IN THIS ISSUE Teaching with October 2004 Published by the American Academy of Religion Vol. 19, No. 4 Site Visits www.aarweb.org Unexpected Learning Opportunities of the Site Visit ...... ii Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger

An Insider Perspective from the Temple ...... iii EACHING WITH P. Ravi Sarma T

Site Visits and Epistemological Diversity in the Study of Religion ...... iv Jeffrey Carlson

The Nuts and Bolts of Site Visits ...... v Grace G. Burford Site Visits Native American Site Visits Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger, Emory University in the Context of Service Guest Editor Learning ...... vi Michael D. McNally

Site Visits to Synagogues . . .vii Michael S. Berger Site Visit to a Mosque . . . .viii From the Editor’s Desk Amir Hussain

Integrating Field Research in the Introductory Religion Course ...... ix Ground: World Religions in America Sheila E. McGinn (1997), eloquently, vividly, and impres- sively document the transformation of Integrating Site Visits in the religious landscape of the U.S. the Pluralism Project at Dotted across urban and rural America A picture’s not worth Connecticut College ...... x are places of worship, community cen- a thousand words ters, and cultural festivals that under- Patrice C. Brodeur score the stunning fact that “the United unless one knows all States has become the most religiously “ them words! Site Visits from a diverse nation on earth.” The implica- Journalist’s Perspective . . . .xi tions of this are many, least of which is Gustav Niebuhr the need for enlightened mutual recog- nition, a prerequisite for civil society. Temples of Culture: Using The articles in this issue of Spotlight Museums for Site Visits . . .xii Tazim R. Kassam However, as the cartoon illustrates, ” carefully examine the complexity of Site Lisa Bellan-Boyer understanding requires far more than just Spotlight on Teaching Editor Visits (broadly defined) and the risks seeing. In a world saturated with images and opportunities involved in using (still and moving) that function as the The AAR Committee on them. Wide-ranging in scope, they primary medium for the message, Teaching and Learning (Eugene address the practical nuts-and-bolts of ORTUNATELY, the study of reli- Marshall McLuhan’s prediction that “The V. Gallagher, Chair) sponsors organizing site visits as well as their ped- gion offers much occasion for future of the book is the blurb” is not far Spotlight on Teaching. It appears agogical, ethical, and intellectual dimen- humor. This issue on Site Visits, off the mark. Modern communication twice each year in Religious F sions. Readers will learn why the con- shaped and produced with the expert technologies have intensified the use of Studies News—AAR Edition and tributors use site visits in their teaching; assistance of guest editor Joyce and (often exclusive) reliance upon the focuses on teaching and learn- how they prepare their students for ing around a particular theme, Flueckiger, reminds me of a cartoon I visual senses as a source of information. them and integrate them into course concern, or setting. once stuck on my office door. In a Ironically, while students may assume assignments; the types of challenges dimly lit restaurant, family members are that reading a book or journal article is Editor their students and hosts face during site kneeling on the carpet around their harder to do than watching a video or visits; and alternatives or substitutes to Tazim R. Kassam table as diners look on astonished. A attending a religious festival, the rigors of site visits (for example, museums and Syracuse University customer asks, “Religious ceremony?” checking facts and sources, analyzing Web sites). Embracing the opportunity Waiter replies, “Lost contact lens!” A multiple perspectives, assessing logic, and to learn from the dynamic and multi- Guest Editor delightful way to cast doubt on the asking critical questions are intellectual faceted religious landscape of America, Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger WYSIWYG principle (what you see is tasks applicable to both. Hence, the train- the articles also signal the pitfalls of Emory University what you get). ing of perception and visual intelligence is mere sightseeing, and chart ways to a crucial part of developing students’ making these encounters truly transfor- Spotlight on Teaching Diana Eck’s A New Religious America thinking skills. To rephrase the Chinese mative and educational. ❧ is published by the (2001) and the myriad projects she has proverb: A picture’s not worth a American Academy of Religion undertaken under the Pluralism Project, thousand words unless one knows all 825 Houston Mill Road including the CD-Rom On Common them words! Suite 300 Atlanta, GA 30329 Visit www.aarweb.org Religious Studies News — AAR Edition Unexpected Learning Opportunities of the Site Visit

Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger, Emory University Guest Editor

Every site visit will generate different kinds find ways to keep students from overgen- of unexpected learning opportunities for eralizing about Hindu practices and com- different kinds of students. Here I will munities based on a single site visit. We However, students may describe just a few (initially) unintended are fortunate in a large urban context like also consciously or consequences of site visits to Hindu tem- Atlanta to have several Hindu temples, ples that my students and I have experi- and in any given class, small groups of stu- unconsciously draw other enced over the last decade. First, however, dents usually visit several different tem- “conclusions from the site let me describe very briefly what some of ples. After their fieldwork, members of my pedagogical goals are in sending stu- each group report orally about their visits visit that we do not want dents to Hindu temples, how some of and we discuss the differences between the them to or that may these goals have changed over the years various temples. Hindu students often because of the unexpected learnings I have report the differences they see in the sites be unwarranted. witnessed in students, and the kinds of they have visited in Atlanta compared to preparation I give my students before visit- their home temples elsewhere in the U.S. U.S., and temple communities, are contin- Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger is Associate ing the temple. and those they have visited in India. ually shifting and more flexible than may Professor in the Department of Religion Nevertheless, there is a wide range of ritual meet the eye on a single visit. It is impor- and Director of Asian Studies, Emory My primary pedagogical goal in the tem- practices (including those of various ” tant to remind ourselves that religion is University. She is the author of Healing at ple site visit has been to enable students to regions, castes, and classes of India) that not static and thus what students observe the Crossroads: Sufi Practice, Gender, witness or experience the ritual of wor- are not represented by the diversity of tem- in a single site visit needs to be contextual- and Religious Identities at the Crossroads shiping the deity through making offerings ples here in the U.S. ized in time and place, with a realization in South India (forthcoming) and Gender to his/her image/murti, i.e., puja. I also and Genre in the Folklore of Middle that institutions, communities, and indi- want students to experience the seeming Single site visits may result in other gener- India (Cornell University Press, 1996). viduals in those communities change. I informality and individuality of worship in alizations that are not accurate. For exam- myself was caught unaware by some shifts Hindu temples. I encourage Hindu stu- ple, students may conclude from their site in the temple that many Emory students dents to visit a temple that they do not visits that women have little participation visit, shifts that I needed to know about regularly attend or whose traditions repre- in Hindu ritual practices as direct offici- when I gave suggestions to the class about sent those of a different region than that ates, since temple rituals in the kinds of OR A SITE VISIT to be successful, appropriate behavior in the temple. I’ll tell from which the student’s parents come. temples that are present in the U.S. are it will have specific pedagogical goals, the story here, as it brings up several gen- Here the pedagogical purpose is to expose officiated by Brahmin men only. Students the students will prepare for what eral points about site visits, as well as illus- F Indian-American Hindu students to the would not know of women’s prominence they will see, hear, and otherwise experi- trating the dynamism of religious sites to diversity of traditions within Hinduism. I in domestic Hindu ritual life, including ence, and the experience will be integrated which we may send our students. prepare students for the temple site visit daily rituals at domestic puja shrines. On into class discussions rather than tacked by discussing at length the puja ritual, the other hand, women in temple commu- on as an “extra” (touristic) activity. But In telling my students what to expect in a fieldwork, of which the site visit is one site visit to a Hindu temple, I include a genre, is serendipitous and often cannot be discussion of whether and how they can “contained” within the pedagogical param- accept the food offered to a Hindu deity eters that we as professors might set. It is (prasad). For observant Jews and evangeli- important for us to try to account for and cal Christians, I explain that their own tra- address what students may learn that we dition may dictate that they should not may not have intended — some of these accept prasad; but I also explain to them unexpected learnings are positive and oth- that, for the Hindus, the offering of prasad ers may have more subtly negative conse- and its acceptance may mean something quences. For example, in visiting sites that quite different from how some Jewish or are new to them, students often reflect on Christian traditions have interpreted it. and may question aspects of their own tra- From a Hindu point of view, acceptance ditions. When the site visit presents of prasad is not necessarily a theological and/or requires unfamiliar body language statement of belief, but can simply be an and position, students may learn about acceptance of hospitality being offered by cultured, bodily ways of being in the the priest. It is his duty to offer it. world. They may learn as much about dif- However, I assure my students, there are ferent modes of hospitality or child-raising gracious ways to refuse prasad, including as particular rituals or sacred texts. These stepping back from the circle of those are positive lessons, albeit unintended. accepting it, gently indicating with one’s hands that one does not want to accept it However, students may also consciously or (and I show them appropriate gestures, unconsciously draw other conclusions including a namaste hand gesture and from the site visit that we do not want shaking one’s head). them to or that may be unwarranted. They may make false generalizations about An effigy of the demon Ravana being burned outside the Hindu Temple of Atlanta during the Dashera After having been abroad once in India for a religious tradition, or “religion” more festival, October 2003 (Photo courtesy of Joyce B. Flueckiger). a year’s research, I began teaching a large generally, based on a single experience or “Introduction to Religion” class at Emory series of experiences at one site. Or stu- and sent members of the class to the introducing key terminology of the ritual, nities in the U.S. often have positions of dents may make unconscious conclusions Hindu Temple of Atlanta before I myself showing slides of puja in a wide spectrum leadership (such as temple president) that about what kinds of sites and experiences had had time to visit. I gave the explana- of contexts (home, temple, roadside they would not have in India. Non-Hindu are worthy of study at all. For example, for tion above about prasad and an explana- shrine), and showing the Smithsonian students may also make incorrect conclu- pragmatic reasons, site visits are usually tion of how to “refuse prasad” that had video titled Puja (1996), which both sions about the relative importance of made to public, institutional spaces of reli- always worked in earlier years. But several shows pujas in India and the U.S. and temple ritual to that of domestic ritual gious traditions, not domestic or private students returned from the temple visit gives commentary on the meanings of based on their experiences of public insti- spaces of worship. As Karen McCarthy and reported that my suggestions did not puja by both first- and second-generation tutional religious practice in their own tra- Brown has so passionately argued (2003), work. One student said with a rather Indians in the U.S. So, theoretically, stu- ditions, hence the importance of continu- when students visit institutional spaces of trembling voice, “But Dr. Flueckiger, they dents have been exposed to a wide range ally balancing site visits to public Hindu religion, they may identify and limit the made me take prasad.” The students said of puja practices and know that it is both a institutions with slides, videotapes, or per- study of religion generally, or particular that they had gone to the back of the tem- domestic and temple ritual. sonal narratives of domestic religious prac- religious traditions more specifically, with ple to step aside from the group being tice. In a city with Indian restaurants and those kinds of institutional spaces. offered prasad, but that the priests had fol- A major challenge in teaching Hinduism stores, we can send students to visit these Domestic practices of a tradition and/or lowed them to the back. This seemed in American universities, however, is the too, and ask them to look for signs of pri- entire religious traditions that take place uncharacteristic, but I understood what need to continually remind students of the vate (almost domestic) altars (altar shelves) outside of institutional spaces may be left had happened when I myself went the rich diversity of Hindu traditions and to in these kinds of public spaces. out altogether from “what counts.” The next weekend with my children. We spent remind them that Hindu traditions they site visit may also mask multiple religious several hours at the temple, so there were see or experience in the United States rep- Worship communities of any kind affiliations of those worshippers whom several occasions when my children could resent only a small segment of the vast observed during site visits, including fami- students meet at a particular site. have accepted prasad. By the end of the spectrum of Hindu traditions. We need to lies, neighborhoods, ethnic groups in the morning, they were no longer interested in ii • October 2004 AAR RSN SPOTLIGHT ON TEACHING An Insider Perspective from the Temple

