July 15, 2022 • 51 mins
In this episode of ReligionWise, we talk with Tom Robinson and Hillary Rodrigues, two professors at the University of Lethbridge who direct the Robinest project, a website that provides digital resources for the academic study of religion. In this conversation we talk about these resources, and more generally about dispelling misconceptions of the academic study of religion in contemporary higher education and public discourse.
Show notes:
- Robinest - Digital resources for teaching world religions (https://www.robinest.org/)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chip Gruen (00:09):
Welcome to ReligionWise the podcast where
we feature educators,researchers and other
professionals discussing topicson religion and their relevance
to the public conversation. Myname is Chip Gruen. I'm the
Director of the Institute forReligious and Cultural
Understanding at MuhlenbergCollege, and I will be the host
for this podcast.
(00:30):
In today's episode, we talked toTom Robinson and Hillary
Rodrigues, two professors fromthe University of Lethbridge in
Canada. They are the foundersand directors of a project
called Robinest that can befound at robinest.org. On this
website, they not only providedigital textbooks, but also
materials that are intended todraw students to the academic
(00:52):
study of religion. Theseresources, particularly the
posters, are free to use. Theseposters are both witty and
poignant. And what firstinterested me in the Robinest
project. In our conversationtoday, we talk about drawing
students to the discipline,attracting interest in the
academic study of religion, anddifferentiating between the
(01:13):
teaching of theology and theacademic study of religion, I
would encourage all of you totake a look at robinest.org. and
see the ways that they're tryingto enhance public discourse on
religion, through the buildingof materials and sharing them
with the community. As thepurpose of ReligionWise is to
think about and enhance publicconversation on religion, it was
(01:35):
really great to sit down andtalk with Tom and Hillary, who
are in many ways kindredspirits, in their view of the
discipline, and their feeling ofresponsibility of sharing that
discipline with the worldoutside of higher education. Tom
and Hillary welcome toReligionWise.
Tom Robinson (01:52):
Thanks.
Hillary Rodrigues (01:54):
Hi, Chip.
Chip Gruen (01:55):
So before we start talking about the project
itself, I'm always interested incollaborations and how
collaborations come about. Socan you tell me a little bit
about how you all both startedworking together and, and, and
then also how you startedthinking about this project
together?
Tom Robinson (02:16):
I suppose our story should be somewhat
similar. I was teaching at theUniversity of Lethbridge, and
seven years after I startedthere, we hired Hillary. And it
was we both did our PhDs atMcMaster University. And so we
(02:39):
had a sense of somewhat commonbackground. And at McMaster, if
you did a major in a Westerntradition, you had to do a minor
in the East, I had done mine inthe West. So I did a minor in
the East, and Hillary did majorin the last, and then a minor,
major in the East, and then aminor in the West. So we had, we
(03:03):
already started with a kind of acommon background. And then we
did a team teaching course ofthe first year religious studies
course. And it was a natural fitfor us. We had fun with it, we
(03:24):
had a similar kind of approach.
And it was just a kind of anatural, healthy relationship.
Now, here's your his, Hillary'sstory, which may be different.
Hillary Rodrigues (03:40):
You know, there was a time that each of us
taught all of the worldreligions course that is Eastern
and Western and this backgroundthat we had enabled us to do
that, because we had a level ofexpertise in an area in areas
that were, let's say, less than,you know, our areas of
specialization. But when westarted team teaching, we
(04:03):
started taking over, you know,Western ,Tom would do Western I
would do with the Easterntraditions and so on. And we
also found that the textbooksthat we were attempting to use,
were somewhat falling a bitshort. So part of what motivated
the project of working on atextbook together was to try to
(04:24):
find something suitable for ourstudents. I mean, that's always
been the motivation to kind oftry and put together textbook
materials.
Chip Gruen (04:36):
So what you're saying actually sounds fairly
familiar to me. When I did mywork at the University of
Pennsylvania, it was similarwhere I was majoring in
Christianity, ancientChristianity, actually, and then
had to did a minor was happy todo a minor in Daoism. So that
seems similar but so I'mcurious, because I know I've
(04:58):
been in public universities,large private universities now
I'm at a small liberal artscollege. What is the context of
Lethbridge? How would youdescribe the university for
people who don't know? And howis the study of religion
situated in that context?
