 2011 experienced and continue to experience their lives. The most powerful was a presentation by Professor Wendy Pearlman of Northwestern University. In 2012 and 2013 she interviewed revolutionaries who had fled Syria to Jordan and Turkey. She speaks of four phases of fear:

  1. Fear as the coercive authority of the state: Before the revolution, “the walls have ears” and rumors of information about torture are everywhere.
  2. Fear as a barrier to be broken: During the protests, people muster a new ability to act through or despite fear. Some quotes: “Is that protester a man and I’m not a man?” “My generation could go out and protest, my parents experienced Hama 1982 [a massacre of protesters by the Hafez Assad regime].” “I engaged my humanity for the first time.” “It was better than my wedding day.”
  3. Fear as way of life: As the revolution devolves into a civil war, fear becomes the backdrop. People experience terror physically – breaking out in acne, having digestive problems. Horror becomes normalized – bodies buried in every public park, weekly routine planned around Friday massacres. From “Thank goodness the walls no longer have ears” to “Yeah, but now we don’t have walls.”
  4. Fear of the future: Now many of these young peaceful leaders are in exile. To some extent they have lost the sense of solidarity. They are closing in on themselves. They fear the radical Salafi trend: “All people could talk about in October 2013 was “Da’ash: ‘We did all these things for the revolution, and then Da’ash came and did all these things.’ The fear of the regime is gone, but now there is a fear of revolution itself.”

Emotion, experience and academic distance?

24 Monday Nov 2014

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Yesterday I attended the Middle East Studies Association meeting in which panelists and members discussed the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, in front of a meeting tomorrow to consider the Association joining the movement somehow. Professor Noura Erekat of George Mason University spoke in favor and Professor Ilan Troen of Brandeis University spoke against BDS. Then various professors and graduate students in the audience advocated for or against the idea of boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning Israel.

A few interesting points. Professor Erekat thinks a. Israel is treating Palestinians terribly (war on Gaza, settlements, ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem, the wall on West Bank land, etc.) b. all other options have failed and therefore c. MESA should support the BDS movement, even though it is only “a pathetic counterforce.” Professor Troen argues that a. Israeli Palestinians are well integrated into the Israeli educational system (1/3 Haifa U students are Palestinian, 22% of pre-med students are Palestinians, the most successful school is in the Arab triangle, there are many outreach programs for Palestinians) and Jews are native to the land, so this is not apartheid, b. academic organizations should not take stances on difficult political issues that are not apartheid and therefore c. MESA should not support the BDS movement.

Other speakers joined the debate. Several anti-BDS speakers argued hypocrisy, or in the words of one (Prof. Josh Teitelbaum) the “soft bigotry of low expectations” that we don’t discuss boycotting Libya, Iran, the corrupt PA, etc. Another argued that “BDS is an extension of warfare,” not a peaceful move. A conflicted Israeli professor argued that he does not want to be cut out of his “home” in MESA, but that “we need pressure from the outside. It is legitimate – I don’t see any internal force in my country that will change the situation.” Pro-BDS speakers, especially Professor Judith Tucker, noted that MESA can tailor its type of BDS and not isolate Israeli colleagues.

The room, I believe, held Israeli actions primarily responsible for the situation of the Palestinians, as indicated by applause when speakers pointed out Israeli injustice. Most of the discussion was polite. Several comments caused significant muttering disapproval. One was when Prof. Teitelbaum called BDS anti-Semitic, another when Prof. Troen’s responses to questions were heard as unrealistically portraying Palestinian Israelis as happy and successful. By far the most censure (perhaps disappointment?), however, was expressed against the pro-BDS Professor Lisa Hajjar when she described Prof. Troen as having limited intellectual ability. (Those words may not be exactly right, but they are close.) People were quite upset by that ad hominem attack, which she said that she “withdrew.”

When does it become incumbent on an organization of academics to take a political (ethical? moral?) stance? When is consensus a form of working together in unity, and when is it enforcing conformity?

A brief sidenote on some new (to me) educational technology

04 Thursday Sep 2014

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For the first time in several years I have added two technological tools that so far are benefiting my teaching.

The first, and simpler one to discuss is plickers. It’s a polling system. I love polling. Two days ago I polled my Abrahamic Traditions class on the question “Should we be tolerant of all religious beliefs?” Today I asked my ethics class a variant on the Buridan’s ass paradox.