P. Ravi Sarma, Hindu Temple of Atlanta

May 1992. The principal deity is Lord was host to one of the meetings of the ing the worship service at that time. The Venkateswara. However, the temple fol- Metro Atlanta Interfaith Alliance. Often, priests are well aware that some people lows both Saivite and Vaishnavite tradi- speakers from the temple also visit church- may not want to accept these offerings and tions. In fact, a Siva temple has been con- es and synagogues, by invitation, to talk they respect that decision. They are gradu- structed and the consecration ceremonies about the Hindu faith and its traditions. ally learning to communicate in English took place in May 2004. and, as time goes on, they may be able to There are no restrictions that are specific explain the meaning of the various rituals The temple is very busy during the week- to a non-Hindu. Everyone follows the in English. ends. Even though Sunday is not particu- same rules inside the temple. The temple larly a sacred day in Hindu tradition, and priests are trained in the worship and ser- Given the intense interest in learning more there is no day of Sabbath in Hinduism, in vice traditions of South India. They speak about the temple and its traditions and most of the temples in Western countries, one or more of the South Indian lan- practices, the executive committee and the Sundays have become the days when most guages. They do not have a very good education committee have decided to put people come to worship. This is due to command of English language. However, together scheduled tours of the temple, secular reasons of convenience and they do understand when someone speaks when a trained volunteer will give a brief P. Ravi Sarma is secretary of the Hindu scheduling of activities around school-age to them in English. In Hindu tradition, introduction and then take the visitors on Temple of Atlanta and one of its trustees. children’s curricular and extracurricular the temple priest is a functionary, rather a guided tour. Materials are being prepared He is a medical oncologist with a private needs. than a minister or a pastor. They supervise for this project and volunteer training will practice in Atlanta. Dr. Sarma is a leader and perform the temple rituals. take place in the near future. In the begin- in the Indian community and actively sup- Over the years, the temple has welcomed ning, scheduled tours will be offered twice ports the arts as founder and current chair many visitors, both Hindu and non- People visit the temple for darshan, that is, a month. Depending on the response and of the Indian American Scholarship Fund. Hindu. Of particular note are the students to see and be seen by God. The priest per- the need, they may be offered on a weekly and faculty from various institutions of forms a puja (ritual during which offerings basis. This will not preclude a visitor com- higher learning, as well as groups from the are made to God), generally emphasizing ing to the temple during regular hours to various metropolitan Atlanta and Georgia the glory of God and asking for forgiveness observe the happenings and talk with wor- HE HINDU TEMPLE of Atlanta is churches. Students come because of a class and blessings on behalf of the devotees. shippers and priests informally. a traditional South Indian temple, assignment, usually in their religion class, There is no sermon and there is no preach- both in its architecture and in the T South Asian studies course, or ing. When a non-Hindu visits the temple, The Hindu Temple of Atlanta has been liturgy of worship services conducted interfaith/intercultural studies course. he or she will observe the puja and may be trying to be truthful to the requirements of there. It has been operational since Churches come to understand other reli- offered prasad (food or flowers offered to a traditional South Indian temple, while December 1990. Installation of murthis gions, many times as fieldwork for their the deity and returned to worshippers as mindful of the needs of a community that and their consecration was performed in interfaith seminars. Recently the temple blessed) along with other devotees attend- is in a Western society. ❧ the ritual activities and were playing at Finally, students visiting temples here in the back of the main temple room. And Atlanta are almost uniformly impressed by then I heard one of the priests call out to the openness and hospitality with which them, “Come, come; eat, eat.” And I they have been received. And we often knew what had happened. In my year- speak in class of ways in which we can long absence, the priests had learned reciprocate this hospitality. It can rarely be minimal English — enough to know direct (as it often is not in fieldwork in that the imperative in Telugu could be India), but students learn that reciprocity translated as “come, eat,” but not can take many forms, even if not the same enough to know that English imperatives form in which hospitality has been given. do not have the connotation of invita- Sometimes the only reciprocity is listening tion that they do in Telugu: “Won’t you and engaging in conversation; we some- please come and eat?” We have since had times send site visit reports back to those many class discussions about cultured worshippers with whom students have ways of asking and receiving prasad. exchanged e-mails. Emory has also invited community members to the university for I have subsequently met with the temple India-related events, and has made space priests to explain to them why someone available for various community-sponsored might not want to accept prasad. I events that are relevant to our curriculum opened the discussion by asking the and students. priests whether there had been any prob- lems with Emory students visiting the While we give up control and bounded temple. They did not report any and pedagogy when we send our students out were anxious to convey that it was their Hindu Temple of Atlanta. The American flag was put up for a few months following September 11, into the community on site visits, such duty to be hospitable to anyone who 2001 (Photo courtesy of Joyce B. Flueckiger). fieldwork has the potential to teach us in came to the temple. They were extremely unpredictable ways and to change what and interested in possible non-Hindu percep- temple as a “class” has its own drawbacks. keep their feet from pointing at the deities, how we teach. tions of prasad; my explanation of the stu- Students may not meet individuals with and sitting on the floor for extended peri- dents’ refusal of prasad as being the equiva- whom to speak, or may be too shy to do ods have all taught them about the cultured lent of their refusal to eat meat (i.e., as an so. Sometimes Hindu practitioners have felt learnings of their own bodies. What their internal rule, rather than a judgment of awkward in “speaking for their tradition,” bodies are experiencing cannot be equated 1 One of the oldest “international” mosques in those who eat meat) seemed to resonate when they feel untrained. The Hindu to that of the Hindu worshipper doing the Atlanta, Al-Farooq Masjid, has requested that with the priests. The chief priest ended the Temple of Atlanta is talking about training same gesture, but the students are at least we send our students to the mosque at partic- discussion by saying our students were wel- volunteers to meet and interact with visi- aware of their own bodies’ knowing in dif- ular open houses held for non-Muslims, as come, and when they refuse prasad, he tors. This would take away from the multi- ferent ways. I now directly address the issue students were often taking up space on mentally blesses them anyhow. plicity of experiences and explanations the of “how we know what we know,” includ- Fridays that kept Muslims from prayer. students receive through chance meetings ing through our bodies. Students are often Rather than taking classes as a group to they have with lay worshippers, but with amazed at the multisensory experience of Hindu temples, I have chosen to send stu- more and more visitors from various uni- the temple, which some of them find lack- References dents in small groups, encouraging Hindu versities in Atlanta coming to the temple, it ing in their own non-Hindu traditions. students to offer to accompany some would provide some structure for the tem- Although they have been told about the Brown, Karen McCarthy. “Roundtable: Site groups, or asking students to ask their own ple community and would assure that stu- lack of formal communal service in the Visits in the Study of Religion: Practice, Hindu friends to accompany them. This dents find someone with whom to speak.1 temple, many students are still surprised by Problems, Prospects.” American Academy enables students to have conversations with the coming and going of worshippers, the of Religion Annual Meeting, Atlanta, 2003. peers and practitioners, and I am not the Other positive unexpected learnings from low-level conversations among them, and primary interpreter of what they are seeing site visits to Hindu temples can be listed the variety of individual devotional prac- Puja: Expressions of Hindu Devotion. VHS. at the site. Students have often been invited more briefly, although they are equally sig- tices they witness. Many students are espe- Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian to observe family rituals in the temples nificant. Many non-Hindu students report cially struck by the number of children Institution. Washington, D.C.: 1996. ❧ (such as baby-naming ceremonies) and each that watching devotees lying fully prostrate running around the temple and the positive group reports back a range of narratives to a deity, being reminded to use their right attitudes shown towards them. and experiences. However, not visiting the hand only to accept prasad, learning to

May 2004 AAR RSN • iii Religious Studies News — AAR Edition Site Visits and Epistemological Diversity in the Study of Religion

Jeffrey Carlson, Dominican University

often when we employ site visits in the study of religion, the danger is that the “experiential” is not brought into inten- tional and explicit relation with the “tradi- tional” classroom work and reading. Disconnected “field trips” can become moments of hiatus from the course, rather than an expression of it (not unlike films shown in class, which may allow students to tune out). Ironically, many of our “expe- riential” courses may, in fact, exacerbate unwittingly the bifurcation between the classroom and the so-called “real world” — a bifurcation the instructor presumably hopes to overcome precisely by incorporat- Jeffrey Carlson is Dean of the Rosary College ing site visits. Students and faculty may of Arts and Sciences and Professor of have rich and rewarding experiences out- Theology at Dominican University in River side the classroom, but what, after all, do Forest, Illinois. He is co-author of Jesus and they have to do with the readings? Thus, it Faith: A Conversation on the Work of is imperative that we devise specific meth- John Dominic Crossan (Orbis Books, ods for bringing these realities into inten- 1994) and has published on religious plu- tional, sustained, and mutually critical dia- ralism and teaching and learning in higher logue. Two principal methods have been education. effective in my own practice: first, to use Gillson Park, Wilmette, August 2001 (Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Carlson). prompts from yet-to-be-read texts prior to site visits; and second, to have students take scapes, and the changing meanings over One concrete way of using the photos is as digital photos at the sites, so that these can time of “nature,” “landscape” and the basis of more formal writing assign- N SOME CURRICULA, “diversity” or be revisited later and “reread” through the “scenery.” Lippard’s book explores, among ments. In such an assignment, students “multiculturalism” is relegated to a sin- lenses of the course texts. others, notions of multicenteredness, dis- might be asked to (a) identify a theme gle course on the so-called non-Western I placement, gendered landscapes, immigra- about place from one of the books; (b) or “minority” communities in the United tion, hybridity, assimilation, deterritorial- explain how the author might illustrate this States. I would argue that a central and ization, maps, the commodification of his- particular theme through a concrete aspect abiding curricular goal should be to move tory, museums and decontextualization, of the immersion week, using at least one from episodic moments of diversity within feminist archaeology, homelessness, theme photograph from the week to aid in the the curriculum to an epistemology of diver- The danger is that the towns, recreational apartheid, urban vs. student’s analysis; and (c) develop and sity across the curriculum, wherein our ‘experiential’ is not brought suburban parks, and yard art. defend the student’s own position on the challenge is to engage multiple perspectives specific theme under consideration, again, (cultural, national, religious, ideological, into intentional and By providing prompts that introduce some using a site photograph. Another similar methodological, etc.) in our courses and “explicit relation with the of these concepts in the morning classroom assignment might ask students to imagine curricular design, and to develop effective time, during breaks in the day, and in the how Eliade, Tuan, Gallagher, and Lippard strategies for teaching a diverse curriculum ‘traditional’ classroom work evening classroom session, I hoped to would engage in a dialogue with each other within a diverse learning community. Using and reading. enable students to interpret the site visits, about the meaning of a site, again via the site visits in the study of religion can at least in part, through the readings they person, place, object, or event depicted in a become an important means of achieving would consider in-depth later in the course. particular photograph. Through these this goal. The bifurcation between text and experi- assignments, students learn to interrogate ence was, I hope, lessened, and the experi- the “real world” through texts, and to inter- One context in which I have used site visits In terms of the prompts ” ences themselves deepened. We did not, rogate texts through the “real world.” Site is a course I taught several times at DePaul After the immersion week for “Sacred however, allow these textual concepts to visits embody an epistemology of diversity University that began with a one-week Spaces, Powerful Places,” students read, dominate our “readings” of the sites, and as and foster an enquiring habit of mind and “immersion” immediately preceding the offi- among other things, Winifred Gallagher’s a class we generated our own questions and heart worthy of the liberal and lifelong cial start of the academic term. The course book The Power of Place: How Our observations. These observations were learner. was called “Sacred Spaces, Powerful Places.” Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, brought into an intentional dialogue with It asked how is it that some physical locations and Actions. In a classroom session before ideas from the texts we read. The resulting I have shared one worry about site visits have deeper meanings than others — becoming departure to a site, I presented students multiplicity of possible interpretations was already; namely, that they might exacerbate symbolically powerful, sometimes “sacred,” in with brief introductions to some of itself an explicit manifestation of an episte- the bifurcation between the classroom and persons’ experiences? Who comes to these Gallagher’s ideas, such as the importance of mology of diversity. the so-called real world. Site visits might spaces/places, who does not, and why? To “nature” in contemporary urbanized soci- also embolden students to articulate nega- explore these questions, we visited an array ety, and the importance of territorial sym- tive stereotypes of the community they of places, including the Chicago Historical bols and “personal space.” Then, when stu- In terms of the photos visit. Some non-Muslim students who, for Society, the Indo-American Cultural Center, dents entered some of the sites mentioned At site visits, students took digital photos example, have never been to a mosque the Sousa Homeless Shelter, St. Sabina above, or others I had used in previous in order to attain a literal and metaphorical might resist voicing anti-Muslim views, rea- Catholic Church, the Cook County years, such as the Lincoln Park Zoo, snapshot of significant facets of the experi- soning that “since I’ve never been there, I Department of Corrections, Division 10 Graceland Cemetery, the Gurdwara Sahib ences. I asked them to take photos of a per- cannot comment.” Then they take a reli- (maximum security), the Baha’i House of of Chicago, the Harvey Islamic Center, or son, place, object, or event they deemed gion course somewhere, go to a mosque on Worship, Gillson Park, the Federal Reserve Niketown Chicago, they had some concep- worth noting at the time and, perhaps, a field trip, and have what they consider to Bank of Chicago, a farmers market in the tual tools to bring into dialogue with their worth remembering later. What makes one be a “bad experience,” which reinforces Richard J. Daley Center Plaza, the Chicago experiences. of these examples worth noting? In part, if their preexisting stereotype. Now, since Board of Trade, the Chicago Loop it exemplifies, challenges, or extends some they have in their own minds attained a Synagogue, and the North Park Village Other “preunderstanding” prompts were of the textual concepts already introduced, kind of “credential,” they may feel uncon- Nature Center. We reflected on the impor- selected and introduced from other read- as well as the students’ own preunderstand- strained in voicing their previous stereo- tance of place in a time of rootlessness, the ings, such as Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and ings, some of which had also been voiced types. In one sense, the limited, single-week role of memory and ritual, pilgrimage and the Profane: The Nature of Religion; Yi-Fu in class. At the end of each long day during “immersion” course I have been describing worship, the stories of immigrants and the Tu a n’s Topophilia: A Study of Environmental the immersion week, these photos were is particularly prone to this pitfall. One dispossessed, our craving for nature, the role Perception, Attitudes, and Values; and Lucy loaded on a course Web site. Weeks later in strategy to counter this negative potential is of public spaces, and a host of other ways R. Lippard’s The Lure of the Local: Senses of the term, when we read books and dis- to anticipate and address potential negative that people experience places as particularly Place in a Multicentered Society. Tuan’s book cussed them in class, we revisited the pho- stereotypes about the sites before visiting significant. Each day of this immersion raises questions about perception, scale, tos and our field notes taken throughout them. Another strategy could be to visit week, we began early in the classroom, segmentation, spatial ethnocentrism, maps the immersion week. In this way students multiple sites from the same tradition, explored sites in Chicago, and returned to and power, visitor vs. native, explorer vs. interpreted the readings, at least in part, and/or the same site multiple times. Let me the classroom in the early evening. settler, a critique of tourism, the relation of through the site visits, although we did not illustrate this in relation to another varia- the visual to aesthetic distancing, dynamics allow our photos, selective memories, and tion of this “single visit” problem. It is particularly important in such a course of city/countryside/wilderness, the relation reconstructions of the site visits to domi- to devise strategies for relating classroom dis- of notions of afterlife to environmental ide- See CARLSON p.xiv nate our “readings” of the texts. cussions and readings to the site visits. Too als, the vertical cosmos vs. horizontal land- iv • October 2004 AAR RSN SPOTLIGHT ON TEACHING The Nuts and Bolts of Site Visits

