teaching and politics

Since Trump became a candidate in the 2016 US presidential race, educators have continued to reflect on how his political presence might influence pedagogy. Personally, I find myself in a familiar quagmire: to what extent do I focus on current events in my Islamic studies courses? If I wanted to, each ...

On November 8, 2016, I watched Ana Navarro telling ABC News that “there is a White America and there is a Brown and Black America, Chinese America, Muslim America.” Muslims, of course, are white, brown, black, Chinese, and many other things as well, so from a historical standpoint it is surely curious, ...

In my “Introduction to the Hebrew Bible” syllabus, a couple of sessions are reserved for the Exodus story: its claims about liberation; the use of official “war gear” against civilians; the dread of nightfall; legislative debates; witness accounts to the sights and sounds of violence; the importance of memory, etc. “...

Silence, guilt and fear are obstacles to justice and democracy.  My white brothers and sisters, we have often let the fear of breaking the rules of certain types of discourse trap us.  Too often we let fear immobilize us and we remain silent. Let’s take for example the fear ...