Hillary Rodrigues (05:16):
Well, we are a relatively small university. I
think our enrollment now issomewhere around 8,000 students,
primarily undergraduate, butwe've had a burgeoning graduate
program for the last 10 or 15years. I mean, when Tom and I
got here there were 4,000students. The population the
(05:39):
students are really culled fromrural areas around Southern
Alberta, southern Saskatchewan,southern British Columbia. So
Lethbridge itself is a city ofabout 100,000 people. Most of
these students do not have muchexposure to world religions.
(06:00):
It's not a very multiculturalcity, although it has been
growing and changing. So ingeneral, our demographic of
students are exposed toChristianity, primarily, Judeo
Christian culture. As a prof whoteaches the Eastern traditions
I'm, I'm especially aware ofthat lack of knowledge. But at
(06:24):
the same time, I find that ourstudents are highly interested
in learning about othercultures. So where what they
lack in background, they make upfor in enthusiasm. And that, for
me has been particularlyrewarding. Tom, I don't know
what you want to add to that.
Tom Robinson (06:46):
There is a religious texture to the area.
There's a heavy Mormonpopulation, not so much in the
city, but just south of thecity. And in the towns. The
first Mormon temple outside ofthe states, was built in
Cardston, just just five milesor so from the Montana border.
(07:08):
So there's that influence. Andthere's a heavy Dutch Reformed
influence. There is all themainstream traditions. There is
a large Japanese community inLethbridge that comes from World
War II and internment camps. Sothere's a mixed, mixed bag, but
(07:34):
some strong religioussensibilities in the area.
Chip Gruen (07:41):
So I know my interest, and we're sort of
starting to come up on this myinterest in thinking about,
like, sort of metacognitivelythinking about how we study
religion, which I think to alarge extent, is what the
Robinest project seems to beabout to me. But that that
really arose in me out of alittle bit of a frustration
(08:02):
between, you know,misconceptions about, about
studying religion and practicingreligion or between theology and
religious studies, it seems tome like there is something
similar at your, in your work.
So you say, on the one hand, theproject sort of rose out of
creating materials for yourstudents. But clearly, given the
(08:22):
some of the promotionalmaterials that you're sharing,
freely, I might add, thatthere's something else going on
here, there's some other impetusrather than just reaching out to
students in your classroom. Um,can you talk a little bit about
that and how you becameinterested in these broader
issues?
Tom Robinson (08:40):
I think all religious studies professors
know that there's going to besome misunderstanding about the
academic study of religion, fromstudents who happen to, for
whatever reason, enroll in areligious studies course. And
that's something we all preparefor in trying to make clear,
(09:03):
what motivated me, particularlyto do those posters, to kind of
challenge misconceptions aboutreligious studies is that one
day I walked into a classroom,and the prof. before me, was
just picking up final exampapers. So I knew he hadn't
given a lecture. So I said tohim, Well, it looks like you
(09:27):
haven't given a lecture today.
Why don't you stay and give alecture to my class? And he
said, Oh, I couldn't do that.
I'm not religious. And I said tohim, he was a biology prof. I
said to him, do you have to be afrog to teach biology? And you
could see it as somethingclicked, that he could
(09:48):
understand a bit of adifference, but the reality was
that most profs outside ofReligious Studies, unless maybe
they were in sociology oranthropology, didn't understand
what we did, what religiousstudies was about how you
separated the priest from theprofessor, the temple from the
(10:13):
academy. And so I was motivatedto do these posters. And then
all the members of the religiousstudies department began to
throw me ideas to work on. Andwe had about 50 posters, and
we're making them free and ouridea book, and they work, well
(10:35):
post them up, see what theresponse is. It they really hit
a nerve with some people, what'sthis? And it's a significant
challenge to their way ofthinking. And so that was a
start for us, trying to producegood material.
Chip Gruen (10:53):
Tom, I think we were separated at birth, because I
often say some of my favoriteornithologists are not birds. So
it's very similar to your, yourexample.
