The article acknowledges the limits of the categories of similarity and difference in undergraduate comparative religion courses. To challenge these limitations, including the potential for dualistic or "us/them" thinking, several pedagogical attempts to increase relationality in Christian-Muslim courses are explored. Relational methods…

I discuss White American students' experiences of reading racism-themed young adult literature (YAL), addressing the issue of police brutality, and using the concept of intersectionality to promote social justice awareness. Based on analysis of their written reflections and classroom discussions, I argue reading racism-themed YAL with an…

Sci-fi has the power to open dialogue because its alternate world-building enables students to feel far enough from reality to discuss social problems unreservedly. In this essay, I review an assignment I developed using "Black Mirror" and "Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams" that present episodes in which militarized policing,…

This article provides an overview of the Survivors: Local Stories of Domestic Violence (hereafter, Survivors) civic engagement project. Survivors' learning objectives were to increase the understanding of the complexity of intimate partner abuse and foster empathy in outsiders' responses, something at the cornerstone of the #MeToo social movement…

Holistic sexuality education is needed in churches and seminaries to promote sexual inclusion and flourishing as well as combat sexual violence and trauma. The scholarly and pedagogical resources exist to do this work; we need an ethical commitment to integrate them across the curriculum.

In spring 2021, we taught a course called Honors White Supremacy and Privilege to university honors students at our higher education institution in Florida. Aimed at helping students process intellectually the Black Lives Matter events of the preceding year, the course took place just as a reaction was gathering momentum against anti-racist…

This paper reflects on teaching a postgraduate degree which aims to support students to understand and challenge gender violence and contribute to gender justice. It explores three dilemmas: (i) epistemological -- how to create a curriculum which embraces diverse knowledges and decentres perspectives which can produce violence; (ii) pedagogical --…

Teaching about gender-based violence involves dealing with a form of difficult knowledge and as such calls for substantial emotional, political and pedagogical labour on the part of educators. In this paper, we discuss how we have drawn on theoretical perspectives offered by Judith Butler, along with the Deleuzian notion of affective assemblages…

A key epistemological assumption in the ideologies of many of the groups termed extremist is that there is an unmediated access to a Divine Will. Driven by this assumption, and facilitated by several other factors, a range of coercive actions (including violence) to force others into submission to the perceived Will of God are seen as justified by…

The fifth of March 2020 was the 250th anniversary of an event commonly known as the "Boston Massacre," and to commemorate it, the author's upper-level history class staged an unscripted presentation of the resulting historical trial in conjunction with third-year law students enrolled in Practice Court through the Baylor Law School.…

Promoted by the peace process between the Santos administration (2010-2018) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which resulted in the signing of a peace accord in November 2016, peace education at Colombia's higher education establishments and schools is gaining momentum. Educators have seized upon the opportunity afforded by the peace…

As a literature professor whose own research is at the intersection of literary and gender and women studies, in each of her courses, Diana Aramburu devotes a few weeks solely to the topic of gender violence and femicide. In this article, she documents her own teaching practices around these topics, and assesses the results of these practices by…

Alevi students' longstanding discontentment regarding compulsory religious education has become an important human rights issue in Türkiye. Although many theologists, political scientists, and legal scholars have conducted research on this subject, studies addressing the issue through curriculum and teaching practices are limited. This study seeks…

Campus sexual violence in the United States has been elevated as a matter of national concern over the past decade through student activism, Title IX legal regulation, and the #MeToo movement. This attention has mandated the creation of institutional structures for addressing sexual violence, but also highlighted the limitations of university…

In this Point of Departure, we will present six key concepts, grouped into the following three dimensions which are salient for incorporating a cyberfeminist perspective into online higher education: Critical technologies (Platform capitalism and Digital gender gaps), Gendered gazes (Digital gender-based violence and Safer spaces) and…