Are you teaching religious studies in the best way possible? Do you inadvertently offer simplistic understandings of religion to undergraduate students, only to then unpick them at advanced levels? This book presents case studies of teaching methods that integrate student learning, classroom experiences, and disciplinary critiques. It shows how critiques of the scholarship of religious studies—including but not limited to the World Religions paradigm, Christian normativity, Orientalism, colonialism, race, gender, sexuality, and class—can be effectively integrated into all courses, especially at an introductory level. Integrating advanced critiques from religious studies into actual pedagogical practices, this book offers ways for scholars to rethink their courses to be more reflective of the state of the field. This is essential reading for all scholars in religious studies.

Mind the Gap encourages you to be mindful of that gap that takes place in various transitions in life: when you go away to college, travel to a foreign country, move to a new city, or start a new job. Until you start to feel at home in your new environment, you must negotiate feelings of discomfort. Mindfulness draws attention to your experience of transition, enabling you to cultivate an embodied presence, receptivity, and awareness of whatever arises in yourself and your surroundings, without judging or rejecting your experience. All too often, when we feel uncomfortable or unsettled, we immediately want to alleviate our feelings of discomfort by seeking comfort or distraction. When we do this, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to grow and develop in new ways. This book shows how attending to change, ambiguity, and discomfort can help you manage transitions that you will inevitably face in your life. You will learn how to be mindful of your breath, body, feelings, emotions, and thoughts, as well as how you might cultivate kindness, compassion, joy, and spaciousness in your life and relationships with others. By developing the core ability to attend to what you do, what you think, and what you say, you can enhance your own well-being as well as your relationships with others.

Are you teaching religious studies in the best way possible? Do you inadvertently offer simplistic understandings of religion to undergraduate students, only to then unpick them at advanced levels? This book presents case studies of teaching methods that integrate student learning, classroom experiences, and disciplinary critiques. It shows how critiques of the scholarship of religious studies-including but not limited to the World Religions paradigm, Christian normativity, Orientalism, colonialism, race, gender, sexuality, and class-can be effectively integrated into all courses, especially at an introductory level. Integrating advanced critiques from religious studies into actual pedagogical practices, this book offers ways for scholars to rethink their courses to be more reflective of the state of the field. This is essential reading for all scholars in religious studies.