Tom Robinson (11:08):
If we were separated at birth, then we're
triplets because I'm a twin.
Chip Gruen (11:17):
So and how long ago was this, that you started sort
of making this foray intosharing these materials more
publicly?
Tom Robinson (11:27):
Oh, I retired about five years ago. And so I
guess, the trying to get thesevarious products in shape, that
they would be useful to a widerange of professors in the
discipline. I suppose we startedabout five years or years ago on
(11:51):
that, though, we were usingmaterials that we had developed
throughout our career.
Chip Gruen (11:56):
Yeah.
Hillary Rodrigues (11:58):
Yeah, if I could just jump in. I mean, Tom,
and I and other members of ourdepartment had collaborated with
writing the World Religionsbook, and Tom is sort of the
he's sort of both the creativeand tech brains behind our
project and does everything inthat regard. And for that early
(12:21):
World Religions, book, Tom hadcreated a CD ROM, if you
remember those things that wentalong with the book that had a
question database and hadphotographs and so on. So this
idea of moving in the directionof implementing some kind of
(12:42):
digital technological dimensionto regular textbooks, had been
there for decades, I would say,then, eventually, the use of CD
ROMs, and so on, became passe.
And it was taken away. And wewere sort of toying with the
idea of constructing materials,again, for the benefit of
(13:06):
students. Kind of taking the sumtotal of what we had learned
over decades of teaching worldreligions, and offering it to,
to professors and students, kindof at a reasonable cost, and
also making use of all thematerials we have gathered over
over decades of teaching. And wethought the best way to do this
(13:27):
was to do it digitally. That wasa bit of a jump, as opposed to
doing it in the moreconventional format. So our
books have taken on this notionof, you know, the value of
digital media and what are twoof the doors that it opens up to
people. Price is one of thethings you can really keep
(13:51):
prices down. You can havemarvelous visuals, you can have
sound files, and so on, as youwell know, doing this podcast.
Chip Gruen (14:01):
Yeah, I actually one of the things I wanted to talk
to you about, every year when Igo and look for textbooks for my
courses, I am just astounded atthe expense of some of these
things. I had, you know, a verythin I mean, a half inch thin
introduction to Christianitythat was running my students
well over $100 until I justcouldn't stomach it anymore. So
(14:23):
we'll put a link to your all'sresources in in our show notes
today. But it should be notedthat that the different texts
that you have and there areseveral there, there's what
Eastern religions, Westernreligions, Christianity,
Judaism, Hindu, East Asianreligions,so it's a wide
variety.
Tom Robinson (14:40):
...chapters, plus the Eastern and Western plus
some readers.
Chip Gruen (14:44):
Yes, yeah. And the readers are the primary sources
as well, but that they all runfor 9.99 Canadian, right rather
than these triple digit amountsthat we get in, you know, from
publishers. So I don't know ifthere's a question there other
than just to congratulate youbecause, you know, affordable
(15:04):
resources are so difficult now,particularly when we're trying
to democratize, right? Theavailability of these things.
Tom Robinson (15:13):
Well, that was always our concern when for any
of our courses to keep the costof text required text down. It's
somewhat of a scandal in thepricing of academic textbooks, I
think.
Chip Gruen (15:30):
Yeah.
Tom Robinson (15:30):
But that's another matter.
Chip Gruen (15:32):
It is, it is. And I think we should just say that
even if a textbook is very, veryexpensive through a publisher,
the authors of that textbook arenot getting the lion's share of
that as well. So it's,
Tom Robinson (15:43):
No, no.
Chip Gruen (15:46):
It's an industry to itself. Yes.
Tom Robinson (15:48):
Yeah.
Chip Gruen (15:49):
So, um, Hillary wanted to come back to for a
minute, because Tom was talkingabout, you know, misconceptions.
