Spring 2022 Education Workshops
Land and Story: Religious Literacy, Place-Based Knowledges and Climate Justice
This spring Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School (RPL) is offering two, free online workshops for secondary educators on religious literacy, place-based knowledges and climate justice. Each workshop includes a self-paced module as well as a one-day live session.
- April 6th: Place-Based Knowledges and Religious Literacy
- May 6th: Climate Justice and Religious Literacy
We encourage educators to take part in both workshops, but also welcome participation in single workshops.
Workshop content is focused on secondary school educators and will prioritize those who have completed introductory professional development on religious literacy methods, either in-person or online. Applicants who have not attended prior training will be asked to complete additional introductory work in the RPL religious literacy method.
Due to limited space, not all applicants will be guaranteed a spot in the live workshops (April 6th and May 6th), although all will have access to both of the self-paced online modules.
If you have questions, please contact Anna Mudd at amudd@hds.harvard.edu and Kris Rhude at kristofer_rhude@mail.harvard.edu.
Place-Based Knowledges and Religious Literacy
Live Workshop: Wednesday, April 6th, 2022, 1-5pm EST
This moment of globalization and online primacy often privileges top-down forms of power and knowledge. As we teach religious literacy, we seek to cultivate a nuanced understanding of the forces that shape our world, often through embedding understandings of religion in context and in local, community-based perspectives.
In this self-paced module and one-day workshop we will look at how an appreciation and understanding of our own and others’ local knowledges can help our students better understand the principles of religious literacy, cultural violence, and the legacies of colonization that impact who and what we trust as legitimate sources of knowledge. RPL Native and Indigenous Rights Fellow, Cynthia Wilson, will join the conversation on April 6th. Cynthia Wilson is a tribal member of the Navajo Nation and works in reclaiming local traditional food ways among indigenous communities.
This workshop includes a live session from 1-5pm EST on Wed, April 6th, as well as a self-paced online module to be completed by that date. The online module will open by March 23, 2022.
Climate Justice and Religious Literacy
Live Workshop: Friday, May 6th, 2022, 1-5pm EST
The climate crisis is, in many ways, an unprecedented challenge for humanity. It is also a moment that invites critical questions about our past, our present, and our future possibilities. In this self-paced module and one-day workshop we will look at the “deep stories” that are told in response to these questions, and the role of religion and religious literacy in those narratives. We will explore how examination of those stories, and explorations in our own storytelling, can promote critical reflection on the role of power and structural peace and violence in climate conversations, as well as open up new imaginative possibilities and pathways to action. RPL Climate Justice Fellow Teresa Cavazos Cohn will join the conversation on May 6th. Dr. Cohn's interdisciplinary work as a science communicator focuses on community storytelling work, Indigenous waters and human dimensions of wildfire.
This workshop includes a live session from 1-5pm EST on Fri, May 6th, as well as a self-paced online module to be completed by that date. The online module will open by April 29, 2022.