Grace G. Burford, Prescott College

the scientist running an experiment on nuclear particles, we must anticipate and take into account our own influence on Although this approach to a site visit requires that the event we study, and — more like a psy- chologist than a nuclear scientist — we you temporarily let go of pedagogical control, you will must consider the ethical issues inherent in resume the seat of authority soon enough. our study of religious people. Finally, site “ visits take us out into the world, where we encounter unforeseen delays, often in vehi- cles with dubious safety records (e.g., 15- passenger vans) that use a lot of irreplace- Theravada Buddhists. When I co-teach Begin by incorporating one site visit into a able planetary resources. “Religion and Science” with a geologist, we course you have taught before. Do” not spend two days at the Grand Canyon inter- expect it to be the best site visit ever. Every Grace G. Burford is Professor of Religious In comparison, lectures, class discussions, weaving activities that introduce the stu- site visit contributes something, and you Studies at Prescott College in Prescott, videos, and guest speakers begin to look dents to how humans interact with the can build up and improve your repertoire Arizona. She is the author of Desire, easier, safer, and cheaper — and certainly canyon religiously and scientifically. All of at your own pace. If at all possible, person- Death, and Goodness: The Conflict of can be pedagogically effective. So why these site visits provide the participants in ally reconnoiter the site you want to use, to Ultimate Values in Theravada Buddhism bother with site visits? each class (faculty and students alike) assess how and to what degree it might (Peter Lang Publishing, 1990) and is cur- shared experiences to draw on as these enrich your course. I have broken this rule rently researching the life and work of Site visits provide learning experiences that courses proceed. a few times without disaster, but doing so British scholar of Buddhism Isaline B. could never be achieved in the classroom. certainly ramps up the potential for surprise Horner. The very reason site visits pose greater risks I offer here a basic three-part model, and during the actual site visit. than classroom activities — less control then some specific practical advice, for over what happens — provides a powerful using site visits in religious studies courses. Whenever possible, arrange to have some- TEACH AT PRESCOTT COLLEGE, one else guide the students through the site a private, four-year, liberal arts college visit, even if that site falls within your field I in north-central Arizona that defines of expertise. That way the students will itself in terms of commitments to environ- interact with someone other than you, mental concerns and to experiential, stu- which gives them a different base of dent-directed learning. The residential authority. Model the kind of open-minded program enrolls 450–500 students, and enquiry you want the students to experi- employs approximately 40 full-time facul- ence; dare to be a student yourself during ty members. Our typical class size, 10–14 the visit, but avoid dominating the experi- students, is determined, in part, by the ence with your questions. Although this size of the vans we use for taking students approach to a site visit requires that you out into the field. At Prescott College temporarily let go of pedagogical control, almost everyone uses site visits for teach- you will resume the seat of authority soon ing everything from ecology to playwrit- enough, and nothing someone else tells the ing, from rock climbing to economics. But students will permanently ruin their under- before you dismiss my comments here as standing of the subject at hand. Avoid tak- irrelevant to your teaching situation, note ing the class somewhere just to look at or that I began teaching 20 years ago, and I watch something; on-site interpretation, mainly learned to use site visits in the far especially by a local expert — or, even bet- less supportive context of courses I taught ter, by several such informants — reinforces at a private university, a state college, and the important difference between site visits a state university — before I came to and sightseeing. Once the course is under Prescott seven years ago. way, involve students in planning the specifics of the site visits as much as possi- Reasons abound for not using site visits. ble, especially if the trip will require meal They require a lot more work — planning preparation, since group eating always pro- and conducting a site visit involves much motes group bonding. You will probably more time and effort than planning a lec- need the students’ involvement to schedule ture or class discussion, or showing a activities outside of regular class times any- video, or inviting a guest speaker to come way, so let them solve that type of difficulty to class. They involve communicating with as much as possible. They can also help strangers; figuring out what relevant sites with carpool planning, and can effectively or events an entire class of undergraduates critique each other’s proper clothing and can visit, and how to do that appropriately Grace Burford with students enrolled in a “Religion and Science” class, at the Desert View behavior before the trip. to both the course and the site/event visit- Watchtower, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona (Photo courtesy of Lou Abbott). ed; arranging transportation; designing Last fall I took a group of world religions good assignments to get the most out of students to the Scottsdale Islamic the visit; learning about appropriate rationale for doing them. This element of First, before the site visit, choose and then Community Center (mosque), as part of behavior and other site-specific expecta- unpredictability generates excitement and discuss with the students one or two prob- our study of Islam. I first arranged with the tions; preparing the students; spending encourages the kind of active and interac- lems, or specific topics or questions, to Islamic Speakers Bureau for a speaker substantial time with students outside reg- tive involvement that energizes a class not focus on during the visit. Don’t worry that (Dilara) to meet us there on a mutually ular class meetings; and always following only during the site visit itself, but through- students will see only what they will look available day, and then reserved a Prescott up, both with the students and with the out the rest of the course. One colleague of for specifically. But do know that if they do College van. On the morning of the trip, people who made the visit possible. mine takes her students to Mesa Verde not look for some specific things, they will the students appeared, sleepy but dressed National Park, where they sit in the middle not discern much of anything. Second, dur- appropriately (per our previous discussions Site visits expose us, our students, our of a large wildfire-burned area and the stu- ing the site visit, collect data; this is what in class), each having typed up two ques- institutions, and the religious individuals dents make observations and argue about the visit itself is all about. This aspect of the tions concerning our focal themes (mod- and groups we visit to risks that simply do fire ecology. Another takes his “Image and site visit will go more smoothly if you have ernization, gender roles, interreligious rela- not arise when we stay safely in our class- Power in Mass Culture” students to Las discussed with the students beforehand spe- tions) to ask at the mosque, and carrying rooms. Site visits — so much harder to Vegas to do “proletarian shopping,” and cific ways to collect useful data at the kind notebooks and pens, lunches, water, some control than classroom situations — can says this kind of hands-on experience “seals of site you will be visiting. Third, after the money for unforeseen needs, and head prove pedagogically scary, especially when the enthusiasm” in a way that discussion site visit, use the topic-focused data you scarves (women only). we teach about a tradition outside our from a distance can never accomplish. I collected. You can do this in many ways, “comfort zones” of previous training and take my “Studies in Buddhism” classes to such as through a formal written follow-up Road construction in Phoenix delayed our experience. The element of surprise such the Thai temple west of Phoenix, where we assignment, or a freewrite at the beginning arrival, but we were still able to meet for an activities introduce often becomes a peda- spend two days and a night participating in of the next class, and/or a group discussion hour with Dilara before the midday prayer gogical good news-bad news scenario, as a traditional seasonal celebration. The stu- of the experience. However you do it, be service. Dilara discussed Islam, answered when a local expert says or does something dents take food to donate, learn how to sure to do it. If you omit this part, you some of the students’ questions, and taught we could never have predicted, much less dress and behave at a Buddhist temple, and might as well have stayed in the classroom. See BURFORD p.xiv said or done ourselves. In addition, like chant, eat, and converse one-on-one with

October 2004 AAR RSN • v Religious Studies News, AAR Edition Native American Site Visits in the Context of Service Learning