For the last seven years or so, I have been laminating 3 x 5 index cards and handing out them and whiteboard markers. Kids would register their votes on the cards, and a student would gather the cards, tally the results and another student would write them on the board. I’ve been looking at clicker systems, but they are designed for larger classrooms and are expensive. We don’t allow students to carry cell phones around school, so voting by text like pollanywhere doesn’t work for me. Plickers are just the right combination of low and high tech for my situation. I downloaded an app onto my smartphone, and printed out a set of cards with computer readable symbols on them. When I want them to vote I pass out the cards (I laminated them). I go around the table scanning the students’ cards and depending on how the student holds the card, the system will register one of four vote choices. The vote is tallied automatically and represented on a private webpage as a bar graph. It’s not as fast as a clicker system or pollanywhere, but it is faster than writing, handing in and counting, it is free, and it works without kids needing to have their phones with them. So far it is a useful addition to my classroom, speeding things up a bit.

A plicker card - "A" side up to vote "A", etc.

A plicker card – “A” side up to vote “A”, etc.

The second, much larger change is a learning management system, in this case Canvas. I’d been messing with LMS options for years, and never quite getting over the hurdle to actually use one. Last spring I used Canvas for paper grading, and this year I put two of my three courses completely online. Grading papers is faster – I used to have kids email me their papers, but now when the students upload their papers to Canvas I can move from one to the next in the same window, and I don’t need to download, reupload, and send an email back. It also records the grade in a gradebook. Similarly with short written responses to readings – no hassles collecting them, I can quickly glance through them and give them a small grade (0 for not handed in, 1 for lame, 2 for complete – thanks to my colleague Nate Crimmins for the simple update to check, check plus, check minus!) I have also put video links in their syllabus, links to electronic versions of their readings, etc. Finally (for me at the moment – I know it includes a lot more tools) it is automatically capturing a portfolio of each student’s work.

It has been a great start to the year, and these tools are helping.

How to make the classroom more like travel?

04 Thursday Sep 2014

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How can I help students experience a Palestinian refugee camp while in a classroom 5700 miles away?

How can I help students experience a Palestinian refugee camp while in a classroom 5700 miles away?

Early this summer I led 17 students and two fellow faculty members to Israel and Palestine. There we met with folks who held many different perspectives on the conflict. No one would be surprised to hear that the students learned more in this time than they would have learned in the equivalent time in our home classroom. Nonetheless, there are lessons I have taken back from this experience that will definitely benefit my classroom. What follows are some initial thoughts.

Opportunity to powerfully envision the question

On our first day, we went to the Haram al Sharif. There we saw a religious Jew, against the rules of both the site and the law, come up with a prayer book and begin praying. Immediately, many Palestinians gathered around him and started chanting, “God is Great.” My students promptly had questions and opinions: shouldn’t he be able to pray wherever he wants? What is he trying to do by praying up here, a place that looks like a Muslim holy place? Are the police around him protecting him, allowing him to be up here? Or are they trying to escort him out? The religious history and political significance of the spot, as well as the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, immediately became highly relevant.

I plan on raising this specific encounter in my classroom. I will provide the students with some photos, and a tiny bit of background, followed by a description of the incident. Then I will ask: what questions does this raise for you? More broadly, I take from this idea the model of beginning from a highly relevant, charged moment to lead into a more in depth discussion.

Direct dialogue with those involved

One afternoon, a community leader guided us through a Palestinian refugee camp. He himself had had a close relative killed in the fighting, and was (nevertheless? Or therefore?) committed to a just and peaceful solution to the situation. Driving from 1948 Israel to the West Bank, seeing the camp and hearing from him, the students gained a much more resilient understanding of what it means for Palestinians to be refugees.

I will replicate three aspects of this experience in my classroom. Most directly, we will speak through videoconference with the representative or someone he recommends. Second, we will “see the camp” through seeing images, video and narrative. The most difficult aspect to capture will be an understanding of the distance, or lack thereof, from the places where the refugees had lived to where they live now. This I will accomplish through a combination of examining maps, viewing photos and videos of the checkpoints, and reading a written narrative of the old days.

Inspirational bonding with each other related to the topic

This is probably the most difficult aspect of educational travel to re-create in a classroom setting, and I will not attempt to do so directly. Our trip, however, has moved me to think more carefully about building those connections in the classroom. I will reemphasize my use of group projects aimed at solving real problems. For example, a new parent is the former ambassador to Jordan and the current ambassador to Iraq. I will ask my class to produce a report together that we will send to him, making recommendations for how to handle Islamic State (ISIS). This work will pull us together through working toward a shared goal.

These are just some of the teaching approaches inspired by my trip this summer. I am immensely grateful to all the donors who supported the students, and to St. Andrew’s for its generous support of my own ability to lead us to explore Israel and Palestine.

My religion and politics course so far

29 Wednesday Aug 2012

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Below is an unfinished syllabus for my religion and politics class. To date I’ve designed four units: 1. introductory provocative questions, 2. religion and U.S. politics, 3. religion and the U.S. president and 4. religion and the State of Israel. I’m working on units on the Arab Spring, on religion and state in Europe, and on religion and state in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Any ideas are welcome! You can also download it here.

