Funded by the Wabash Center , 18 participants from across three continents gathered online for across two days in order to discuss strategies and approaches for teaching philosophy of religion inclusively.
1) How to make students from diverse backgrounds feel represented and at home in an increasingly diverse classroom environment?
2) How can we enable students in these diverse classroom settings to understand the beliefs and ways of thinking of their neighbors beyond the pervasive images and stereotypes characteristic of orientalism?
3) How might we enable faculty to teach global and critical approaches to the philosophy of religion in courses that provide a safe and brave learning environment?
4) How do we implement diversity, equity, and inclusion in our teaching of philosophy of religion?
The sessions were based on two sets of interviews. In one, Tim Knepper discussed the outcomes of selected participants’ teaching experiences from Fall 2020 (Nathan Eric Dickman, Ayodeji Ogunnaike, and Parimal G. Patil). The other interviews discussed specific aspects of teaching inclusively with experts from the field. Gereon Kopf interviewed Louis Komjathy and Agnieszka Rostalska. Nathan Loewen interviewed Kevin Schilbrack and Ayodeji Ogunnaike.