Intersession & Spring 2023 Courses
We’re so excited to share our upcoming Intersession and Spring 2023 course offerings with you! As always, they include plenty of returning favorites as well as some exciting new courses. Although some in person and hybrid events are returning to Starr King, classes will remain fully online through the Spring semester.
Early registration for both January Intersession and Spring semester begins November 7 and runs through November 18.
General registration for Intersession runs January 2-6, 2023. Late registration runs through the first day of course (if there is no pre-work).
General registration for Spring runs January 17-27, 2023. Late registration runs January 30 – February 10, 2023. Check out the full line-up of courses below!
While exploring Starr King, you can take any of these classes as a Special Student before you are fully enrolled. If you successfully complete the class and decide to enroll in one of our certificate or degree programs, this Special Student course will transfer. Spots for Special Students are limited and on an as-available basis. Learn more about registering as a Special Student here.
January Intersession: January 9-30
- Beginner’s Meditation Workshop
- Introduction to Preaching in a Cross Cultural Context
- Multi-Religious Core Intensive: Amidst the Blessing of the Ancestors
Spring Semester: January 30 – May 8
- Advanced Topics in Dharma and Leadership
- Advanced Topics in Meditation
- Advanced Topics in Religious Education and Faith Formation
- Christian Histories
- Creating Media that Counters Oppressions
- Deep Listening for All Forms of Ministry
- ECO Core
- Interreligious Dialogue
- Latinx Theyologies
- Queer Studies: Multi-Religious Perspectives
- Reproductive Justice, Faith, & Agency
- Sex & Sin in Ancient Judaism & Early Christianity
- Speaking The Truth to Change: Preaching in a Changing World (March 2 – May 11)
- Spiritual Life Writing for a Time Such as This
- Spiritual Practices in These Times
- The Sacred and the Substance
- UU Prophetic Witness
- UU Theologies
Scroll down to learn more about each course!
January Intersession
Beginner’s Meditation Workshop
Dr. Som Pourfarzaneh
Mondays, January 9-30, 5:00 – 6:30 pm PT
This online synchronous course will introduce basic meditation techniques with an emphasis on self-care. Participants will learn foundational elements of sitting meditation, including correct posture and body alignment, followed by methods for progressive relaxation and mindfulness of the breath. The series will also offer tools for setting up a daily practice and a brief introduction to moving meditation. Learn more!
Introduction to Preaching in a Cross Cultural Context
Rev. Leslie Takahashi
Monday-Friday, January 23-27, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm PT
Preaching is communication with a purpose. No matter what form of ministry you enter, knowing how to shape a powerful and motivating message will matter! This preaching course embraces counter oppressive ministry through worship arts. Hands on learning will combine the sharing and peer review of brief homilies with exercises aimed at identifying your authentic preaching voice. Learn more!
Multi-Religious Core Intensive: Amidst the Blessing of the Ancestors
Taya Mâ Shere
Monday-Friday, January 23-27, 9:30 am – 3:30 pm PT
This online synchronous intensive focuses on embodying multireligiosity in personal practice, tending multireligiosity in spiritual leadership and public worship, and engaging multireligiosity toward countering oppression and cultural (mis)appropriation. The intensive also engages embodied practice around ancestor reverence and healing – in spiritual lineage and family / blood lineage – as a way of anchoring multi-religious expression, countering oppression, and aligning to blessing. Learn more!
Spring Semester
Advanced Topics in Dharma and Leadership
J. Tyson Casey
Synchronous Online – Multiple Dates
This course is a peer group seminar for students seeking deeper engagement with specific dharmic texts and/or leadership theories & practices. Two or three required synchronous group sessions and two or three required one-on-one sessions with the instructor, for a total of four to six synchronous online meetings, are required. Participants can choose to focus on one specific Daoist or Buddhist text, or work with a few different and related dharmic texts. Students choosing to focus on “leadership” develop a course of study that integrates theory and praxis around a specific area of focus. Combining dharma and leadership into a student’s learning arc is also possible. Learn more!