Religious Studies VI: Religion and Politics in the Contemporary World

2012-2013

Question: How do, and should, people’s religious beliefs and practices influence their political beliefs and practices? How do, and should, their political views inform their religious commitments?

How to read this syllabus

 

Day #__          Today’s Question

Homework to be completed for this class appears here

Additional notes about what we will do in class appear here.

 

Religion and Politics: A taste of a few debates

Day 1   To what extent does religion effect politics, and vice versa: the case of territory.

Please read Terence Gilheany, ed. “Blog Entries on The Land is Ours.”

In class we will discuss the religious claim some settlers claim to the West Bank / Judea and Samaria. Are these religious claims invalid on their face? Why? What would counterarguments look like?

Day 2   To what extent does religion effect politics, and vice versa: the case of forced conversion

Please read Jacques Fornier, “Confession of Baruch the Jew.”

In class we will discuss: what can society do to avoid such tragedies? What precisely are the problems at issue in an institution like the Inquisition?

Day 3   To what extent should believers seek to rule by their beliefs?

Please read Augustine of Hippo, “Religion and Politics (TFGed).”

In class we will discuss: is Augustine justified in advocating that the Roman Empire support Christianity?

Day 4   When does fear of religious domination turn into prejudice?

Please read Thomas J. Heflin, “Warning Against the Roman Catholic Party.”

Is Heflin prejudiced? To what extent is his concern legitimate? What should be done with Heflin’s attitude?

Day 5   When should states defend individual rights against religious rights?

Caitlin Killian, “Five French Women Debate the Veil.”

Does France encourage an open society or prejudice when it bans the veil from schools? How would a caring society approach this question?

Day 6   How do we define religion? How do we define politics?

Please read Swanson, “Religion and Politics definitions.” Then please write a 300 word essay finishing the statement “The biggest reason religion and politics come into conflict is…”

Please submit the “why religion and politics conflict” essay.

What should the relationship be between religion and politics in the United States?

Day 7   What critiques might religious conservatives level at liberals? To what extent can and should the “culture wars” be reduced?

Please read Patrick Buchanan, “1992 Republican National Convention Speech” and EJ Dionne, “Culture War Treaty.” (2007).

To what extent is Buchanan right when he claims, “There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America”? Is there a “third way” as Dionne references, or would that require one side to surrender their religious beliefs?

Day 8   What are the concerns and interests of the “religious right” in the United States?

Please read Jane Mayer, “Bully Pulpit” (2012).

To what extent does the Christian Reconstructionist movement in general, and Bryan Fischer in particular, represent the true values of the United States? What aspects, if any, of liberal American religiosity are they omitting or misunderstanding?

Day 9   What critiques might religious liberals level at conservatives?

Please read Scott Appleby, “A Mormon-Catholic Ticket?” (2012) and Alice Chasan, “Why ‘Faith-based Diplomacy’ Matters” (2006).

To what extent do religious liberals like Madeline Albright and Scott Appleby represent the true values of the United States? What aspects, if any, of conservative American religiosity are they omitting or misunderstanding?

Day 10 What did the U.S. founding fathers say about the role of religion in politics?

Please read Thomas Jefferson, “Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom” (1786), Benjamin Franklin, “Letters about his Religious Views” (1780 & 1790), U.S. Continental Congress, “The Declaration of Independence” (1776), and U.S. Congress, “The First 10 Amendments To The Constitution As Ratified By The States” (1791). In the Amendments, please focus simply on the establishment and free exercise clauses of the first amendment.

To what extent do you hear more conservative or liberal stances towards religion and politics in these documents?

Day 11What are the advantages and disadvantages of an Enlightenment view of religion and politics?

Please read John Locke, “A Letter Concerning Toleration” (1689).

Should even a Christian dedicated to saving souls accept that such salvation should not be the task of government?

Day 12 How strong a version of seperation of church and state do we support?

Please write a 300-word essay interpreting the Establishment clause of the First Amendment. Some options: 1. Government should not make one form of Christianity the official religion, but should actively support Christianity in preference to other religions or to nonbelief. 2. Government should not make any religion the official religion, but should actively support religion in preference to nonbelief. 3. Government should not make any religion the official religion and should not support religion in preference to nonbelief. 4. Another stance that you hear in the Establishment clause.

 Please submit the “Establishment clause” essay.

What limitations, if any, should we place on the President’s religious beliefs?

Day 13 Why do so many care that the President be a Christian?

Please read Cathy Lynn Grossman, “Obama, Romney Share Their Christian Views” (2012), Luke Johnson, “Robert Jeffress: Mormonism Is A Cult, But A ‘Theological Cult’” and Michelle Geller, “Why So Many People Think Obama Is A Muslim.”

