My department is planning to expand their offerings past the two or three traditions that you think of when someone says, "Quick, name a religion!"I think this is an excellent idea, we are a Religion Department, after all, we should live up to our name ... but some interesting issues came up.
1) We've contacted local communities in these traditions for their input (and perhaps their funding for lecture serieses or professorships or library donations...)As minority religions (at least here) they're understandably anxious that we teach about them in a friendly manner - we tried to explain we're historians, not Sunday school teachers (or their equivalent thereof.)So some are worried we'll undermine their religion or its reputation; and others don't understand why we want to teach areas of their history and literature that aren't relevant to contemporary believers.We want to remain on good terms with them and we do not want to make this outside-people-talking-about-those-X's, but we can't accept faith-based restrictions on our context - and history sometimes involves things that seem arcane and remote.
(Indeed some historians love the arcane and remote.... )
2) Should our future professors be members of these respective faiths?Since our school isn't from any one of these traditions, we can't restrict our hiring to those traditions - and we don't want to.But I've heard friends who are members of minority religions complain that professors of majority faiths subtly misunderstand and distort their religion (even in a careful classroom setting); although I've also seen professors who certainly weren't the religion they were teaching give thorough and empathetic presentations of their subject.(In the field of Religion no one discusses what religion they are (or aren't) - no one objects when a professor is also a Buddhist nun, a rabbi, or a Jesuit - but I've known colleagues for decades without forming the least sense of what their background is (or they, mine.)) The classroom shouldn't be about what the professor does or doesn't believe - that gives entire blocs of students the imagined right to ignore (or hang on their every word) for the rest of the semester. (And it can look like an endorsement of a particular religion or branch of religion — that's not the point: a lectern is not a pulpit.)
Certainly we want to teach about each of these traditions with the same care and thoroughness and neutrality as our existing offerings, and everyone we consider for the positions will have the correct degrees to teach their subject and be academically competent (nay excellent, we hope!)But will it make our program any 'better', any more or less 'authentic' to have professors who are also X?(The students may never know, one way or another, but it's something we think about.)
Part of me says 'No' - and part of me wants to take extra care to assure that these small and often misunderstood religions are represented well.I'm not worried about Ph.D.'s handing out tracts - but I am concerned that our new subjects not carry any whiff of pointing-at-those-folks-over there.A good professor, of any background, will be able to do a good job, but I wonder what qualities will make the best professors for our students.
-Kushana
Note to self: talk about archaeologoly, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, the Sikh religion, religions in Iraq, Mandaeism, Zoroastianism.
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