scholartivism & counter-oppressive the@logical education
"i don't want to be that kind of serious anyway..."
"i don't want to be that kind of serious anyway..."
“Multi-religious education calls all of us beyond the borders of the school house and into engagement with the world in liberatory ways which allow for greater wholeness and greater global justice.
Whether we are doing this work with Sufi mystics in Turkey or on the trail of the Waldensian tradition in Italy, whether we are in Yuba County learning more about some of California’s Spanish and Punjabi-speaking Sikhs with names like Dolores Singh, Jose Akbar Khan, Armando Chand, Maria Jesusita Singh, or in Amazônia deepening our experience of shamanism, we are working towards the healing of the earth, the healing of the universe; we are weaving the tapestry of the counter-oppressive and the multi-religious; we are diving deeply into the Cave of the Heart, we are witnessing the intelligence of the Heart, the intelligence descending into the Cave of the Heart.”
“Yes, i am a trained performance artist; yes, i do new media art. To hold multiple identities is interpreted as meaning that one lacks focus, that one is a mere generalist, that one is not “serious”. those of us who struggle to hold the space for scholar/artist/activist/mystic as a mixed-identity are often just dismissed as not being “real” enough.”
Loosening the Canons:
Towards Guerrilla Scholarship of Religions
Each class that I teach (whether it be studying religions from intersexional perspectives; African-descent 'kweer' and womanist speculative/science fiction as sources of anti-colonial/anti-imperialist thea/ologies; the history and historiography of Islamophobia; African Religions in Diaspora; Muslim Slave Rebellions in Brasil; Islam in South Asia; Critical Race Theory) is grounded in a way that calls us to continually and simultaneously consider the intersexions of race, class, gender, embodiment/disabilities, environmental issues, cultural representations, sexualities, etc.
Organic Multireligiosity & Seriously (WARNING: COLOURED) Organic Scholarship
WARNING: these are free-flowing thoughts of mine that flow from the Starr King School for the Ministry SYMPOSIUM 2012: Living in the Differences: Counter-Oppressive/UU and Multireligious The()logical Education which i conceived and directed.