Michael D. McNally, Carleton College

Native people describe as “ways of life.” I “way of life” to the label of “religion,” 1978, Deloria 1988). While I strive in my use service learning for at least three related and while this is something of a truism as course designs, book selections, and lec- reasons discussed in greater length else- applied to the devout of any tradition, it ture outlines to interrupt the dehumaniz- where (McNally, forthcoming). The first is makes particular sense to indigenous peo- ing way that many dominant representa- consonant with a distinctive Ojibwe peda- ple (Martin 1999). What is more, Ojibwe tions of “real Indians” (along the lines of gogy as I came to know it through the people are broadly vigilant in maintain- Dances with Wolves) obscure the realities of direction of my teacher, the late activist ing that cultural and religious knowledge contemporary Native peoples’ lives in the and poet Larry Cloud Morgan, and a belong to the oral tradition and not to context of colonization and racism, such group of elders on the White Earth the fixed text with its perceived attendant efforts amount to little in comparison with Reservation. In part because of its rooting orthodoxies. Although term-long service- what’s experientially possible in service in an oral tradition, and in part because of learning projects hardly create sustained, learning. In these contexts, students its community orientation, Ojibwe tradi- deep encounters with oral traditions, the encounter firsthand both the harsh eco- tion emphatically weds the transmission of very gesture can equip students with a nomic, social, and physiological realities of cultural to communal responsibility. While critical purchase on the authority of the Native life, as well as the artful ways that Michael D. McNally is Assistant religious traditions inform, empower, and Professor in the Religion Department at beautify lives lived amid such realities. Carleton College. He is the author of Ojibwe Singers: Evangelical Hymns In short, my goal through service learn- and a Native Culture in Motion ing is to take my students’ interest in (Oxford University Press, 2000), and he Native spirituality that is often as heart- is currently writing a cultural history of felt as it is misguided, to immerse it Ojibwe eldership and religious authority. briefly through service into the lived real- ities of Native communities, and, thus politicized, to redirect and reshape stu- dent interest through structured reflec- tion on the shape and contemporary ITE VISITS are crucial to my aims vitality of Native American religions. in my courses on Native American Site Visits in the Context of S religious traditions, but not site visits in isolation. They fit my pedagogical pur- Service Learning poses insofar as they are elements of aca- Translating such lofty theoretical aims demic service-learning projects that give into practice is hard work, with admit- students more reason to be at the sites than tedly varying and often unpredictable their education alone. In this brief consid- success; but what does result is often eration of my experience at Carleton, a refreshingly more real and consequential. rural, liberal-arts college town one hour’s Students bring varying levels of commit- drive from Minneapolis/St. Paul, I will out- ment and energy to the class, so I require line how I understand academic service a good faith effort towards at least ten learning and the rewards and challenges of hours of service per semester, and offer site visits to Native American community richer possibilities for service to the many centers in the Twin Cities and on northern students who want more. For a class of reservations. Even for readers not contem- 30, I prearrange five to six service-learn- plating the service-learning component, ing projects, one or two of which involve what follows can be helpful in thinking connecting with Native communities through the pedagogical aims, practical through the Web and campus educa- challenges, and rewards of site visits for tion/organizing (e.g., the Gwich’in courses on Native traditions. Steering Committee’s efforts on behalf of the Alaska Native Wildlife Refuge). Most Service-Learning Courses in students, however, want to make a deeper Native Traditions commitment to projects that involve site visits. These have included: Educators use various working definitions of academic service learning; for my pur- • White Earth Land Recovery Project poses, service learning involves some mea- (White Earth Reservation, MN), sure of commitment to community service where students traveled six hours for at the behest of Native community organi- a three-day combination of field zations, and structured reflection on that labor and helping out with an service experience such that it becomes antiracism rally in a community integrated into the core learning of the adjacent to the reservation. course. It is the structured reflection that quickens such experiences, making them • Waadookadaading Ojibwe-Language more than simply supplementary to the Immersion Charter School course. (Hayward, WI), where students Carleton College students engage in a service-learning project with an elder on the board of the assembled computer books with I have used community service and struc- White Earth Land Recovery Project on Minnesota’s White Earth Indian Reservation (Photos cour- Ojibwe texts to integrate the com- tured reflection on it with considerable suc- tesy of Theresa Engel). puter stations into the Ojibwe-lan- cess in two courses over three years. In guage world of the immersion class- “Native American Religious and Cultural room. Freedom,” an upper-level course that explores the historical, legal, and cultural there is nothing anti-intellectual about books and lectures they’re encountering •“Feast for the Dead” (Minneapolis contexts in which Native Americans have Ojibwe pedagogy, there is a conviction in the classroom — and vice versa. Indian Center), where students spent practiced their religions within the U.S., patterned in teacher-student relationships a long day setting up, serving, and students engage in service projects generat- that cultural knowledge must be earned by Third, and perhaps most important, expe- taking down a feast to the urban ing public scholarship by researching pend- students committed to use the knowledge riences with real Native communities and Indian community, following a pipe ing claims to sacred lands, free exercise, and for the betterment of the community. their very real needs are crucial because ceremony and an All Soul’s mass led treaty rights (www.pluralism.org/affiliates/ Student service-learning projects are by no learning about Native American religious by Dakota and Ojibwe elders and a mcnally/index.php). Here, though, I will means grand, but the admittedly small ges- traditions involves as much unlearning as Catholic priest. focus on my introductory “Native tures can reorient a student’s learning learning. Many students come to these tra- American Religions” course, which aims to accordingly. ditions with images of and desires for appreciate how religious traditions have “noble savagery,” and in particular for served the region’s Lakota and Ojibwe Second, service learning helps close the Native American “spirituality.” As cultural communities in their efforts to live well in marked distance between much of the historians have shown, these images, pro- the context of colonization and disposses- “book knowledge” on Native religions and jections, and desires run so deep in both sion. The course tries to confront stereo- the contextual realities to which Native popular and intellectual culture that they types and to think reflexively about the cat- religions have ministered in actuality. often go unrecognized by even the most See MCNALLY p.xiii egory of “religion” as applied to what Ojibwe people broadly resist reducing their critical thinkers among us (Berkhofer vi • May 2004 AAR RSN SPOTLIGHT ON TEACHING Site Visits to Synagogues

Michael S. Berger, Emory University

semester has the added advantage of told me her rabbi had prohibited her from thought were not in keeping with their allowing students to think for several attending non-Orthodox services. In this understanding of that particular denomina- weeks about Jewish traditions as they are case, I asked her to attend an ultra- tion. I ask them to offer an explanation of presented in historical and ethnographic Orthodox (Hasidic) congregation that she the inconsistencies they found. texts — only to discover that many people had not attended in the past, and to read in the pews do not conform to the stu- up on the differences between Hasidism I devote one class session to reporting on dents’ expectations. These discrepancies and non-Hasidic Orthodoxy. However, and discussion of these site visits. Student can often only be ascertained through this, too, proved difficult, as there were reactions vary. Given the student popula- actual conversations with congregants. not many women at that congregation, tion at Emory, many students have never This personal interaction is probably the and the student did not feel comfortable been to an Orthodox service, and with the most challenging part of site visits. I real- conversing with the men, given that in proximity of several Orthodox congrega- ize not every student can do this, so I sim- Hasidic society, men and women do not tions to campus, a large number of students ply set out for them what makes a site- generally mingle. attend these services. Understandably, visit report an “A,” one criterion of which non-Jews find visiting Orthodox services, is conversations with congregants. Although students begin to make their site where the entire service is lengthy and in Michael S. Berger is Associate Professor of Conversations are made easier if students visits after midterm exams, I encourage Hebrew, an overwhelming challenge, and Jewish Studies in the Department of visit the synagogues either alone or in very them not to begin writing their reports some even leave after just a few minutes. Religion, Emory University. He is the small groups. I encourage them to strike until I have covered more material in the In some cases, the entire experience author of Rabbinic Authority (Oxford, up conversation with congregants by ask- course. (We finish up to World War II by depends on the first people they encounter 1998). His research and teaching focus on ing them for assistance and by sticking midterm and then spend the rest of the at the synagogue. If the congregants they issues of religious authority, and medieval around after services for some questions semester inspecting developments in the meet are gracious and welcoming, it is and contemporary Jewish thought. and answers. To be honest, in the ten denominations over the last 60 years.) In usually a positive experience that they years I have been living in Atlanta, this this way, they are more sensitive to a vari- remember for a long time; if the experi- has become easier because more Jews are ety of subjects that are primarily results of ence is negative, students may be left with NE OF THE MANY challenges either familiar with me or are acquainted more recent trends. For instance, noticing a bitter taste in their mouth. Students may of modern religious studies in with this assignment, and so I now tell synagogue architecture requires a deeper also take their experience of the site visit Western universities and colleges O students to mention that they are there for understanding of the functions of a syna- and have it overwhelm all other data. For is the breathtaking diversity of the phe- Professor Berger’s course, and most often, gogue and habits of attendance in order to example, one time some of my students nomena we try to help our students the conversation begins immediately. interpret the building’s design properly. who attended a sparsely attended Reform understand. No matter how much we Thus, in the 1950s synagogues began service predicted the movement’s demise, qualify, nuance, or shade our descriptions As responsible neighbors, we must prepare adding education wings to their facilities, based on that single morning’s attendance. and analyses, the very format of the our students to act appropriately on site as houses of worship were also seen to be It is important to mention to the class that semester or quarter course forces us, and visits. In most cases, this means alerting the place for teaching the children Judaism site visits are only one experience with one therefore our students, to simplify, gener- students to the sensibilities of congregants after public school. More significantly, the congregation, and often with only a few alize, conflate, and reduce the realities of of particular denominations. Thus, I tell move of many Jews to suburbia in mid- congregants; they must be careful not to religious thought and practice. Site visits students that if they attend an Orthodox century required two major adaptations: generalize about an entire denomination can, therefore, not only vividly bring to congregation, they should be aware of the the addition of large parking lots, and the or all its members simply from one life what we must frequently flatly modest dress code and should avoid writ- construction of sanctuaries whose capacity encounter with that form of Judaism. describe in the classroom; they can also ing or using tape recorders during the could be “extended” for the increased render the reality “messier” than the more Sabbath, when Orthodox Jews forbid such attendance on the High Holy Days. This The site visit is a powerful pedagogical simplified impression students receive activities. Students should be informed of is something most students would not tool that I have refined over time and from readings and class presentations. the general structure of what they will see, likely notice on their own, and so I point learned to use more wisely. It can be a and the length of services. I have had stu- it out to them in a class session specifically healthy corrective to generalizations and My course “Modernization of Judaism” dents who allotted only an hour for a syn- on the mid-century trends, and ask that stereotypes about Jewish traditions, but it exposes students to the emergence of agogue visit and therefore did not really they observe this in their site visits, or should not be presented as the most denominations in Judaism since the see the bulk of the service, which lasted think back to what they saw when they authentic source of knowledge. Instructors Emancipation of the Jews in the 19th cen- over two hours. While I have found visited. help students most by placing the site visit tury. This process of denominationalism, serendipity to be a good thing about site in the syllabus at an appropriate time, which began in Europe and accelerated in visits — sometimes students “stumble” Because I have several pedagogical inten- structuring what students should look for, the United States from the 1840s to the into a bar mitzvah or special weekend for tions for site visits, I give students a list of preparing them to avoid embarrassment, present, was in many cases driven by ideo- a congregation — I do suggest students standard informational questions they need and finally, giving them time to process logical debates as to how Judaism should call up a congregation in advance to ascer- to answer regarding their visit. I then ask and even hear other experiences, so that best adapt to the modern period. Part of tain the time services begin, precise direc- them to recount aspects of the service that the site visit does not overwhelm what the Jews’ assimilation over the last two tions on how to get there, and any other they found to be consistent ideologically they learn from the rest of the course. ❧ centuries often meant adopting the information that might help them act within the denomination, as well as details Western cultural norm of religion “hap- respectfully. As more congregations in the of the service or conversation that they pening” in the house of worship; indeed, last five years have set up Web sites, I many of the initial changes to traditional encourage students to check these out for practice involved synagogue practice, and information about the synagogue. so I want students to see (or notice) these changes and to link them back to their One phenomenon that I have encoun- ideological underpinnings. For instance, tered and have had to address is students’ the direction the cantor faces, the amount preconceptions about the various Jewish of Hebrew in the service, or the subject of denominations. Courses like the sermon are often easily related to what “Modernization of Judaism” tend to the students have been studying. This attract many Jewish students who are understandably requires placing the site either eager to learn more about their own visit in the syllabus after we have covered heritage, or feel (mistakenly!) that this sufficient material about each American course will be easy because they attended denomination, which is usually after the Hebrew school and are likely familiar with midterm. I notify students of this at the the material. Given the large number of outset of the semester, so that they can Jewish students at Emory College, usually plan their weekends after the midterm to more than half the students registered for include a site visit (I require attendance at this course are Jewish. I have also found Friday night or preferably Saturday morn- that many non-Jews have attended the bar ing services, as that is when most congre- or bat mitzvah celebrations of Jewish gations hold services). Students are friends, and thus they, too, have prior encouraged to attach to their reports any notions of Reform, Reconstructionist, materials that might be distributed at the Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism. I synagogue — flyers about upcoming therefore ask that students attend services events, homiletical messages, or other at a congregation of a denomination they writings — and to discuss these handouts have not visited before, so that they are in relationship to what we have been able to observe with fewer preconceptions. studying. There is usually little resistance to this, The sanctuary at Temple Emmanuel, University Heights, Ohio, November 2000 (Photo courtesy of but on one occasion it presented a diffi- Sheila E. McGinn). Timing the site visit halfway through the culty when an Orthodox Jewish student

May 2004 AAR RSN • vii Religious Studies News — AAR Edition Site Visit to a Mosque

