Intersession & Spring 2024 Courses
Introducing our Intersession and Spring semester course offerings! As always, we have exciting new options as well as returning favorites. 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.
Intersession: January 8 – 26
Early Registration: November 6-17, 2023
General Registration: January 2-5, 2024
Late Registration: The first day of the course if there is no pre-work
- Advanced Thematic Preaching
- Beginner’s Meditation Workshop
- Multi-Religious Core Intensive: Amidst the Blessing of the Ancestors
Spring Semester
Early Registration: November 6-17, 2023
General Registration: January 16-26, 2024
Late Registration: January 29 – February 9, 2024
- 19th Century Roots of UU Prophetic Witness
- Advanced Topics in Dharma and Leadership
- Advanced Topics in Gender & Religion
- Advanced Topics in Meditation
- Creating Media that Counters Oppressions
- Depth Psychology for Chaplains
- ECO Core
- Illness, Health, & Healing
- Interreligious Dialogue
- Introduction to Ethics: Theory and Application
- Liberation, Social Justice, Bible
- Power, Organizations, and Movements
- Queering Ecclesiology and Rites
- UU Liturgy and Worship Arts
- UU Theologies
Scroll down to learn more about each course!
Intersession
Advanced Thematic Preaching
Rev. Leslie Takahashi
Monday-Friday, January 22-26, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm PT
This is an advanced online synchronous course in thematic preaching intended for students with preaching experience who seek to further develop their own unique preaching presence and voice. Topics will focus on thematic development, use of poetic voice, effective sermon construction, pulpit presence, and preaching through the liturgical year. Learn more!
Beginner’s Meditation Workshop
Dr. Som Pourfarzaneh
Mondays, January 8-29, 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!
Multi-Religious Core Intensive: Amidst the Blessing of the Ancestors
Taya Mâ Shere
Monday-Friday, January 22-26, 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 multireligious expression, countering oppression, and aligning to blessing. Learn more!
Spring
19th Century Roots of UU Prophetic Witness
Rev. Dr. Meg Richardson
Asynchronous Online
This asynchronous online course will locate the roots of Unitarian Universalist Prophetic Witness in nineteenth century social justice concerns: abolition, education, prison reform, utopian communities, suffrage, temperance, humane treatment of animals, civil disobedience, and poverty. We will also explore the nineteenth Unitarian and Universalist influence on Biblical Criticism, literature, philosophy, music, and art. Learn more!
Advanced Topics in Dharma and Leadership
J. Tyson Casey
Thursdays, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
This course is a peer group seminar for students seeking deeper engagement with specific dharmic and/or leadership texts, perspectives, and 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. Learn more!
Advanced Topics in Gender & Religion
Dr. Ashley London Bacchi
Every Other Wednesday, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
This synchronous online course will explore ancient and modern constructions of gender and how that impacts an understanding of sacred texts, not only in questions of translation and gender performance but in the pressing need for safe inclusive spaces. Learn more!
Advanced Topics in Meditation
Dr. Som Pourfarzaneh
Second Mondays, 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!
Creating Media that Counters Oppressions
Dr. Som Pourfarzaneh
Mondays, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
This synchronous online 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!
Depth Psychology for Chaplains
Rev. Dr. Pamela D. Hancock
Thursdays, 9:40 am – 12:30 pm PT
This course is intended to provide the psychological grounding for those going into Chaplaincy to understand the complexity of the human condition. Topics included will be: the religious function of the psyche, ego development, and psychological issues that may arise when ministering to people. Learn more!
ECO Core
Dr. Shannon Frediani
Wednesdays, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
In this synchronous online course, students work together to form a framework for counter-oppressive spiritual leadership. 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. Learn more!
Illness, Health, & Healing
Rev. Dr. Pamela D. Hancock
Asynchronous Online
Students in this course will explore illness, health, healing, disability, dying, and living during a pandemic. This course invites students to listen for the voices of the ill, disabled and dying, even when those voices are full of pain or have been long ignored. Students will develop spiritual care skills and practices to promote health and healing in their ministries and their lives. The course will draw from narratives, justice work, as well as a variety of religious traditions. Learn more!
Interreligious Dialogue
Dr. Som Pourfarzaneh
Wednesdays, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
This online synchronous 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!
Introduction to Ethics: Theory and Application
Rev. Adam Lawrence Dyer
Mondays, 9:40 am – 12:30 pm PT
This online synchronous course is designed to introduce students to the study and practical application of ethics (moral philosophy). Content is focused on historical and cultural foundations of ethical theory and the application of ethics to address current and historical events and situations. Learn more!
Liberation, Social Justice, Bible
Dr. Ashley London Bacchi
Mondays, 3:10 – 5:00 pm PT
In this course, we will discuss the ways in which the Hebrew Bible and Christian Scriptures have been used to support movements of liberation and social justice as well as to support and justify oppressive and violent systems such as slavery, income disparity, sexism, homophobia, racism, and xenophobia. By situating biblical verses within their literary, cultural, and historical context, we will dismantle oppressive and kyriarchal readings. Learn more!
Power, Organizations, and Movements
J. Tyson Casey
Mondays, 2:10 – 5:00 pm PT
The rationale of this synchronous, online course is to engage the interdependence of internal and collective power in contributing to organizations, movements, regeneration, and liberation. The course will explore specific approaches to social change through various perspectives of power, organization, and movement. This includes the phenomena that contribute to and are perpetuated by interlocking patterns of domination. Learn more!
Queering Ecclesiology and Rites
Dr. Hugo Cordova Quero
Asynchronous Online
Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, we are witnessing the emergence of queer faith-based communities in very dissimilar contexts and with very different histories. Exploring the way that these communities address issues of ecclesiology and rites would help students to explore the ways that our global village is moving in terms of the intersections among religion, gender, and sexuality. Learn more!
UU Liturgy and Worship Arts
Rev. John Buehrens
Thursdays, 9:40 am – 12:30 pm PT
This online synchronous course introduces students to the history, theory, and practice of Unitarian Universalist liturgy, worship, and rites of passage with an emphasis on worship in emerging multicultural, multigenerational, mutually liberatory congregations. Topics include weekly worship services and annual congregational celebrations as well as weddings, memorials, child dedications, and other rites of passage. Learn more!
UU Theologies
Rev. John Buehrens
Asynchronous Online
The purpose of this asynchronous 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!