Advanced Topics in Meditation
Dr. Som Pourfarzaneh
Synchronous Online – Second Monday of each month, 5:00 – 6:30 pm PT
This online synchronous course will build upon the basic foundations of meditation and introduce methods for developing concentration, encouraging self-care, and taking one’s practice into the workplace to be of best benefit to one’s self and others. The series will offer tools for strengthening an existing daily practice and resources for further learning and discovery. Learn more!
Advanced Topics in Religious Education and Faith Formation
Rev. Dr. Sheri Prud’homme
Synchronous Online – Thursdays, 9:40 am – 12:30 pm PT
This seminar style course will be developed in collaboration with the research interests and ministry goals of the participants. Possible topics include but are not limited to multigenerational worship and congregation-wide learning, dismantling white supremacy and positive racial identity formation in multicultural congregations, alternatives to Sunday School, safer congregation policies and practices, using technology and virtual/distance methods in religious education and faith development programs. Learn more!
Christian Histories
Rev. Dr. Chris Schelin
Asynchronous Online
This asynchronous course will provide a historical survey of Christianity from the close of the New Testament period to the present with the goals of identifying diverse theological convictions and spiritual practices, attending to underrepresented and “heretical” perspectives, and analyzing the role of Christian faith(s) in justifying oppression or seeking liberation. Learn more!
Creating Media that Counters Oppressions
Dr. Som Pourfarzaneh
Synchronous Online – Mondays, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
This course will present an overview of developing a counter-oppressive popular media and technology framework that includes films, TV shows, comic books, video games, music, weblogs, streaming services, social network platforms, and other forms of infotainment. It will also foster discussion about the ways in which different forms of media are utilized both to reify and counter stereotyping, hegemony, discrimination, technology framework to disseminate content that works to counter oppression(s). Learn more!
Deep Listening for All Forms of Ministry
Rev. Dr. Pamela Hancock
Synchronous Online – Wednesdays, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
In this course students will explore, develop and/or deepen their ability to utilize Deep Listening (also called Active Listening) to strengthen their capacity to provide parishioners, clients, patients, etc., with authentic spiritual care. The class will be experiential and multi-religious, drawing on the wisdom of experts in the field — both psychological and spiritual. Learn more!
ECO Core
Dr. Shannon Frediani
Synchronous Online – Tuesdays, 9:40 am – 12:30 pm PT
Educating to “Create Just and Sustainable Communities that Counter Oppressions”(“ECO”) is a core goal of Starr King’s M.Div. and M.A.S.C. degree programs. In this required core synchronous online course, M.Div. and M.A.S.C. students work together to form a framework for counter-oppressive spiritual leadership. Learn more!
Interreligious Dialogue
Dr. Som Pourfarzaneh
Synchronous Online – Wednesdays, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
This course will present a framework for the practice of interreligious dialogue, in a collaborative and pluralist environment. It will draw upon contemporary texts and guest lectures representing a diversity of faith traditions to provide an integrative context for building bridges between and among religious boundaries, as well as addressing conflicts that arise through interreligious encounters. Learn more!
Latinx Theyologies
Rev. Dr. María Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa
Synchronous Online – Tuesdays, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
This introductory course will engage Mujerista and Latina Feminist Thea/ologies as we interrogate their epistemologies, social narratives, and methodologies. We will explore the works of leading Latina Theologians within the context of Liberation Theology. We will apply an intersectional lens to our analysis of readings and class discussions to engage questions of philosophical, political, and gender diversity with respect to Latina Feminist and Mujerista Thea/ologies. Learn more!