Amir Hussain, California State University, Northridge

With time to plan ahead, including tim- ings for courses, there are many mundane For some years into the future, post–9/11, visits to and not-so-mundane issues that need to be carefully thought through. One must mosques will, for the non-Muslim students, have a decide ahead of time not only where the different ‘feeling’ than visits to, say, Taoist class will visit, but what the students will temples or Catholic monasteries. examine when they get there and why, and “ whether they will be encouraged to partici- pate or observe. That first semester, I brought students to the mosque on two chair and college dean for a class to meet That design was publicly lamented by then- successive Fridays. In order to do this, I off-campus. That’s just one of the many mayor Tom Bradley, who accused the City exposed my Southern California students issues associated with a site visit to a Council of religious intolerance.”” to another novel tradition: the car pool, mosque. First, make sure you know the Amir Hussain is Associate Professor in the which allowed people (like me) who did appropriate rules and regulations at your This, of course, raises a basic question. Department of Religious Studies at not own a car to get a ride to the mosque, university. Sometimes there are institutional Why do we want our students to visit a California State University, Northridge. His about two miles away. We got to the “risk management” issues with field trips. mosque, or any other Islamic site? After the research focuses on contemporary Muslim mosque before the rush of people coming Second, you need to locate a mosque, make horrors of the terrorist attacks on societies in North America, especially for the Friday prayers. This allowed me a contact with the Imam, and get permission September 11, 2001, some instructors took Canada. He has contributed to the edited few minutes to point out some of its basic volume Progressive Muslims: On Justice, to bring visitors. Third, you need to decide students to mosques to show them what features. Those Muslim students who want- Gender, and Pluralism (Oneworld, 2003). when you want to attend. Do you want to “happens” in a mosque. This was necessary, ed to pray were then excused from the trip show students a mosque that might be they thought, to counter the voices of hate and allowed to pray. In this particular empty? Do you want to show a mosque at and ignorance about Muslim lives that were ANY OF US COME to the site mosque there are separate rooms, on the a time when few people are praying? Do reported in the American media. And many visit through the “back door,” so same level, for men and women to pray. I you want to take students for the Friday mosques in the months after September 11 to speak; that is, through necessi- stayed with the male students in the male M afternoon prayer when the mosque is full? hosted open houses in the hope of relieving ty or contingency rather than through con- area, while a Muslim female student Some mosques may, in fact, discourage visi- the fears of those who were concerned scious pedagogical choice. For example, accompanied female students to the tors on Fridays and instead ask that visitors about a Muslim presence in their neighbor- when I moved to Northridge from Toronto women’s area. We stayed for the prayer and attend a mosque open house. This, of hood. Ironically enough, the mosque that I in 1997, I was preassigned a teaching for part of the khutba (sermon, which was course, gives a very different “feel” to the visit is only blocks away from the North schedule for my first semester, since the given in English) before it was time to site visit. Fourth, as with any site visit, you Valley Jewish Community Center, which in schedule had to be printed before I was leave. The second Friday, I participated in need to work out the logistics as to how August 1999 was the location of a widely hired. The time given to my Islam course the prayer and allowed the students to you will get students to and from the site, publicized hate-crime shooting where a was Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from observe on their own. For these two visits, I and what you expect them to do while they white supremacist killed one person, 12:00 to 12:50 PM. Normally, this would did not ask the students to write anything are there. injured five others, and forced the evacua- be a good time slot for an upper-division about their experiences, but we did discuss tion of children and staff. course. However, many observant Muslims them in class the following Mondays. Finally, you need to be aware of gender could not take this class, as it conflicted issues. Is this the rare mosque that is For some years into the future, post-9/11, with the time for the Friday afternoon con- The dynamics of site visits will change female-friendly? Where are the spaces for visits to mosques will, for the non-Muslim gregational prayer. To try and accommo- according to whether or not the person women and men? Will women be asked to students, have a different “feeling” than vis- date them, I arranged site visits to the local leading the students is a member of the go to a basement level and hear the Imam its to, say, Taoist temples or Catholic mosque on Fridays as part of the course. I community. When I went to the Taoist via a speaker, thereby giving male and monasteries by non-Taoists and non- may not have chosen to include site visits temple, for example, it was my first visit to female students very different experiences? Catholics. Mosques will be more than exot- that first semester had the circumstances of such a site. However, because I am a Are students wearing appropriate clothing ic; there will be special questions and fears the timing of the course been different. Muslim as well as someone who teaches (long sleeves and head scarves for women, that shade expectations and perceptions. courses on Islam, things were somewhat no shorts, etc.) for that mosque? In none of For example, some students have asked me, I had first been involved in site visits a few easier for me, I suspect, when I took classes my site visits have female students “Will I be put on a government watch list years earlier as a teaching assistant to a to the mosque. I knew the mosque closest expressed any problems with head covering, for going to a mosque?” and “Will the ser- world religions class at the University of to my university, had prayed there, and had however some female students may refuse mon be anti-American?” Perhaps the Toronto, conducted magisterially by Peter met the Imam. I did not need to rely on an to do this. At my first site visit, the only instructor will want to bring those feelings Beyer. It was a large course, divided into informant, for I could explain to my stu- problem related to clothing was when a out in the classroom before and after the several tutorial groups, and each of us assis- dents what they were witnessing when they male student wore a t-shirt with explicit visits. Also, because of all the media expo- tants would take our groups on a couple of watched the Friday prayer. words and a photograph promoting a trash sure, much of it “positive,” students may site visits (mine were to a Taoist temple). In metal band. Although he put on jeans that think that they know more about Islam that course, Peter did all the work making Site visits raise many ethical and legal were not ripped, the student simply forgot and Muslims than about other religions, arrangements. I simply had to show up with issues. After my initial site visits to the about his t-shirt. Fortunately, one of the although many of these preconceptions the students at the appropriate time and mosque, I discovered that I had violated other students had a spare shirt that he may be faulty. Local hosts at mosques may place. Now at Northridge, teaching my own my university’s policies by not getting the loaned to this student so he could visit also be more tempted than usual to engage courses, it was my turn to do the work. appropriate clearances from my department without incident. Since then, I have always in apologetics. At the mosque that I visit, brought a few plain t-shirts “just in case.” the host community has been delighted with the student attendance, and genuinely Background information, such as local pleased that non-Muslims want to learn political contexts and controversies, can more about Islam. With sufficient fore- add unexpected richness to a visit. In later thought, all these factors can be used to visits, I brought students to the same engender insightful discussion back in the mosque referred to above, but this time classroom. ❧ primarily to show them the architecture. I had learned that there had been local opposition to the construction of the Islamic Center of Granada Hills. When it was finally built, it was not allowed to look like a “traditional” mosque with a dome and/or minarets, due to neighborhood opposition. In an August 2000 article on this mosque in the Los Angeles Times, Margaret Ramirez wrote, “A building per- mit was granted, but with 44 restrictions, the most conditions ever placed on a house of worship in the San Fernando Valley. In addition to the neighborhood concerns about traffic and parking, city officials pressured the Islamic Center to build the mosque without the traditional Islamic The beginning of Friday prayer at Cleveland’s Grand Mosque, Parma, Ohio (Photo cour- dome and insisted on a Spanish-style struc- tesy of Sheila E. McGinn). ture to fit the Granada Hills neighborhood. viii • October 2004 AAR RSN SPOTLIGHT ON TEACHING Integrating Field Research in the Introductory Religion Course

Sheila E. McGinn, John Carroll University

group may participate in four hours of of a particular religious ceremony. The community service (not proselytizing nor directions for the verbatim analysis are as “outreach”) with this religious community. follows:

The group writes a three-part Field Research Report. As co-authors of the Constructing a Verbatim Report: report, each group member is expected to Part I: Observation have input on each section of the report and to make corrections to each other’s 1. Prepare yourself mentally, emotionally, work where necessary. The three parts of and physically for your observation. the report include: Ensure that you will be able to be alert and attentive to the situation, not dis- 1. A research paper outlining the tradi- tracted by physical needs. Practice tak- tion’s beliefs, ethics, and ritual practices Sheila E. McGinn is Professor of Biblical ing note of your own emotional Studies and Early Christianity at John 2. A descriptive analysis of the religious responses without getting caught up in Carroll University. Her publications ritual the group observed them. Remember that your goal for include The Montanist Oracles, The Acts the observation is to report as com- 3. A transcript of the interview with the of Thecla, studies of Paul’s letter to the pletely and accurately as possible the religious leader. Romans, a commentary on the Gospel of details of the event. Be sure to arrive at Matthew, and a bibliography of 20th- If the group chooses to include the com- the site early enough to have time to century research into the Book of Revelation. munity service component, the write-up take notes about the physical sur- must include both journal entries contem- roundings for the event you are poraneous with the activity and a reflective observing. I have used field research as an integral essay analyzing how this particular commu- 2. Begin your observation notes before part of my “Introduction to Religious nity service activity illustrates (or goes the actual event by describing the back- Studies” course for over a decade. Three counter to) the beliefs and ethics of the ground of the event. Note where it will students are in each research group, and religious community. take place, who will be involved, when, the project includes several components, what you know of its purpose, etc. If it with at least one site visit. The description At the conclusion of the project, the is permitted, I recommend taking pho- of the assignment is as follows: research group gives a 20–25 minute class tographs of the setting and of the activ- Facilities for ablutions before prayer, Cleveland’s presentation that includes: (1) a basic sur- ities before, during, and after the event. Grand Mosque, November 2000 (Photo courtesy vey of the tradition’s central beliefs, ethics, The photos provide helpful reminders of Sheila E. McGinn). Field Research Project: and ritual practices; and (2) an interactive of details you may not have had time Student groups engage in a three-part demonstration of one key ritual and expo- to jot down during the event. If you 2. What actions, persons, places, and Field Research Project on one of the five sition of what key beliefs and ethical values plan to take photographs during the things seemed to you to be the least major world religions, focusing either on it conveys. Both components must actively ceremony itself, use high speed film important, or even superfluous? Why? an unfamiliar religious tradition or an involve the class in the presentation, and (ASA 400 or higher) or a low lux digi- (E.g., they occupied more time, had a unfamiliar ethnic community within their the ritual demonstration in particular tal camera, so you will not need a flash. more prominent physical location, own religious tradition. The three parts should appeal to as many of the senses as etc.) Did the participants you consult- include: possible; use of authentic dress, music, and 3. During the event and immediately fol- ed agree with your assessment? foods is encouraged. lowing, write as complete and accurate 1. Library research regarding the a description of the event as you can. 3. What connections do you see between tradition’s beliefs, ethics, and ritual Class presentations are graded both by the Include every factor you see as rele- specific verbal and ritual “moments” or practices instructor and by the students. The group is vant, while omitting extraneous ones. aspects of this event? assigned an overall project grade for the 2. Observation of a religious ritual in that written work, itemized according to each tradition component of the field research report; 3. At least one interview with a minister group members then decide together how to The ritual demonstration in particular or other leader of this religious com- allocate the points awarded for the project. should appeal to as many of the senses as munity regarding the tradition’s beliefs, ethics, and ritual practices and how Students visit the site at least once to gath- possible; use of authentic dress, music, and they are related to one another. er the data to write a “verbatim” (i.e., “ foods is encouraged. descriptive) analysis of the ritual space and As an optional extracredit activity, the Include descriptions of: 4. What connections do you see among a. The architectural features of the the various ritual actions? site or building 5. Outline the basic ”“ritual process” for b. Physical arrangements, colors, and this event. ornamentation of any furnishings Reflection: c. Leaders and participants in the event (their sex, age, dress, location, 6. What signs can you identify in this ritu- speech, actions) al? What key symbols can you identify? d. What the ritual means to the par- 7. What does each of these signs and ticipants you are observing symbols mean/convey? e. Whatever else you think is of 8. What kind of ritual is this? Why importance. would you classify it this way? Part II: Analysis, Reflection & 9. What does this ritual teach (e.g., about Evaluation human nature, the divine, the natural world, the assembly of believers)? How Analysis: As soon as possible after the does your reflection compare and con- event, even while you or your group are/is trast with what the participants said it still on the way home, begin your analysis means? of the event. 10. How (i.e., by what means) does this ritual event convey a sense of the meaning of 1. What actions, persons, places, and life to its participants? What is the mean- things seemed to you to be the most ing it conveys? How does your view com- important? Why? (E.g., they occupied Communion during Sunday Mass at Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox pare and contrast with what the partici- more time, had a more prominent Church, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, December 2000 (Photo courtesy of Sheila E. McGinn). pants said it means? physical location, etc.) Did the partici- pants you consulted agree with your assessment? See MCGINN p.xiv

October 2004 AAR RSN • ix Religious Studies News — AAR Edition Integrating Site Visits in the Pluralism Project at Connecticut College

