To get a sense of how many students are likely to show up for "Theorizing Religion" this fall - sixteen are registered - as well as to find out where they are, since synchronous classes are hard when people are dialing in from abroad, I sent out individualized e-mails today.
Dear ____,
We’re three weeks from the start of the new academic year, and from the first meeting of “Theorizing Religion.” I’m delighted that you’ve signed up for it. It’s a course I’ve taught in one form or another since arriving at Lang almost twenty years ago, and it changes every year as the field of religious studies changes – and as the world around us changes. This year we will be particularly attentive to the ways that categories of religion play in the environmental and social justice crises of our time. In what ways can religious practices and ideas help understand and address these challenges? In what ways have they contributed to entrenching them?
This year’s course will be different from its predecessors also in being online. Like the rest of the New School faculty I’ve spent the summer familiarizing myself with the possibilities of online instruction. (I even took two courses so I’d have a better sense of what it’s like to be a student in such a class, an eye-opening experience!) I’ve made discoveries which make me not only confident that we’ll be able to have a genuinely Lang experience but excited at a broader range of forms of interaction than in-person seminars, for all their many virtues, can easily accommodate. I hope we’re all safe and together on campus in the spring, but I plan to keep some of these online tools even once all this is over. They offer us more, and more varied, ways to learn from each other.
In order to make sure we get everything we can from each other, it would be helpful for me to know who you are, where you are, and if there are technical constraints you are likely to face. We’ll have many chances to get to know each other as the semester begins… For the moment, can you let me know which time zone you are in, and any limitations on your ability to join a synchronous zoom class, contribute to a google.doc, etc.? I want to ensure that everyone is able to participate fully.
I look forward to theorizing religion with you!
I was imagining most students were in North America, making default synchronous meeting in our scheduled 16:00-17:40 EST timeslot a cinch, but whaddaya know: the very first reply (I've got three so far, three hours in) is from a student in India! That's a -9.5 hours time difference! On the other hand, she wrote to me at 15:15 EST and doesn't see the time zone gap as an issue. As for me, the thought of a literally intercontinental gathering is actually quite exciting!
