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Extra Credit Opportunities
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Various groups on
campus will organize events during the quarter which are related to our course
or to the study of religion in our world. You are encouraged to attend, both as
a citizen of the University and as a student of religious studies this term.
You will receive extra credit if all of your regular assignments are submitted
and if, in addition to attending the event, you analyze and reflect on it in a
2-3 page paper. Introduce the speaker, date, and title of the event in the first
paragraph. In the body of your paper, explore the speaker's career more fully
(use links below) and summarize and analyze the presentation. To do this successfully,
break out paragraphs that address the following questions:
- What has the speaker published, and/or with what organizations is the the
speaker affiliated?
- What were the central points of the presentation?
- What
insights did the speaker offer?
- In what ways do the speaker's points relate
to our course?
In the final paragraph of your paper, evaluate
the speaker's presentation. What did you appreciate most? What did you learn?
Was there anything that was problematic about the presentation, or any points
you would argue with? Why?
This paper should follow the formatting directions
for a short assignment available at Style
Sheet. The paper must be submitted within a week of the event.
Each assignment is worth at most 2 points, so students usually do 2 to get the
maximum grade.
The following events are eligible for extra credit in
this class. The list will be updated weekly, so check back in regularly. If you
learn of any events that might be appropriate for extra credit, propose them to
the professor beforehand for approval.
| Date & Time | Event |
January 22
Tuesday
4:00-5:30 p.m. |
"Creating a Culture of Care: Hebrew Scripture and Jewish Tradition on Charity and Hospitality," Michael Fishbane
St. Clare Room, Learning Commons
Dr. Fishbane is the Nathan Cummings Distinguished Service Professor of Jewish Studies in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. An expert in Jewish textual studies, he is the author of over seven books, two of which have won the National Jewish Book Award in scholarship. In this lecture, he will discuss how Judaism interprets Scripture at several distinct levels. Each tries to cultivate the religious and moral life of the individual within community—but in different ways and with different emphases. Life situations, spiritual attunement, and the authority of tradition all play a key role. The presentation will illustrate this interplay with examples from the Book of Genesis, Psalms, and the Song of Songs. Part of the Sacred Dialogue series sponsored this year by the Bannan Institute of the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education here at Santa Clara. Please rsvp to the event.
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January 23
Wednesday
4:00-5:30 p.m. |
"Engaging Digital Spirituality," Heidi Campbell and Lisa Webster
Williman Room, Benson
Dr. Campbell is Associate Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University where she teaches Telecommunications and Media Studies. She's been studying religion and the internet for over 15 years, and her most recent book is When Religion Meets New Media (Routledge, 2010). Lisa Webster is a senior editor at Religion Dispatches and a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Her MA is in comparative literature from Columbia University. This event will consider the following questions: What does religious and spiritual practice look like in social media networks and other digital spaces? How might digital practice be changing what we believe and how we practice our faith? Does the religious and spiritual information we share in social media communities form new “sacred texts”? Sponsored as part of the Sacred Pixels Series in the Bannan Institute's yearlong Sacred Dialogue series, out of the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education.
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January 23
Wednesday
4:00-5:30 p.m. |
"A Glass Half Empty: Post-election Implications for Women in Non-Dominant Communities," Esther Peralez Dieckman
Wiegand Rm, A&S
Ms. Peralez-Dieckman is the Director of the Office of Women's Policy for the County of Santa Clara. She'll be discussing the challenges that remain, particularly for women in minority communities, in the current economic and political context here in Silicon Valley. Sponsored by the Women's and Gender Studies Program.
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February 28
Thursday
4:00-5:30 p.m. |
"Contested Origins: The Hindu Hymn of the Person, the Origin of the Caste System, and the Buddhist Reponses," David Gray
St. Clare Room, Learning Commons and Library
Gray is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University. His topic today is the caste system which, while largely a social institution, is rooted in religious practice and scriptures like the Rig-Veda. In the Rig-Veda, the Hymn of the Person describes the creation of hte natural and social worlds, via a primal act of sacrifice. It narrates the fundamental division of society into the four broad classes that underpinned the caste system. Gray will discuss the myth and Buddhist responses to it, which offers a kind of "counter-myth" with a different idea of the origin of things. Gray is author of The Cakrasamvara Tantra: A Study and Annotated Translation (2007) and two forthcoming books about the same text. Part of the Sacred Dialogue series sponsored by the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education this quarter.
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March 6
Wednesday
4:00-5:00 p.m. |
"Parsing Papal Politics: The Future of Roman Catholicism in an Age of Papal Resignation," Panel Presentation
Williman Room, Benson
Three panelists from SCU's Religious Studies Department will discuss the significance of the first
papal resignation in nearly 700 years and what the selection of the next Pope will mean for
the Catholic Church. Join us as we look back and look forward to better understand this
unexpected development and how it will affect the lives of nearly a billion people worldwide. Panelists include theologians Frederick Parrella, Sally Vance-Trembath and Paul Crowley, S.J. Sponsored by the Religious Studies Department.
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March 7
Thursday
4:00-5:30 p.m. |
"Pearls, Prodigals, and Samaritans: Jesus' Parables as Jewish Stories," Amy-Jill Levine
St. Clare Room
Amy-Jill Levine is the author of one of our readings this quarter (on Q and the question of a feminist Jesus). She is a prolific author, most recently of The Meaning of the Bible (with Doug Knight, 2012) and The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and hte Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (2007). She has also edited several books, including the entire series "Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings," and The Jewish Annotated New Testament (in which Jewish scholars annotate and discuss the Christian texts). She is an Orthodox Jewish scholar who specializes in the study of the Christian Gospel of Matthew. She is the University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies, and Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School. A self-described Yankee Jewish feminist, Professor Levine is a member of an Orthodox Synagogue in Nashville Tennessee, although she is often quite unorthodox. Her talk today is about the parables or riddle-like short stories of Jesus. She'll present these as they would have been heard by first century Jews, inviting us to consider what they might say to listeners today from various religious traditions. Part of the Sacred Dialogue series sponsored by the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education this quarter.
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