Patrice C. Brodeur, Connecticut College

The Introductory Religion Course one class session was devoted to discussing Two years later, the third edition of the results of the students’ research. This “Religions in New London” included a Although site visits had been used at one discussion revealed the diversity of sites and completely new goal: to map the religious time in Connecticut College’s introductory experiences the students encountered with- diversity of nine religious communities in “Religion 101” course, they had been in only one small town such as New New London using the powerful GIS dropped by the time of my arrival in 1998. London. (Geographical Information Systems) soft- Site visits were reintroduced the second ware that allows for a two-dimensional semester I team-taught the course with my visual representation of different kinds of departmental colleague Lindsey Harlan. data. After sociological census data Our aims were not only pedagogical, that (income, language, and race/ethnic distri- is, to introduce students to a religious com- Within the academic bution) had been downloaded to the GIS munity of their choice so as to bring alive New London map prior to the beginning the study of religion; they were also study of religion, of the course, the students’ first-week research-oriented, that is, to collect basic insider/outsider assignment was to map the religious diver- Patrice C. Brodeur is Associate Professor of historical and contemporary descriptive sity of New London from the PPCC Web Religious Studies at Connecticut College. His information about contemporary religious “questions are literally site data. The next week, from this new academic interests include contemporary communities in New London. Islam and globalization, the academic and embodied, rather than GIS map combining different layers of data, the students were able to deduce two applied study of religion, and the role of The site visits assignment included attend- simply intellectualized, interreligious dialogue in the promotion of important conclusions: first, older commu- ing two consecutive weekly services at one democracy and pluralism. when conducting a nities were closer to the old historical sec- of over 40 different religious communities tion of the city, despite the changing nature in New London. Due to the large size of site visit. of that section of town over the centuries; This essay describes and analyzes two peda- this class (over 80 students), each student second, African-American and recent gogical usages of site visits as part of the was assigned to a group of four students Latino immigrant communities were found Pluralism Project at Connecticut College and each group was assigned to a specific almost exclusively in poorer neighborhoods. (PPCC), an integrated teaching, research, site. Multiple class site visits over the course The next academic year, I coordinated the This quick demonstration of the power of and service project affiliated with the of the semester created a sense of equality PPCC site visits segment of the ”“Religion GIS to help us interpret data launched a Pluralism Project at Harvard University. between students, because everyone experi- 101” course (taught by other colleagues). discussion of what was important to learn PPHU has begun to map the new religious enced at least once a visit to a religious Although these site visits were different in about religious diversity in New London. landscape of the United States at the turn community radically different from their destination, their tasks were the same as the This helped hook the students psychologi- of the 21st century, with particular focus own, if they had any. For example, an previous year. After the spring 2000 cally to GIS despite its many later chal- initially on the newer Buddhist, Hindu, American Muslim student brought up semester, I gathered the results of the three lenges. Because of its steep learning curve, I and Muslim communities. PPCC has con- locally had never visited a church, nor had collections of data and created the PPCC recommend practicing teaching with site tributed towards the larger Pluralism most of her nonreligious, agnostic, Web site (oak.conncoll.edu/%7Eppcc/), with visits several times before adding a GIS Project in two ways: by articulating an inte- Christian, or Jewish classmates visited a descriptions of the 40+ New London-area component: then the use of site visits as a grated methodology, at the heart of which mosque. religious communities. The public availabil- research tool to input religious data into lies the use of site visits, and by using a ity of this Web site has provided a useful GIS format is not only possible but highly more inclusive approach to the contempo- The first year, students covered half of New service not only to the religious communi- useful to help complement missing infor- rary religious landscape of New London, London’s religious communities. Over the ties of New London but to other agencies mation from U.S. census data, for example. possible because of its small population next two semesters, all religious sites in too, public and private, answering their concentrated within five square miles. In an New London were covered, as well as sever- needs to communicate with part or all of In addition to GIS, three other aspects of effort to include a broader religious diversi- al others in neighboring towns. To consoli- these religious communities for one reason the use of site visits in this advanced ty, PPCC extended into the neighboring date the collected research information, or another — for example, from zoning to research seminar are worth discussing for towns of Groton (where the only local each group was given a binder that was health to education. It has also helped the potential adaptation in a broader variety of mosque is now located), Waterford (where clearly labeled by number and site name. Connecticut College Office of Religious religious studies courses: the degree of fac- the second largest synagogue is located), This binder included several items: four and Spiritual Life strengthen its links with ulty and student identity self-disclosure, the and Middletown (where the only Hindu copies of a one-page description of PPCC a broader spectrum of religious communi- organization and choice of site visits, and temple in Connecticut is located). Site vis- on letterhead; one leaflet about PPHU; six ties. The first phase of the Pluralism Project the class vs. team site visit methodology. its were central to PPCC’s two phases of sets of PPHU’s basic survey questions (one at Connecticut College was thus completed development over the last five years to keep blank, one to be filled out by each within two years. Within the academic study of religion, (1999–2004): they were first incorporated member of the group, and one to give back insider/outsider questions are literally into “Religion 101” courses and then made to me with a compilation of the group’s embodied, rather than simply intellectual- integral to an advanced course entitled answers); the two-sided American The Advanced Undergraduate ized, when conducting a site visit. The stu- “Religions in New London.” Anthropology Association ethnography Research Seminar dents and teacher must learn to what code of ethics; and eight blank sheets for The second PPCC phase also aimed to inte- degree they want to disclose their own sub- note-taking during the visit. Each binder grate research, teaching, and service, this time jectivities, by way of religious and ideologi- was to be returned within one month, and through the creation of a 300-level interdisci- cal identities in particular, prior to, during, plinary research seminar entitled “Religions in and upon return from site visits. The New London.” The course has focused on degree to which this self-disclosure is car- service learning, the ethnographic approach ried out on the part of the teacher influ- to site visits, and active learning created ences how comfortable the students will be through a tangible research agenda. The with their own degree of self-disclosure. For PPCC site visits of “Religions in New example, I used my own set of identities to London” took on new dimensions after exemplify several identity construction pro- September 11, 2001, the second time I cesses and the politics of identity at play in taught this course. The service-learning site visits. approach initially used in the fall 1999 semester suddenly became of immediate prac- Site visits in which the entire class went tical purpose two years later. After September every week were selected based on four 11, my students and I chose to investigate pedagogical criteria: student familiarity one single question: How do the events of (making the familiar unfamiliar before September 11, 2001, affect your community? introducing the more minority traditions); We explored six religious communities and chronology (oldest to most recent commu- compared site visit results in a public academ- nities); size (largest to smallest); and geog- ic conference held in late December 2001.1 raphy (closest to furthest away). Team site One unexpected post-September 11 finding visits — that is, where the students had a from our site visits that year was that the few choice — were guided by three principles: small, lower-class, evangelical African- history, diversity, and progressive acquisi- American and Latino religious communities tion. The principle of history refers to did not seem to be affected by the terrorist events. This gap clearly raised questions about the nature of American identity across the See BRODEUR p.xiv Student reflections upon return from a site visit to a Roman Catholic church, New London, spectrum of this small sample of six very dif- Connecticut (Photo courtesy of Patrice Brodeur). ferent New London religious communities. x • October 2004 AAR RSN SPOTLIGHT ON TEACHING Site Visits from a Journalist’s Perspective

Gustav Niebuhr, Syracuse University

2001, I worked for the New York Times and, prior to that, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Visiting religious sites was an important part of my job. I was expected to interpret for a general audience the varied forms religion takes in the United States. My visits were not random, but occurred after my editors and I agreed that the places and people I would see had value as “news” — such as, if a community were engaged in some legal or political issue, or if the site in question repre- sented part of a major trend. Often, as in my visit to the group in the Ozarks, I had a rela- Gustav Niebuhr is Associate Professor of tively short time to gather information at the Religion and Media in the Department of site itself. But there were times when I had the Religion at Syracuse University. His acclaimed luxury of a longer visit, such that I could coverage of American religion has appeared in return to the site over the course of two, three, the New York Times, Washington Post, and or more days, asking follow-up questions, not- Atlanta Journal/Constitution. He is working ing details I had missed, and gathering printed on a book about religious pluralism and material to read in the off-hours. interfaith relations in America. I write this essay as I prepare to teach a course on religious pluralism. I expect to include visits The Great Stupa of Dharmakaya was initiated in 1988 and consecrated in August of 2001 with my students to local houses of worship. (Photo courtesy of Shambhala Mountain Center). On a spring day nearly a decade ago, I paid a My journalistic experiences ought to prove use- visit to a small religious community that lived ful, but I expect to make changes in my on a wooded property several miles up an approach, as I will note below. some of these new buildings. Our stories com- I spent two days at the consecration and thus undulating dirt road in the Ozarks. Two rather plemented one another. [Gustav Niebuhr, had the opportunity to look carefully at the serious-looking young men met me as I One practice I will certainly retain is calling “Where Religion Gets a Big Dose of Shopping structure, to check my initial notes, and to emerged from my car and, with a minimum of ahead before visiting a site. As a journalist, I Mall Culture,” New York Times, April 16, make new ones. More typical was the experi- small talk, escorted me to meet the group’s found it far better to establish a cursory rela- 1995, p. 1; “The Minister as Marketer: ence I had seven weeks later — post-9/11 — patriarch. The interview focused mostly on the tionship with the primary person or people I Learning from Business,” New York Times, when I paid a nearly spur-of-the-moment visit community’s unique beliefs: that people of wanted to interview before I arrived. Rarely, I April 18, 1995, p. 1; “Protestantism Shifts to a tiny mosque in Fayetteville, North Northern European ancestry primarily com- believed, would I gain anything by taking Toward a New Model of How ‘Church’ Is Carolina. I was one of several Times reporters prised biblical Israel’s true heirs, and that apoc- someone by surprise. I recall trying it once in Done,” New York Times, April 29, 1995, p. 12; dispatched around the country to write about alyptic events lay in store for the United States. 1988 and found it unproductive, to say the and Paul Goldberger, “The Gospel of Church military communities on the eve of soldiers’ At one point, he suggested that someone had least. At a minimum, not making contact in Architecture, Revised,” New York Times, April deployment to Afghanistan, and I had just fin- the community under surveillance; not long advance runs the risk of wasting time, since 20, 1995, Section C, p. 1.] ished spending a week outside of Fort Bragg. before, he said, a “black helicopter” had been one ends up negotiating to arrange interviews The mosque I visited, housed in a small, neatly spotted hovering low overhead. Local law at the scene. But otherwise, I worked on my own and tend- kept building, was called the Masjid Omar ibn enforcement officials later told me they knew ed to be most interested in how people experi- Sayyid. It served a largely African-American nothing about this. But it had been an excep- The articles I wrote always required some enced a given site. This required me to give community. That several of those who attend- tionally violent month in that particular description of the site itself, as well as the activ- their words a standing equal to my own obser- ed were either soldiers or army veterans struck region. Four weeks earlier, Timothy McVeigh ities carried out there, written to be accessible vations. In August 2001, when I attended the me as the sort of information Times readers had bombed the Oklahoma City federal build- to a general reader. But I rarely thought my consecration of an imposing Buddhist stupa in might not expect, especially given the ing. The same day, the state of Arkansas had own observations ought to stand alone. I relied an alpine meadow tucked among the high widespread cultural unease about Islam itself executed a white supremacist for the murder of on the people I encountered to interpret from peaks of the Colorado Rockies, I wanted to that was so evident that autumn. My visit was a state trooper. their own experience the spiritual dimensions include as many voices as I could, while bear- of necessity short, as I was expected to file a of the place and to describe the value of the ing in mind I would be describing a structure story by late afternoon. I attended Friday I cite this experience not for its details, which activities occurring there. Once, at the Times, I utterly unfamiliar to most Times readers. The prayers and interviewed the Imam, along with still strike me as exotic as I read through my proposed a series of stories on the rise of evan- Great Stupa of Dharmakaya contained the four or five other men who had come by (there report of that visit, but rather because its essen- gelical Protestant megachurches, which typical- ashes of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a were hardly any women present that Friday). tial elements typify my work as a journalist, ly attract upwards of 2,000 people a week to Tibetan exile who had spent two decades Given the 700-word limit I faced that day, I which involved visiting religious sites around services. I wrote three stories, which focused on teaching in the West, during which time he had to be very selective in what I could the country. Before I came to Syracuse the clergy, the congregations, the activities founded Naropa University in Boulder. include. But in addition to quoting from the University in January 2004, I spent much of within those churches, and the organizational Despite the site’s remoteness, two hours’ drive sermon, including comments from individual the previous 20 years working as a newspaper ideas that fostered their growth. My editors west of Fort Collins, the ten-day event had a Muslims about their relationship to the army journalist, covering religion in America in all asked the Times lead architecture critic to write richly cosmopolitan feel, with 2,000 people and their thoughts on the coming war, I want- its great diversity. From 1994 until the end of a fourth story, describing the physical styles of attending, some from as far away as Britain ed to include at least one physical detail I and India. The ceremony stood as a rite of pas- thought salient — that the mosque’s lobby sage for Tibetan Buddhism in the United contained a table stacked with copies of an States, in its emergence as an established faith, American Muslim newspaper bearing the and this, too, had to be noted. What follows is headline “G-d Bless America.” It also seemed a brief passage from my story: relevant to understanding this particular mosque’s identity to mention that it had been For some, the stupa symbolizes a new stage in named after an American figure, a North Buddhism’s American development. “It seems Carolina slave who wrote an autobiographical to me,” said Judith Simmer-Brown, chair- letter in 1831 describing his upbringing as a woman of Naropa’s religious studies depart- Muslim in West Africa. ment, “in the 70s, Buddhism was more of a sect.” But by creating such monuments, she When I teach my upcoming course on reli- said, “we’re moving into a culture and a civi- gious pluralism, I expect to make considerable lization.” A stupa is a traditional monument, adjustments in my approach to visiting reli- and in this form is a highly stylized rendering gious sites. I will certainly want to step back of the Buddha seated in meditation. “A stupa from the central role I’ve had to take as a jour- represents the heart of the Buddha,” said nalist. I want to encourage my students to Zurmang Gharwang Rinpoche of Sikkim, make their own observations and to ask the India, who was among more than 50 monks questions they believe most necessary to under- who traveled to the consecration from Asia. standing the places we visit. Rather than being “That means,” he said, “when you’re close to the arbiter of what available information about the stupa, you’re close to the Buddha.” a site is presented to a wider audience, I look (Gustav Niebuhr, “Towering Buddhist Shrine forward to a more collaborative experience of Is Consecrated in the Rockies,” New York discovery and learning. ❧ The Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and His Holiness Penor Rinpoche performing the Consecration Times, August 20, 2001, 12.) Ceremony with a Flower Garland which is connected to the Stupa and all of it’s statues (Photo courtesy of Shambhala Mountain Center). October 2004 AAR RSN • xi Religious Studies News — AAR Edition Temples of Culture: Using Museums for Site Visits