In class we will discuss why people are invested in the President being a Christian, what the results of this might be, and our views.

Day 14 Who counts as a Christian?

Please read Michael Otterson, “How do Mormons answer ‘non-Christian’ claims?” and Mason, “I’m a Mormon, Not a Christian.”

In class we will discuss questions people have about Mormons, ideas about what Romney’s Mormon identity have triggered in portions of the U.S. population.

Day 15 Why assert that Barak Obama is not a Christian?

Please read Pew, “Little Voter Discomfort with Romney’s Mormon Religion; Only About Half Identify Obama as Christian”

In class we will watch Barack Obama, “Call to Renewal Keynote Address.”

Day 16 To what extent is there a “stained-glass ceiling” in U.S. politics?

Please read Z. Byron Wolf, “Stained-Glass Ceiling- Would America Vote for a Non-Christian?

In class we will discuss to what extent voting for someone whose beliefs are similar to yours aligns with the spirit of democracy?

Day 17 What is the history of concerns about the President’s religion?

Please read Jay Dolan, “The Right of a Catholic To Be President” (2008).

In class we will watch John F. Kennedy, “Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.”

Day 18 What limits should the electorate place on the Presidents’ religion?

Please write a 300-word essay discussing the following fictional scenario: an organization called “Righteous Way” works to ensure that as many politicians are, in their words, “Bible-believing Christians.” They have funded attacks on Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, and Mormon candidates, as well as on Protestant candidates they judged not to be Bible-believing. How would you respond to this group? Would you sue them, asking the courts to limit their activities? Would you donate to an alternative group? Would you donate to this group? Other? Why?

Please submit the “Christian President” essay.

Religion and the State in contemporary Israel

Day 19 How do the founding principles of Israel regarding religion compare to the founding principles of the United States?

Please read Provisional Government of Israel, “Proclamation of Independence” and Israeli Knesset, “Basic Law – Human Dignity and Liberty”

In class we will discuss the concepts of “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion,” “freedom of religion,” and “a Jewish and democratic state.”

Day 20 How do the settlements relate to the State  of Israel and its values?

Please read Daniel Byman and Natan Sachs, The Rise of Settler Terrorism

In class we will discuss what the settlements are and some of the initial questions they raise for the relationship of Judaism to the State of Israel.

Day 21 To what extent is religion at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Maxine Dovere, “A Prominent Rabbi’s Take on Jewish Christian relations” (2012) and Rabbi Eliezar Melamed, “In the Merit of Six Houses.”

In class we will discuss the concept of the land and of redemption in both Jewish and Christian Zionism, as well as the secular defense of the settler movement.

Day 22 To what extent is religion at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Please read Dani Dayan, “Israel’s Settlers Are Here to Stay” (2012) and and Benjamin Weinthal, “German Jewish leader – Rescind Israel hater’s prize” (2012).

In class we will discuss the secular defense for the settler movement.

Day 23 To what extent is religion at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Please read Judith Butler, “I affirm a Judaism that is not associated with state violence” (2012) and Avelett Shani, “The West Bank’s Rabbi Menachem Froman has the solution to the conflict” (2012).

In class we will discuss the idea of a Judaism that advocates Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories.

Day 24 To what extent is religion at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Please write a 300-word essay on the question “Is it possible for Israel to be both Jewish and democratic? If not, what changes would you recommend? If yes, address the objections we have encountered in this unit.

Please submit the “Jewish and Democratic” essay.

The Arab Spring

Day 25 What

Please read

In class

Secularization and religious diversity in Europe

Day 26 What

Please read

In class

Religion and the states of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India

Day 27 What

Please read

In class

Help designing Religion and Politics course, please?

25 Wednesday Jul 2012

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I am designing a seminar for 14 highly motivated, well-prepared U.S. high school seniors, and I need your help! My initial thoughts:

“Course title: Religion and Politics in the Contemporary World

Course description: How do people’s religious beliefs and practices influence their political beliefs and practices? How to their political views inform their religious commitments? To develop our understandings of how these two powerful forces relate to each other we will look at a series of present-day case studies:

-Religion in the 2012 United States Presidential and national elections

-Religion and the State in contemporary Israel

-the Arab Spring in Egypt

-Secularization and religious diversity in Western Europe

-Religion and the states of contemporary India and Pakistan

-other case studies to be selected as current events warrant”

What other themes should I seek to address? What key questions should be on the table? And most importantly from my perspective in building this class, do you have recommendations for readings? Reading level: New Yorker and Atlantic articles, newspaper articles, Ted talks, scholarly essays with minimal jargon, well-edited historical sources (ie, something from the 17th century can work if it is introduced clearly and edited down to 15-20 pages.) Essentially if it would work for a high-powered college freshman it will work with these guys.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!