Intersession 2020

Befriending the Bible

This course is designed to serve as an introduction to the Bible for persons who are curious about biblical literature but who do not identify any given canon as authoritative for their spiritual practice. It is suitable for candidates for ordained UU ministry, non-Christian religious progressives, seekers, and skeptics. Participants will learn the origins, development, and content of Israelite/Jewish and Christian texts and will identify both theological and academic methods of interpretation. Utilizing the metaphor of “befriending” the Bible, students will explore how these scriptures have both supported and hindered emancipatory social change, and will consider methods of engaging this complex anthology in their personal lives and spiritual communities.

Relevant for SKSM Thresholds 1, 3, and 6; MFC Competency 3.

Counter-Oppressive Media

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).

Course format and evaluation: seminar intensive, with final presentation and paper or media project that employs this media and intended audience: all degree programs.

Relates to Thresholds: Witness & Work, Educating for Wholeness & Liberation, Thea/ology in Culture & Context. Relates to MFC: Social Justice in the Public Square, Leads the Faith into the Future.

Prerequisite: ECO Core Intensive (RSFT 1017)

ECO Core Intensive

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 intensive, M.Div. and M.A.S.C. students work together to form a framework for counter-oppressive spiritual leadership.  We will ask: how can spirituality, ministry, and religious activism respond to the multiple and intersecting realities of injustice, suffering, and oppression in our lives and our world?  What models of justice and sustainable community invite our commitment? Drawing on Unitarian Universalist and multi-religious sources, we will explore how in the midst of a world marked by tragedy, sorrow and injustice there remain abiding resources of beauty and grace that nourish resistance, offer healing and call us to accountability and community building. Reading and writing assignments to be completed before the course. Final paper. This course has a special focus on economic and racial justice addressed intersectionally.  Relates to Thresholds #2,5,7 and 8 and MFC Competency #4. Please take within your first year.

Introduction to Preaching in a Cross Cultural Context

Introduction to Preaching in a Cross Cultural Context: This non-lectionary, thematic preaching course embraces counter oppressive ministry through worship and the arts. Hands on learning will combine the sharing and peer review of brief homilies with exercises aimed at identifying your authentic preaching voice. Each student will also deliver two full-length sermons in class. Questions of how to make our worship services more relevant in today’s culturally shifting world will be explored through thea/ological study of homiletics through a liberatory lens and an engagement with issues of cultural appropriation and misappropriation in Unitarian Universalist liturgical practice. Students from all traditions welcome.

Pre-requisites: ECO core intensive or equivalent. Relates to Starr King thresholds 1, 2, 6 and 7, and MFC Competency 1. This course is high residency only. Students must contact the instructor via e-email prior to enrolling in order to receive permission to register. Registration is contingent upon faculty approval. [Faculty Consent required; 10 max enrollment; Auditors excluded]

Multireligious Intensive

Multireligious Intensive: Amidst the Blessing of the Ancestors weaves teachings on organic multireligiosity from Ibrahim Baba (Dr. Ibrahim Farajae) with practices of ancestor reverence and healing. According to Ibrahim Baba, organic multiregliosity “interrupts practices of considering religions as monolithic, rigidly-separated traditions in conflict with one another [and] rather understands them as having complex and constantly-morphing relationships in successive generations and in ever-widening geographical and cultural contexts.”

This 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 multireligious expression, countering oppression, and aligning to blessing.  Each day of the intensive combines conceptual exploration of multireligiosity, embodied practice of counter-oppressive devotion and tending work in ancestral lineage ritual and repair.  Course texts include multi-media selections from Ibrahim Baba, readings by Adrienne Maree Brown on intersectionality and emergent strategy, and Ancestral Medicine by Daniel Foor.  Prior to the intensive, students are expected to complete select readings as well as to submit a reflection paper on personal experiences of multireligiosity and ancestral tending.  At the completion of the course, students submit a second reflection paper weaving their learnings and experiences in the intensive.

This course relates to SKSM Thresholds 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and MFC Comps 1, 3, 4

SKSM Symposium

Starr King’s 8th Annual Symposium, will be held January 11th, 2020.

This urban retreat is an annual gathering of entire student body, faculty, staff, trustees, and friends for a day of learning, ritual, celebration, food, music, community-building and service. The academic course is required for all SKSM students: M.Div candidates must register for at least two Symposia and MASC students for one. Students who have completed their Symposium academic credit are welcome to attend the event without registering for course credit.

Symposium registration is a  two (2) step process: (1) Enroll for the Symposium as a course through Populi to ensure course credit AND (2) Complete a separate event registration form on the SKSM Symposium web page. In order to obtain credit, students must read all required readings before Symposium, participate fully in the event, and complete the reflection paper, which must be submitted to your advisor.

Sociology of Religion

What does religion do? What can religion show us about the history, culture and context of a group or population? How is religious experience shaped, transformed and reconfigured in society? This course introduces the ways in which social scientists have analyzed religious beliefs, practices, rituals and culturals as social phenomena. Using a counter-oppressive framework, students will analyze religion in the context of institutions, politics, community and other social structures. Students will learn classic and contemporary theories and approaches to the sociological study of religion and develop their own informed questions for further research and intellectual inquiry. Assignments include student-led discussion of readings, a community-based engagement activity and a visual religious culture projects.

Prerequisite: ECO, multi-religious intensive, or prior course in sociology. Week-long intensive, 9AM-4PM with 1-2 evenings field trips. High residency.

Relates to Thresholds 1 and 3, MFC competency 6.