We are pleased to announce the call for applications for the Russell Berrie Fellowship in Interreligious Studies for the academic year 2013-14. The initiative, funded by the Russell Berrie Foundation and administered by the Institute of International Education (IIE), is organized at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome for the sixth consecutive year.

The goal of the Fellowship Program is to build bridges between Christian, Jewish, and other religious traditions by providing the next generation of religious leaders with a comprehensive understanding of and dedication to interfaith issues. Russell Berrie Fellows are expected to complete the program and return home to their parishes and communities to lead others in efforts to promote interfaith understanding.

The Fellowship offers clergy, lay and communal leaders an opportunity to study at the Angelicum to obtain a Certificate in Interreligious Studies. The award provides one year of financial support for new Russell Berrie Fellows. It is intended to cover tuition, a modest living stipend and book allowance, examination fees, and travel to and from the recipient’s home country.

Applicants of all faiths and backgrounds from around the world — including students currently enrolled at the Angelicum — who have a demonstrated interest in Interreligious Studies are encouraged to apply.

The application deadline is March 22, 2013.

Please find attached a poster with the most important information about the fellowship. More detailed program information and application materials can be found here. Information on previous year fellowship recipients can be found here.

If you have any questions or would like to have more information, please do not hesitate to contact IIE, the program administrator, at berrie@iie.eu.

CIRCLE: What were your goals for this new seminar?

Homarya Ziad: We are confronted on a daily basis with facts, figures and foregone conclusions about Islamic beliefs and practices. My first hope for this weeklong introduction was to provide students with tools to intelligently navigate this complicated terrain. Another hope was to encourage and provide resources for students to partner with Muslim communities on issues of common concern; thus, my decision to bring in speakers from the Boston area on ecology and the environment, queer identities, youth voices, and religion in prisons and the military. I wanted the course to provide some basic historical facts that would serve as a useful anchor and springboard for further exploration and to introduce participants to a plurality of Muslim voices, through time, on questions of revelation, scripture, prophecy, community, law, worship and spirituality. At the same time, I wished to highlight points of tension — the internal and external challenges that Muslim communities, like other religious communities, have to face up to in order to flourish.

What was it like for you, as a Muslim instructor, to teach a class on Islam for future Jewish, Christian and Unitarian Universalist leaders?

I am acutely aware of the potential pitfalls in situations in which I am the lone Muslim educational voice; it brings up critical questions of representation, the dangers of being appointed — and the temptation of appointing oneself — a “spokesperson,” and the danger of trying to represent too many people at once and resorting to misleading generalizations. I tried to take the position of an educated, committed and critical insider. From the outset, I made clear my personal commitments and the trajectory of my spiritual formation, which in some ways also placed me outside what some people might imagine are the authority structures of American Islam. I brought in other voices to mitigate against complacency, whether among students, or my own. For example, during an afternoon session, when there happened to be four Muslim voices present in the classroom, we suddenly had four very different points of view on students’ questions regarding the acceptance of queer identities in Muslim communities and on gendered God language.

The guest-host dynamic was not easy to negotiate, but it was easier than I expected it to be. Before I arrived at Andover Newton and Hebrew College, I thought of myself primarily as a guest, a new instructor and a new religious presence on campus, part of a religious community that is historically the latest addition to the Abrahamic spectrum, and part of a first-generation immigrant presence that, despite U.S. citizenship and active civic participation, still retains the idea of being “hosted” in the United States. At the same time, my guest status was somewhat mitigated by the fact that I was invited on the strength of personal relationships and friendships with folks at ANTS and HC, and with some of the students as well — so I did have some “street cred”! This brought home, yet again, the importance of personal relationships in interreligious learning. The exciting work of the new CIRCLE Muslim Community Fellows Program also made it much easier for me to walk in as part of a group that had already established a presence on campus.

Once I arrived on campus, however, I realized that I had to step into the role of host quite quickly, as teacher and guide to students I was inviting to experience elements of a religious tradition that many were only marginally familiar with. My job then was to create an environment of safe learning and set conversational guidelines, but to let the class see that I would not mistake critical analysis for polemics — that it was important for me to address the difficult questions. I also had to make it as easy as possible for students to give voice to the presuppositions they may have come in with, and may still be grappling with, while recognizing that there is such a thing as Islamophobia and that we may all fall into that rhetoric without even being aware of it. I don’t know how well I succeeded in holding that balance, but I was keenly aware of it throughout the course. I was also thrilled that many of the students were fully attuned, from their own experiences, to the delicate questions of representation and tokenism, and I never felt cornered or boxed in, nor belabored by impossible expectations.

Please share with us one or two salient moments from your teaching experience.