And I know, being somebody whostudies Christianity, you know,
I got on campus here atMuhlenberg 15 years ago, and the
one ran into one of the facultymembers, and he says, Oh, are
you the new theologian? And andI, you know, was, as you say,
(16:11):
Tom was ready for the questionand answered, No, no, that's not
me at all. Here, I'll tell youwho I am exactly. But that he
clearly was thinking of me whenhe asked the question, he knew
somebody had been hired to studyChristianity and assumed it was
a theologian. So Hillary, myquestion to you is, you know,
given that you study different,you know, a different body of
(16:33):
materials that you'refundamentally grounded in
studying the traditions in theEast, how does that play
differently for you than, say,somebody who, who comes at
Christianity and Judaism? Who'svery often imagined to be a
rabbi or a priest or a pastor orsomething?
Hillary Rodrigues (16:51):
That's a, Yeah, that's a great question. I
think to some extent, peoplestill make the assumption that
the person who teaches, youknow, Eastern religion belongs
to that faith. To some extent, Iwould say students are somewhat
(17:11):
less concerned and almost wantthe person who teaches it to
belong to that tradition. Ialmost have to disabuse them
from that orientation. So whilethere's a while there's
sometimes a bit of there's,there's almost a sense that
they'll get the real, the realgoods, if they are taught about
(17:32):
that tradition by an insider tothe tradition. So there is a
certain kind of a battle to sortof point out that look, even
though we're studying religionsthat are, you are less familiar
with, you still need to havecritical distance. Sympathy in
terms of being empathetic to theunderstanding of the religion,
(17:53):
but not such to such a degree,that you lose the kind of
scholarly distance that I'd liketo inculcate in students when it
comes to looking at thoseEastern traditions. So there's
a, there's this, this this oddattitude that students will
sometimes take, which kind ofothers these traditions in a way
(18:15):
that is not, not, let's say,academically appropriate for
what our, our discipline istrying to develop and inculcate
in students, I would often teachthe theory and method course,
that's sort of the capstonecourse, in religious studies,
(18:39):
and became, you know, highlysensitized, again, to the lack
of materials that for sort of aone, a one semester, seminar
course. So we started to lookagain, at ways in which we could
sort of begin to teach the doingof Religious Studies alongside
(19:04):
the acquisition of, of content.
For Eastern traditions, and toget back to your question,
there's a lot of new contentthere, gods and myths and
Hinduism, there are metaphysicalideas, and Buddhism and so on.
The content itself is veryappealing. But one wants to sort
(19:25):
of teach an approach to studyingthat in the same way that one
would study Christianityacademically. So there's this
sort of this double whammy thatyou have teaching the Eastern
religions, which is teachingcontent with which students are
unfamiliar, as well as havingthe critical distance to study
(19:46):
them with the quality ofobjectivity.
Tom Robinson (19:50):
And there's always some students who are on a quest
to I guess, maybe everyone is onsome sort of quest, but they're
they see in this, coming toreligious studies as a path
toward at least findingthemselves or whatever. And, and
(20:10):
again, we're not going to bethat helpful in in getting them
to their goal. As a matter offact, we may even detour them.
Chip Gruen (20:23):
Actually, what again, what we say sounds sounds
very familiar when we were doingthe mission statement for the
Institute for Religious andCultural Understanding we, it's
a two prong thing on the onehand literacy, right, knowing
the myths, the rituals, thestories, right the metaphysics,
etc. But then on the other hand,modeling and thinking about what
(20:46):
a sophisticated academicconversation about religion
looks like, which I think is away of saying theory and method
without, without saying, saying,theory and method. Another thing
that I'm interested in, you saythat you've been doing this work
together for for decades, thatyou built this body of
(21:09):
materials, you took it uponyourselves, not too many years
ago to start sharing this tocreate the Robinest project
itself, Have you found that,either in your own department or
in the field, your approach,this approach that is, on the
(21:30):
one hand comparative, on theother hand, rooted in these
theoretical questions? has thisbecome either more or less au
courant? Is this something thatyou feel when you have new
people in the department thatthey're absolutely gung ho, to
jump on board? Or have you feltlike the field has shifted
somewhat?
