Erotic Education: Elaborating a Feminist and Faith-Based Pedagogy for Experiential Learning in Religious Studies
Carbine R.P.
2010
Teaching Theology and Religion
8
10.1111/j.1467-9647.2010.00645.x
This essay explores intersections among Jesuit, Quaker, and feminist theologies and pedagogies of social justice education in order to propose and elaborate an innovative theoretical and theological framework for experiential learning in religious studies that prioritizes relationality, called erotic education. This essay then applies the relational rationale of erotic education to interpret the author's design of a service or community-based learning component in a course about contemporary U.S. Christian social justice movements, offered in both religiously-affiliated and religiously-inspired liberal arts colleges. The course case study not only chronicles the author's evolving pedagogical praxis as a feminist theologian teaching in Jesuit and Quaker institutions, but also is grounded in how the author's course embodies erotic education, that is, how specific objectives, learning practices, and assignments build and bolster relationships among students (in peer-to-peer small groups inside and outside the classroom) as well as among students and their community sites. In developing this framework and implementing it within this particular course, the author argues that erotic education emphasizes the naming and training of our existential desires for interpersonal relations in order to upbuild not only the individual but also the common good. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Benedict XVI P., (2005); Boryczka J.M., Petrino E.A.; Brock R.N., Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power, (1988); Buechner F., Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC, (1993); Carr A.E., Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective, The New Vision of Feminist Theology, pp. 5-29, (1993); Dalke A., McNaught S., Minding the Light: Essays in Friendly Pedagogy, 'Minding the Light': A Range of Quaker Pedagogies, pp. 3-4, (2004); Devine R., Favazza J.A., McClain F.M., From Cloister to Commons: Concepts and Models for Service Learning in Religious Studies, (2002); Farley M., Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, (2008); Farley W., Eros for the Other: Retaining Truth in a Pluralistic World, (1996); Gonzalez M.A., Created in God's Image: An Introduction to Feminist Theological Anthropology, (2007); Graff A.O., In the Embrace of God: Feminist Approaches to Theological Anthropology, (1995); Grey M., Sacred Longings: The Ecological Spirit and Global Culture, (2004); Griffin S., The Eros of Everyday Life: Essays on Ecology, Gender, and Society, (1995); Hobgood M.E., Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence, White Economic and Erotic Disempowerment: A Theological Exploration in the Struggle Against Racism, pp. 40-55, (2007); Hooks B., Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, (1994); Hooks B., Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope, (2003); Isherwood L., The Power of Erotic Celibacy: Queering Heteropatriarchy, (2006); Johnson E.A., She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, (1992); Jones S., Feminist Theory and Christian Theology: Cartographies of Grace, (2000); Jones S., Religion, Scholarship, and Higher Education: Perspectives, Models, and Future Prospects, Selving Faith: Feminist Theory and Feminist Theology Rethink the Self, pp. 142-149, (2002); Jones T.C., A Distinctively Quaker View of Teaching and Learning?, (2004); Kiley A., Fairbanks J., Founded by Friends: The Quaker Heritage of Fifteen American Colleges and Universities, Whittier College, pp. 187-201, (2007); King Jr M.L., I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World, Facing the Challenge of a New Age (1957), pp. 14-28, (1992); Kolvenbach F.P.S., (2000); Lakeland P., The Embrace of Eros: Bodies, Desires, and Sexuality in Christianity, Ecclesiology, Desire, and the Erotic, pp. 247-260, (2010); Lorde A., Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, (1984); Ludwig P.W., Eros and Polis: Desire and Community in Greek Political Theory, (2002); Moltmann-Wendel E., A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey, (1986); Nicolas A.S., (2008); O'Malley J.W.S., From the Ratio Studiorum to Civic Spirituality, Fundamental Questions: A Journal of the Liberal Arts, 1, 1, pp. 15-23, (2004); Palmer P.J., Deepening the American Dream: Reflections on the Inner Life and Spirit of Democracy, The Politics of the Brokenhearted: On Holding the Tensions of Democracy, pp. 231-257, (2005); Palmer P.J., (2006); Rhoads R.A., Community Service and Higher Learning: Explorations of the Caring Self, (1997); Rimer S., (2009); Rivera M., Toward a Theology of Eros: Transfiguring Passion at the Limits of Discipline, Ethical Desires: Toward a Theology of Relational Transcendence, pp. 255-270, (2006); Smith A., Social Justice Activism in the Academic Industrial Complex, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 23, 2, pp. 140-145, (2007); Smith S., Minding the Light: Essays in Friendly Pedagogy, "The Spiritual Roots of Quaker Pedagogy, pp. 6-19, (2004); Thistlethwaite S.B., Engel M.P., Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside, (1998); Von Arx F.J.S., (2009); Werpehowski W., The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics, Anders Nygren's Agape and Eros, pp. 433-448, (2005); Williams T., McKenna E., Twenty-First Century Feminist Classrooms: Pedagogies of Identity and Difference, Negotiating Subject Positions in a Service-Learning Context: Toward a Feminist Critique of Experiential Learning, pp. 135-154, (2002); Young P.D., Re-Creating the Church: Communities of Eros, (2000)
Article
Scopus