To my mind, some of the most beautiful conversations took place around clips of devotional music. I took the suggestion of one of the students that I play a different piece of music each time the students took a break, so that they get a sense of the rich musical traditions in the Islamic world. I had a great time using music to speak about lived religion in different parts of the world. Another lovely moment was an impromptu conversation I had after class with a group of rabbinical students, on questions of representation and spiritual preparedness, when I realized again that I had so many sincere and beautiful partners in this interfaith venture.

I also had some brief moments of personal discomfort. For example, during a Quran study session, I asked students to form interfaith “hevrutot,” based on rabbinic model of peer study, and gave the pairs about 10 minutes to begin their conversations before I began to walk from group to group and check in. Just before I began, I suddenly had the strange idea that my presence as a Muslim could actually stifle the lively conversation that had already begun, and at the same I wished that each group had a Muslim voice as an equal participant, and not a teacher. At that moment, just for a few seconds, I felt very alone, and burdened by the weight of expectation. But these moments were few and far between.

Can you share with us a few key resources for learning about contemporary Islam?

There are so many resources on contemporary Islam that I will only name a few that I’m using these days as I teach a course on Islam in America. The first is a new book by Juliane Hammer, a dear friend, activist and scholar of Islam at UNC-Chapel Hill, called “American Muslim Women, Religious Authority and Activism: More Than a Prayer” (University of Texas Press, 2012). Hammer examines the highly publicized mixed-gender prayer service led by Amina Wadud in New York in 2005 through the lens of gender studies to expand on some of the most salient issues in contemporary Islam, including media and self-representation, modes of authority and leadership, religious participation, and the scope and application of law. Another wonderful resource is the website for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (www.ispu.org), a think tank founded after 9/11 by a group of scholars and philanthropists in Detroit, and now based in Washington, D.C. ISPU’s mission is “to provide expert analysis, insight and context to critical issues facing our nation, with an emphasis on those issues related to Muslim communities in the U.S. and abroad,” and the group has assembled a tremendously talented group of experts to produce policy briefs, op-eds and in-depth studies of social and political issues related to contemporary Islam.

Thank you very much for serving as a partner and guide in this new seminar. We look forward to future collaboration.

Thank you. Insha’Allah (God willing), we will have many more opportunities for joint learning, dialogue and action!

The 2013 Spring Call for Contributing Scholars is now open! You are invited to nominate yourself or an emerging scholar!

Over the past two and a half years, emerging religious and ethical leaders from around the country and the world have engaged each other and readers by sharing their stories and views on State of Formation. Conversations once dominated by established leaders are now readily embraced by the up-and-comers, and accessible to contributors from many different moral, faith, political, economic, and social backgrounds. Currently, the site garners over 150,000 views per year.

State of Formation is a community conversation between young leaders in formation. Together, a cohort of seminarians, rabbinical students, graduate students and the like – the future religious and moral leaders of tomorrow – will work to redefine the ethical discourse today, particularly as it is used to refract current events and personal experiences.

Contributing Scholars to State of Formation will be able to take advantage of the numerous benefits to participating in the State of Formation Contributing Scholars Fellowship. In addition to being recognized as a Contributing Scholar by JIRD and CPWR, they may be eligible for travel grants and may have their work featured in articles on additional platforms like CPWR's website, PeaceNext, The Huffington Post, Interfaith Youth Core, Pluralism Project, Interfaith Observer, and Tikkun.

Nominees should be currently enrolled in a seminary, rabbinical school, graduate program, or another institution for theological or philosophical formation -- or up to three years out of their graduate program in a professional setting. (On rare occasions, exceptions will be made to these guidelines in order to increase the diversity of the writers.)  Contributors should be able to commit to post monthly articles on the forum and comment on other articles while showing respect others from different traditions.

Does this describe you or an emerging leader you know? Please take a moment to fill out our brief nomination form. Nominations will be accepted on a rolling basis through the 2013 spring academic term.

Sincerely,

Honna Eichler

Managing Director of State of Formation at the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue.

State of Formation is a forum for emerging religious and ethical leaders. Founded by the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, State of Formation is a project of the Center for Inter-Religious & Communal Leadership Education at Andover Newton Theological School and Hebrew College. It also works in collaboration with the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions.

Inter-religious conversations are essential in transforming current relations in Israel and West Bank, Palestine from combat to communication. This paper presents the case study of a Jerusalem-based dialogue group, Combatants for Peace (CFP), which utilizes contact theory to match West Bank Palestinians with Jewish Israeli participants to speak of their experience of war and violence. This paper records and analyzes the impact of such encounters on participants as they overcome psychological, social, and religious walls to address their former enemies in conversation. This paper records the personal stories of conflicting communities as they engage with and address one another in conversation. Read more here.