Queer Studies: Multi-Religious Perspectives
Dr. Hugo Cordova Quero
Asynchronous Online
In an increasingly changing and globalized world, the intersection of religious and queer studies is vital for understanding the construction of identities. This asynchronous online course is designed to introduce you to the place given to gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, the sexual division of labor, gender role expectations, race, and ethnicity within world religions’ theo(ideo)/logical discourses. Learn more!
Reproductive Justice, Faith, & Agency
Dr. Ashley L. Bacchi
Synchronous Online – Every Other Monday, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
This seminar will explore changing perceptions of personhood and the religious & political foundations of the abortion debate (primarily in the US, but other locations will be touched on as well), miscarriage, LGBTQI representation, and how reproductive justice and bodily autonomy are interconnected issues that tap into many systems of oppression, such as systemic racism. Learn more!
Sex & Sin in Ancient Judaism & Early Christianity
Dr. Ashley L. Bacchi
Asynchronous & Synchronous Online – Mondays, 3:10 – 5:00 pm PT
This course will introduce ways in which sex was used as a proposed boundary marker for religious identity in Second Temple Jewish and Early Christian texts. Contextualizing these boundary markers in the cultural, religious, and political landscape of the Hellenistic & Roman Mediterranean destabilizes the meta-narrative concerning the picture of ‘proper’ sexual ethics and gender roles by exposing the permeability of those boundaries. Learn more!
Speaking The Truth to Change: Preaching in a Changing World (March 2 – May 11)
Rev. Leslie Takahashi
Synchronous Online – Thursdays, 3:00 – 4:30 pm PT
The world of faith and spiritual exploration is changing in almost every way and in the middle of this, those in ministry need to be able to compel, inspire, comfort and care. One of the main tools for this is speaking, known as preaching in many faith traditions. This online synchronous course will explore the ways this form is changing and how we speak to people from different generations, backgrounds and experiences. Learn more!
Spiritual Life Writing for a Time Such as This
Rev. Dr. Joanne Braxton
Synchronous Online – Mondays, 9:40 am – 12:30 pm PT
In this course we will discover how spiritual life writing and journaling provide compassionate self-stewardship and reparative self-care across the helping professions and offer healing from moral injury and secondary trauma. We will learn how life writing as a faith practice can open a path to transcendence, self-integration, and inner security, as well as an ever-deepening relationship to the Divine as well as an opportunity to reflect with theological insight on one’s lived experience. Learn more!
Spiritual Practices in These Times
Rev. Dr. Pamela Hancock
Asynchronous Online
In this course, students will explore, develop and/or deepen their spiritual practice and support others in doing the same. The class will be experiential and multi-religious, drawing on some of the wisdom and practices of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Earth-based traditions, as well as neuroscience, poetry, and Ecopsychology. Learn more!
The Sacred and the Substance
Ayize Jama-Everett
Synchronous Online – Tuesdays, 9:40 am – 12:30 pm PT
This synchronous online course seeks to formulate a history of psychedelia today, including modern history while at the same time attending to some of the inherent harms associated with the movement. We’ll explore how traditional communities association with sacred plants has been both respected and exploited by new practitioners, some of them with the best of intent. Learn more!
UU Prophetic Witness
Rev. Dr. Meg Richardson
Asynchronous Online
This asynchronous online course will explore the history of Unitarian Universalist Prophetic Witness since the Merger in 1961, as expressed in activism and voted on by the annual Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. It will combine historical investigation of social justice actions and witness with deep analysis of Unitarian Universalist polity and how congregations transform affirmation into action. Learn more!
UU Theologies
Rev. Dr. Sheri Prud’homme
Asynchronous Online
The purpose of this course is to introduce the student to the distinctive theological heritage and theological perspectives present within Unitarian Universalist traditions and congregations, and to equip students to begin to think and write theologically in the context of post-modern religious communities. Especially oriented to students who identify as Unitarian Universalists, this course will encourage participants to form a practice of engaged theological thinking within the context of Unitarian Universalism’s particular perspectives, resources, limits, and possibilities. Learn more!