Lisa Bellan-Boyer, Hudson County Community College

vital role in this partnership. Incorporating feel free to ask questions about a religious the riches of the art world into curriculum Museums can often practice they might feel inhibited asking in planning is not so much a matter of creating teach and interpret the presence of believing hosts at a religious new systems as it is of more intelligent and symbolism with a wider site. This helps the task of encouraging stu- strategic use of resources that are waiting to dent analysis and critical thinking. Some be utilized. Nearly every city and town has “and more comparative students who do not feel comfortable in museums, historic sites, and/or National and perspective than that which the worship space of another religion can State Park systems in their region. In these make the acquaintance of other traditions settings, religious studies classes can find is given by interpreters from — and the ethics and traditions of toler- experiential introductions to the effect of a single-faith community ance — through a museum visit. From an religious ideas on architecture and of visual ethnic Roman Catholic background that culture on societies in different historical on a single site visit. had shaped him to say that “the Jews killed Lisa Bellan-Boyer is an Adjunct Professor of periods and cultural contexts. Jesus,” one of my students chose to visit the Humanities and Religious Studies at Museum of Jewish Heritage, rather than Perhaps one of the most important Hudson County Community College, con- The resources of museums work best for visit a synagogue service, because he wanted resources the museum offers to religious sultant for the Art Gallery at the American religious studies courses when used to to “avoid compromises with religion.” He studies is a safe space for dialogue — pro- Bible Society and the Newark Museum, and expand and augment student experiences reported after his visit that “anti-Semitism viding representations of the sacred in” a volunteer chaplain at the Office of the with actual worshipping communities. does not look very attractive after viewing spaces that are framed as secular. This is a Chief Medical Examiner of New York. They allow students to understand some- the many relics and exhibits there.” challenge for museum exhibit designers, thing about the visual culture and practice planners, and educators, in that they must of faith traditions, giving them a wider set While museums are frequently experienced Visitor surveys frequently reveal that people simultaneously present the topic with of tools for observing modern adaptations by students as “safer” than houses of wor- regard museums as something like a integrity for believers, neutrality for non- of tradition in active, contemporary com- ship, they also can be frightening and trau- church. When asked if a museum is like a matic. Several students in the class reported list of other institutions (church/temple, that the exhibit floor of the Museum of school, university, department store, library, Jewish Heritage focusing on the Nazi peri- etc.) more people answer “church” than any od made them feel that they were in a other choice. This is a particularly interest- haunted space. After visiting the ing phenomenon for the joint fields of reli- Metropolitan Museum of Art, one student, gious studies and museum studies. an immigrant from Ecuador, thanked me because he had only ever been to one Though frequently underutilized, museums museum in his life: Madame Tussaud’s Wax are an excellent resource for religious stud- Museum. He had been quite worried about ies pedagogy. They steward dazzling and going into another museum, since that first exciting collections, have their own educa- experience had frightened him and given tional mission, and provide a secular “safety him nightmares. Religious studies teachers zone” for learning about religious traditions can perform a valuable reciprocal service to that might otherwise be inaccessible, for museums, introducing them to the uniniti- geographic or ideological reasons, to many ated as an important and enriching part of students. They are also able to offer a fram- civic and community life. ing, historical perspective that is unlikely to be as fully developed in an active religious Another student, a young woman of Cuban site, with perhaps some notable exceptions. background, reacted negatively to the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Some religious institutions are also muse- Art’s landmark building. Located in ums, such as the California Spanish mis- Manhattan’s Fort Tryon Park, the Cloisters sions, which are chapels as well as National are constructed of European architectural Park sites. For example, the three-century- elements dating from the 12th to the 15th old Trinity/St. Paul’s Episcopal parish in Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, Atlanta (Photo courtesy of the Michael C. centuries, and house gardens featuring peri- Lower Manhattan has been a place where Carlos Museum). od horticulture and the bulk of the Met’s history, religion, and civic life have inter- collection of Medieval and Gothic art and acted since the time of George artifacts. The student said, “It was like a Washington. It received renewed signifi- believers, and breathing space for that lively munities. Viewing museum exhibits is an ‘Chamber of Horrors’! — dark and dank, cance as a civic and religious landmark population of people who say they are excellent way to prepare for a site visit to an and all the artwork had blood in it.” When after surviving the World Trade Center col- “spiritual but not religious.” actual house of worship. asked to talk more about her experience, lapse, when it served as a respite center for she mentioned that she was there alone on workers at the site. In 2001 and 2002, the Newark Museum’s Having seen Chola-period bronzes of Shiva a rainy, dreary day, which heightened this African Art Galleries featured the tempo- from a museum, students are more apt to impression. Asked to identify something Virtually every museum of any size has an rary exhibit “Faces of Worship: A Yoruba notice miniature versions in store windows, she liked, she mentioned that she thought education and public programs depart- God in Two Worlds.” This exhibit dis- restaurant niches, or at the local mandir the Unicorn Tapestries were beautiful, and ment. In the ’80s, this became a growth played altars to the orisha (deity) Shango, in (temple) on a site visit. Museums can often wondered why the people in the tapestries area for museum development — grants Yoruba traditions of Nigeria, Brazil, teach and interpret symbolism with a wider wanted to kill the unicorn. This became an could be obtained for education depart- Trinidad, and modern-day New Jersey/New and more comparative perspective than that opportunity to discuss symbolism in alle- ments when they were not available for York. The opening reception included John which is given by interpreters from a single- gories of Christ. She later went back to the other museum programs and conservation Mason, a Yoruba diviner and priest of faith community on a single site visit. Cloisters on a brighter, sunny day. agendas. Consequently, larger museums Obatala, offering prayers and pouring a When students experience more than one offer off-site as well as on-site programs, libation to honor the ancestors. The kind of explanation for a symbol or an arti- Museums do have some shortcomings as such as Internet resources, in-class teaching exhibits were authentic enough that devo- fact, it helps them understand that symbols alternate site visit options. Like textbooks, aids, curriculum support kits, museum staff tees felt it appropriate to pray and leave evolve with shifting historical, political, and exhibition labels and brochures from a that travel for classroom presentations and money offerings at the altars. At the same cultural contexts. museum often must omit important infor- workshops, and, as in the case of the time, Evangelical Christians were able to mation, due to practical constraints of Newark Museum, a collection of objects observe and learn from the exhibits with Students often get excited about reading accessibility for gallery visitors. Museum and artifacts of museum quality available much less opprobrium than they likely about a subject after they see, hear, smell, curators and educators who have expertise for institutional loan — enough offerings could have if taken to a Yoruba ceremony and feel a place that relates to that subject. in their specializations can sometimes be to thoroughly debunk the false notion that outside the secularized “border zone” of the Drawing on recent examples from a deficient in their religious studies knowl- if the school cannot afford field trips, then museum walls. Further, the museum’s his- “Religions of the West” course I taught this edge. They may make errors with regard to museums are not useful to them. torical focus on the African diaspora pro- past spring, after visiting New York’s the diversity of denominational traditions vided a perspective on Shango not likely to Museum of Jewish Heritage, students made and historical developments, or incorrectly Every school, college, and university, no be as fully developed in any single practic- statements such as “It seemed as if ‘the Jewish use terms with rather precise religious defi- matter how remotely located, can make use ing community. Contextualized history Tradition’ section of our textbook had come nitions, such as “sect” or “sacrament.” of museum Web sites and off-line resources contributed to creating a “safe space” to to life.” An African-American male from an Museum staff can be unaware of current of museum education departments all over learn about Yoruba practices for students urban working-class background wrote in his understandings in religious studies about the world. They should not neglect to utilize outside the traditions. site visit report, “My time there became more gender dynamics in religious history and these vast free or low-cost resources. Local than a detached academic viewing and culture. Even major museums are subject to schools and public libraries can help play a Museums are often places where students became more of a human experience.” these pitfalls. In the 1999 Gustav Moreau xii • October 2004 AAR RSN SPOTLIGHT ON TEACHING exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of ing a museum exhibit offers the potential Art, a label next to one of his fabled paint- to bring out the fullness of human experi- ings of Salome stated that “the New ence for students. The “shadow side” of Testament describes Salome as a seductive cultural history can find a teachable focus, femme fatale.” fostering empathy and critical questioning. At the same time, a people known by out- And although the museum field has done siders for being oppressed and persecuted much to culturally diversify exhibit materials can be seen in another light, in terms of and programs, the legacy of colonialism can ingenuity, humor, and resilience. After still be discerned in the halls of many an going through the Museum of Jewish institution. I regularly ask my students to Heritage, a student wrote, “Now I can consider why there are Halls of Native understand and appreciate the traditions American, African, and Asian Peoples at the and celebrations as well as their major American Museum of Natural History, com- tragedies, and this is uplifting.” plete with sacred objects and religious arti- facts from those cultures, yet there is no Hall Students who are familiar with the history of European Peoples, treating them with the of their own people’s oppression may be same ethnographic, anthropological hand. jolted into an awareness that this has not Coordination of museum resources with been solely their own people’s lot. I revel in educational opportunities and building col- hearing the exclamatory question “Why laborative networks between museum profes- didn’t they teach us any of this history in sionals and religious studies educators would high school?” This is the power of empathy, be helpful to both fields, and to the ever- in all its pain and glory, a quality of experi- more diverse public that they serve. ence that introduces students into the ❧ wider human community. Tibetan Buddhist Altar, consecrated by His Holiness, the XIV Dalai Lama (Photo Courtesy of Despite these pitfalls and drawbacks, visit- the Newark Museum).

