Resources

The world of the modern academy relies heavily upon contingent faculty in the teaching and training of students. Theological studies readily evidences this practice in innumerable ways. While the contingent faculty member is intrinsic to the mission of many modern schools, this piece ponders whether or not a trade‐off exists in the quality of learning contingent faculty can offer in comparison to residential or tenure track faculty members? The piece explores the constraints that many contingent faculty face in the world of theological education and asks the academy at large if such limits are something it really feels comfortable with. Ultimately, the piece voices a view that the modern academy must come to grips with its utilization of contingent faculty both for the sake of those faculty members, but more‐so for the sake of its students. See companion essays published in this issue of the journal by Hoon J. Lee, Bradley Burroughs, Kyle Schenkewitz, and Charles Harrell.

Contingent teaching has become the norm in most institutions. While the use of adjuncts and other non‐tenure track professors shows no sign of slowing down, the nature of contingent teaching is less known. This article examines how contingent teaching directly impacts the professor's teaching. My experience teaching religious studies courses from 2014 to the present has shown how contingent status affects significant issues such as the time and structure of teaching. Time is an essential component in teaching well. How the course is structured is equally important, or perhaps even more so, and has significant ramifications for a course. However, the nature of contingent labor impacts how time and structure is implemented in a course. This influences how I interact with the course material, the students, the department, and my ability to teach. See companion essays published in this issue of the journal by Adam Wirrig, Bradley Burroughs, Kyle Schenkewitz, and Charles Harrell.

One of three short companion essays to Terry Shoemaker's “World Religion and Fake News: A Pedagogical Response in an Age of Post‐Truth,” published in this issue of the journal.

One of three short companion essays to Terry Shoemaker's “World Religion and Fake News: A Pedagogical Response in an Age of Post‐Truth,” published in this issue of the journal.

One of three short companion essays to Terry Shoemaker's “World Religion and Fake News: A Pedagogical Response in an Age of Post‐Truth,” published in this issue of the journal.

This article describes a pedagogical response to teaching world religions courses in a post‐truth age. The course assignment and its application, utilized in both online and in‐person formats, bridge student academic pursuits with religious traditions, require students to engage with source‐based journalism, and extend beyond the classroom into many of the contemporary politics encroaching upon the humanities fields. Related to the first, the objective of the assignment is for students to discover that religiosity permeates multiple sectors, both private and public, corresponding with student career paths. As a result, students discover that religion is relevant to their academic pursuits and that they must consider the possibilities of how religion might integrate with their career choices. Regarding the second objective, the assignment develops student digital media literacy skills as a form of civic education that challenges the current political attacks on journalism and factuality. Last, this exercise acknowledges the realities facing many humanities programs across the country and offers this assignment as a way of engaging with those issues within the classroom. See as well, published in this issue of the journal, three short companion essays by Sarah L. Schwarz, Jonathan R. Herman, and Harshita Mruthinti Kamath, each of which analyzes this pedagogical strategy for their particular teaching contexts.

The need to confront issues of race and white supremacy in our teaching of religion is critically important, but through the pedagogical convention of naming, we take the first step in inviting our students to understand the hows and whys of it. I will explore the ways that Charles Long's theory of signification and counter‐signification can be pedagogically deployed to incorporate intersectional interventions in the teaching of religion in America, specifically in the case of an Islam in America course.

This conversation between the 2018 American Academy of Religion Excellence in Teaching Award winner Jill DeTemple and the editors of Teaching Theology and Religion continues an occasional series of interviews that has previously featured Jonathan Z. Smith, Stephen Prothero, Mary Pierce Brosmer, Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore, and two previous AAR Teaching Award Winners, Joanne Maguire and Lynn Neal. After initial discussion about teaching the intro course we launch into a long discussion of “Reflective Structured Dialogue” – an effective teaching technique for staging contentious conversations, building trust and understanding, and a dialogic culture of curiosity.

This conversation between the 2018 American Academy of Religion Excellence in Teaching Award winner Jill DeTemple and the editors of Teaching Theology and Religion continues an occasional series of interviews that has previously featured Jonathan Z. Smith, Stephen Prothero, Mary Pierce Brosmer, Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore, and two previous AAR Teaching Award Winners, Joanne Maguire and Lynn Neal. After initial discussion about teaching the intro course we launch into a long discussion of “Reflective Structured Dialogue” – an effective teaching technique for staging contentious conversations, building trust and understanding, and a dialogic culture of curiosity.

This conversation between the 2018 American Academy of Religion Excellence in Teaching Award winner Jill DeTemple and the editors of Teaching Theology and Religion continues an occasional series of interviews that has previously featured Jonathan Z. Smith, Stephen Prothero, Mary Pierce Brosmer, Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore, and two previous AAR Teaching Award Winners, Joanne Maguire and Lynn Neal. After initial discussion about teaching the intro course we launch into a long discussion of “Reflective Structured Dialogue” – an effective teaching technique for staging contentious conversations, building trust and understanding, and a dialogic culture of curiosity.