“From Sole Learning to Soul Learning”

Is it effective or even possible to teach an introductory course in religious studies that not only provides first-year university students with the fundamental vocabulary, concepts, and critical tools of religious inquiry but also invites and stimulates the transformation of the religious imagination? In what kind of teaching and learning method could the process of personal transformation occur and how might one assess it? These are the questions that led to an experiment in teaching religion the objective of which was to prepare beginning students for the academic approach to religion and, at the same time, transmit the experience of learning as an embodied process that engages personal narrative within a community context. This essay is based on a three-year project that has made considerable progress in meeting these goals and answering these questions.