MCNALLY, from p.vi ing to respect the very boundaries we often wish to cross for the purposes of learning. • Anishinaabe Academy, a Minneapolis It doesn’t guarantee students will be more magnet school focused around Native Without structured reflection, field experiences than academic tourists or less than needy cultures, where students committed to alone do not generate articulate experience pilgrims. But service learning’s modest dis- three hours of classroom assistance for cipline and structured reflection, in my each of eight weeks. sufficient to transform learning in the course. experience, helps students earn their keep, “ emboldens them to participate when invit- As most readers should appreciate, ed and where appropriate, and promotes a exchanges between Native communities view of Native religions that is not divorced and scholars and the institutions of higher this alone does as much to begin the pro- reservation. There were the students who from the realities of Native ways of living. learning that employ them are charged with cess of structured reflection as anything for- worked through considerable frustration” In this, it has proved worth the risks. long histories of exploitation of power mally stipulated by me, no doubt justifying that they were getting too little exposure to inequalities (Mihesuah 1998). I don’t pro- the considerable expense of such trips — Ojibwe “culture” in a magnet school preoc- pose that modest service learning does usually about $2,000 for a 30-student cupied with meeting the basic needs of References much to address these inequities, but it course, generously supported by Carleton. pupils with the city’s highest concentration Berkhofer, Robert. The White Man’s Indian. does importantly reconfigure misguided Student journaling can be helpful, but in of poverty, and who extended their com- New York: Vintage, 1978. expectations about who has what and how my view that process encourages students mitment to weekly classroom assistance for much to teach and to learn. I make to do their reflection in their own heads, another six months. Deloria, Philip. Playing Indian. New arrangements for these projects based on without benefit of dialogue. For this rea- Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. relationships and trust I have developed son, I structure reflection through formal Then there were the students who took a over many years. I clarify the modest nature group presentations and integrative take- stroll outside the Minneapolis American Martin, Joel. The Land Looks After Us: A of the service that my students will offer home final essays that prompt students to Indian Center during a break in their work History of Native American Religion. New and acknowledge that I don’t wish to bur- reflect on the connections and disconnec- for the Feast for the Dead. A Native man York: Oxford University Press, 1999. den already understaffed, overworked peo- tions between service-learning experiences who was sleeping on the ground outside ple with another group of outsiders to and books, films, lectures, and visits from the center arose to confront them, asserting McNally, Michael. “Indigenous Pedagogy “train in.” I think it is crucial to place stu- the course. Increasingly, I have come to they had no business being there “on in the Classroom: A Service-Learning dents with community leaders who are appreciate the stipulated office-hour discus- Indian land.” Some were admittedly con- Model for Discussion.” American Indian conversant with the students’ collegiate sions with each student midway through cerned for their safety, but when one stu- Quarterly, forthcoming. world, but it is also crucial to surround my the service or the week following a visit. It dent assured the man they were volunteer- students with Native community people is here I can best help students identify ing to help out with a feast and ceremony Mihesuah, Devon. Natives and Academics. whose distinctive cultural idioms challenge frustrations — typically that they aren’t honoring the previous year’s dead, he tear- Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, students to think differently about the finding or haven’t found enough “Native fully confessed that he had been drinking 1998. world. Finally, I emphatically do not religion” in their experience — and convert out of loneliness after his mother’s recent accompany the students in their work to those frustrations into learning moments death and asked them to go in and “say www.pluralism.org/affiliates/mcnally/index.php ❧ mediate their experience for them. This has about their deep-seated preconceptions, or hello to her” for him. One could hear a pin had the refreshing result of giving students about the ways that Native “religion” has drop as the group told this story in their a truer sense of critical purchase on my been nowhere and everywhere at once. class presentation. Their expectations for an authority, course texts, and classroom prior- authentic “Native American ceremony” ities. My logistical workload is particularly Trusting in Seeds and Reaping the were interrupted by the harsh realities of heavy in the first four weeks of the course; Rewards the street. They spoke with an awakened I can’t make precise commitments to sense of urgency of how they had learned Not all students emerge as changed as I Native organizations, raise money, or make that most of the year’s deaths memorialized would hope by service learning and site vis- all arrangements until I know who my stu- in the ceremony had been violent, includ- its. For some, there are simply too many dents are and how far their interest and ing a victim of fatal police brutality. other priorities in a term to delve deeply commitment will carry. This is important, into this kind of work. For others, projects given that this process involves placing faith I suspect that this final story sheds light on only confirm what remains for them the not only with my friends and contacts in how service learning can address one pre- vast and disappointing distance between the Native community, but more challeng- senting problem we perhaps share in reli- the Native people they meet and the “pris- ingly still, placing faith in my students to gious studies: how to arrange visits to tine” spiritualities they’d hoped to find. But comport themselves with respect. places of other peoples’ ceremony that are for others, such jarring experiences succeed meaningful for students and respectful of in reorienting them in ways that gratify me the practitioners. In the case of visits to deeply when I hear them articulated in Structured Reflection Is the Key Native American sites, added to the cus- classroom presentations and final integra- Without structured reflection, field experi- tomary risk of voyeuristic academic tourism tive essays. There was the physics major ences alone do not generate articulate expe- in the spiritual field of the “other” is the (whose photographs appear here) who was rience sufficient to transform learning in risk of posing as pilgrims seeking the pre- so moved by her service at White Earth and the course. Carleton’s location ensures that sumed authenticity of “Native American encounters with an elder there that she has groups have at least an hour in vans to pro- spirituality.” Service learning does not committed to a year of Jesuit Volunteer cess their experience, and I am convinced resolve the challenge of simultaneously try- Corps, to teach science on a Montana

October 2004 AAR RSN • xiii Religious Studies News — AAR Edition

MCGINN, from p.ix but also their own group dynamics. I do CARLSON, from p.iv early, midway, and summative assess- 11. In what ways did you, as an observer, ments of the group work, based on A frequent scenario is the uncritical, roman- find this ritual meaningful? In what assessment forms from CECAT tic “yes” students sometimes express when ways did you find it lacking? (Collective Effort Classroom Assessment they visit a site for the first time. Once my Technique), by Charles Walker and class and I visited a Japanese Zen center. 12. What did this observation teach you Thomas Angelo. Members of the group Most of the students were enamored with about your own beliefs (about human assess themselves and one another. In a “the mystical East,” speaking openly about nature, the divine, the community of concluding evaluation session, they dis- the profound “spiritual presence” they felt believers, etc.)? cuss how to allocate the group grade they encountered. However, on the walk to among the various members of the group the elevated train to take us back to campus, Evaluation: (based on value of contribution, amount two of the students were shaking their of effort, etc.). Barring any unusual and heads, grumbling among themselves. I asked As a group, evaluate your observation extenuating circumstances, I use their fig- these two recent immigrants from Vietnam according to the following four criteria: ures for allocating the project points why they were so troubled, and they replied, among the various group members. “That’s not real Buddhism.” As we talked, a Gurdwara Sahib, Chicago, August 1999 (Photo 1. What were the objectives you had set possibility emerged: Later in the week we courtesy of Jeffrey Carlson). for this observation, and to what The final course evaluation asks specific would be nearby another temple, one these degree did you accomplish each of questions about the value of the field two students themselves frequented. They them? Integration of site visits in the study of reli- research project. One initially surprising knew the monk personally and volunteered gion can foster and exemplify an epistemolo- 2. Do you think your observation strate- result of site visits was that students over- to contact him and to arrange for us to visit. gy of diversity, wherein the critical and inte- gy was an appropriate one? How might whelmingly responded that the field It meant shifting a few things and having a grative thinker is one who learns enough to you adapt this strategy to make the research reduced their prejudice toward shorter lunch break/discussion time that day, be able to consider multiple views, multiple observation more effective/efficient? “other” people, particularly people of but we went. It was indeed a very different approaches to a problem, and multiple other religious traditions and ethnic experience than our earlier one at the Zen 3. Did all of the group members fully applications of a theory or concept; to adju- backgrounds. I have not yet tested for a center. The class came to appreciate the participate in this observation? How dicate between them in a deliberate and prejudice-reduction effect in a systematic diversity of “Buddhism.” Furthermore, they might you improve the group reflective manner; and to develop a coher- way, to check the validity of these self- realized that two sites did not exhaust this dynamic? ent, informed, and ethically responsible report data, but it seems safe to say that diversity. The two Buddhist students helped vision. 4. What questions did this observation site visits at least have the potential to teach and exemplify, again, an epistemology raise for further research or discussion? break down religious and ethnic preju- of diversity wherein multiple perspectives dice in a way that the typical in-class might be discerned and engaged, even as Each group analyzes not only the site, readings and assignments do not. ❧ these two students experienced in a new way References: the diversity of their own tradition. As Smith, Jonathan Z. “‘Narratives into Jonathan Z. Smith has put it, in the class- Problems’: The College Introductory Course BURFORD, from p.v Something that happened at the mosque room, “nothing must stand alone.... [E]very and the Study of Religion.” Journal of the illustrates the importance of making the item encountered ... [must] have a conversa- American Academy of Religion 56 (1988): us how to do the prayers. As usual, prior effort to integrate site visits into our tion partner, so that each may have, or be 727–739. ❧ to this visit I had reminded the students courses. When we met Dilara at the made to have, an argument with another in that I expected them to learn how to do mosque, a student from a nearby institu- order that students may negotiate difference, all of the practices we would be taught tion of higher learning joined our group. evaluate, compare, and make judgments” there, but that whether they actually did Each time Muslims who were attending (Smith 1988, 735). The same holds true for them was up to each of them to decide. the service at the mosque asked the stu- courses using site visits. On this occasion, the male students dents (in a friendly way) who they were joined the other men up front, the female and why they were there, my students students and I joined the women in the explained that they were studying Islam back, and we all participated in the in their religion class at Prescott College, prayers. After the prayer service, Dilara and had come down to learn about Islam BRODEUR, from p.x showed us around the mosque. Despite firsthand. Each time the other student Conclusion the fact that our delayed arrival at the responded that she, too, was studying the need to include at least two of the old- The PPCC integrated site visit methodol- mosque shortened our site visit consider- Islam in a class (at her university), and est New London religious communities in ogy is not only fun to teach, it results in ably, the experience proved pedagogically said — sounding somewhat annoyed — order to ensure that the students take his- higher research output as the quality of worthwhile. In the site-visit response- that she was there because her professor tory seriously in their search for under- ethnographic skills increases exponentially essays they wrote for the following class was “making everyone in the class visit a standing contemporary religious life. The over the course of one semester. By using a meeting, and in subsequent class discus- mosque.” The Prescott College students, principle of diversity calls for the need to progressive collective reflection process, sions, the students recounted and incor- slightly appalled, silently exchanged looks select site visits that collectively reflect the students become aware of how fine the porated in our study of Islam specific every time she said this. For that student, diversity of the religious life of New line is between commodification of super- points of practice and belief that they the site visit clearly represented a taxing London. The principle of progressive ficial relationships with religious commu- learned at the mosque, many of which deviation from her pedagogical norm. In acquisition means that, because students nities for research purposes only and, on they would never have read in an academ- contrast, the students in my class — progressively acquire their ethnographic the other hand, legitimate production of ic book on Islam or learned from me. In accustomed to site visits as an integral skills through firsthand experience in the knowledge that serves some of the needs addition, these students — many of part of their education — valued this class site visits before they embark on their of the religious communities engaged in whom were taking their first religion visit as a unique experiential learning own team site visits, their choices cannot reciprocal relationship with Connecticut course — demonstrated notable sophisti- opportunity. This attitude, coupled with be finalized until the end of the first third College. The challenges of a service-learn- cation in their reflections on the experi- our advance preparation for the visit and of the course. ing methodology, let alone one embedded ence itself. Several raised thoughtful ques- the students’ focus on completing the fol- in a serious research agenda that also aims tions about the influence of our presence low-up assignment, guaranteed that this This first third of the seminar focused to serve community needs, are not easy to on the activities we went there to study. site visit contributed significantly and exclusively on teaching students how to carry out satisfactorily. The PPCC inte- Others brought up the possibility of com- uniquely to the depth and quality of distinguish between description, analysis, grated approach requires a great deal of modification or exploitation of a religious learning in this course. ❧ and interpretation, the three sections into time to build personal relationships with tradition through site visits, and we dis- which I divided the blackboard after each religious community leader, subse- cussed how to avoid this potential pitfall. returning from each class site visit. quently allowing for the development of a Through an inductive process of trial and mutually beneficial research agenda. In the error, which I guided every step of the way, second PPCC phase, in particular, I came Spotlight on Teaching Solicits Guest the students developed their descriptive, to discover how much the site visits were analytical, and interpretative skills collec- embedded in a complex set of relation- Editors and Articles tively. During the second third, they con- ships that included overlapping political AAR members interested in guest editing an issue of Spotlight on Teaching are invited to tinued honing their skills not only through circles, from the classroom to the college submit the title of a theme focusing on teaching and learning in the study of religion, the collective process developed around the to the city to broader national and inter- along with a succinct description (500 words) of the theme’s merit and significance, to class site visits, but also through their new national historical and contemporary con- Spotlight’s general editor, Tazim R. Kassam. In addition to issues devoted to specific team site visits. Upon their return from texts. These multiple circles have constant- themes, problems, and settings, Spotlight on Teaching will also occasionally feature a class site visits, I allowed more and more ly influenced, in ways positive and nega- variety of independent articles and essays critically reflecting on pedagogy and theory in time for the teams to share their own site tive, known and yet unknown, the results the field of religion. Please send both types of submissions to: visit stories. Discussion of both class and of PPCC’s two phases as an integrated team site visits strengthened the acquisi- research, teaching, and service project. Tazim R. Kassam, Editor tion and quality of the students’ ethno- Spotlight on Teaching graphic skills. During the last third of the 1 Video clips of these and other student Department of Religion course, each team collected their survey presentations during the symposiums of 2000, Syracuse University results, discussed them in class, and finally 2001, and 2004 are available on the PPCC Syracuse, NY 13210 presented them during the final public aca- Web site under the section ‘Resources’: TEL: 1-315-443-5722 demic conference. oak.conncoll.edu/%7Eppcc/. ❧ E-MAIL: [email protected] xiv • October 2004 AAR RSN