Hillary Rodrigues (21:51):
If I've got your question right, Chip, it's,
I mean, our texts have a, youknow, they have a certain
innovative quality about them interms of appeal, and so on. But
in certain other ways, they arefairly, you could say, standard
(22:13):
approaches to the presentationof religion. We do, we do sort
of break things up into historyand beliefs and practices and so
on. Embedded in the way we writethe material is a certain, let's
say, desire to conveytheoretical issues, complexities
(22:39):
within religion, and so on. Butwe don't make that front and
center. A lot of people who cometo the academy now sometimes
want to bring to their students,the newest theoretical approach
to problematize religion as acategory to talk about all of
the different variations thatexist within Christianity or
(23:04):
Hinduism. There are Hinduism'sand Christianity's and so on. We
have found that from years ofteaching decades of teaching,
that the all of this isimportant at the same time, it
can be terribly confusing tostudents. So trying to find that
sweet spot between informing andat the same time, not neglecting
(23:27):
that which is au courant is, ispart of what we've been
struggling to do. And perhapswe've, we, we err on the side of
wanting to present material atthe foundational level, because
we feel that students need tohave like knowledge at their
disposal, before they cantheorize and talk in a more
(23:52):
sophisticated way about thecomplexities of, of religions
and their variations. So as faras new people coming on and, and
seizing onto these texts, it'shard to say. You could say that
we even among our colleagues,there they are of two minds
about it. They sometimes have toteach the world religions
course, for a few years beforethey discover the value of going
(24:17):
back to sort of, you know, nutsand bolts to some extent in the
presentation of material.
Tom Robinson (24:24):
And given the poor market in religious studies for,
for new profs, there are veryfew new profs in any department
unless they're sessionals, butthat's another matter.
Chip Gruen (24:43):
We could do a whole series on another matter, I
think.
Tom Robinson (24:47):
What we tried to do with the resources that we
produced, we know they won'twork for everyone. But there
there's such diversity therethat I think most people will
find something that can beuseful in their own
presentation.
Chip Gruen (25:04):
So I'm thinking about, you know, approaches. And
and I'm very, admire you verymuch for your very much student
centered approach to this, but Ithink we're in the process of
thinking about our curriculumtoo. And, you know, on the one
hand, you want to build a majorthat, you know, can lead people
to very good, complicatedexpertise level understandings.
(25:30):
But I would guess that you're inthe same boat that we are that
you might get students for onesemester, you know, fulfilling a
general ac-academic requirement,or they just have other fish to
fry as, as everybody does. Andso reaching those students with
things that are useful to themand choosing to hit the content
first, rather than, as you say,the more sort of complicated and
(25:54):
oftentimes confusingmethodological work, how many
students do you have that cometo you and, and sort of latch on
and continue on? And how much isit a one semester, get in them
as much as you can project?
Tom Robinson (26:06):
I think our 1000 course, is a course where we
capture people. They don't come.
because they really want to takeReligious Studies 1000, they
come because it fits theirschedule, or somebody's told
them, oh, this is a good course,or what, or the girlfriend's in
the class and they want to bewith her. All those factors. But
we know that we have to winthem. In that class, we teach
(26:32):
about 500 first year studentseach year. So we have a good
core, the Deans notice that thisis where their money is. So
that's helpful to religiousstudies as a department, but we
have to capture their interest.
(26:55):
And so we do a little bit ofentertaining, right at first.
And maybe maybe I should saywhat we have done. The two of us
appear for the first lecture.
And I would say, Good afternoonclass. I'm Professor Rodrigues.
And Hillary would turn to me andwhisper something in my ear. And
(27:18):
I'd say, Oh, I'm sorry,mistaken. I'm Professor
Robinson, this is ProfessorRodrigues. We've taught this
course so long together as teamteachers, that we sometimes get
confused about our own identity.
So they're this for many of themas a first class they've had,
(27:39):
and they just kind of don't knowwhat to do with that. Do they
laugh? What's going on? Andwe're so and then I usually make
the comment. Now half, I'll takethe first half of this course,
halfway through the semester,Professor Rodrigues will come
in. Now pay special attention tothe syllabus and note the
(28:00):
change, because you might getnot notice when Professor
Rodrigues comes in. becausewe're often mistaken for twins.
Well, impossible. I'm short,Hillary's tall, brown pink,
bald, balding. So by that time,there's a bit of humor, they're
(28:21):
prepared to laugh. And now notthe whole class becomes humor,
but we capture them from dayone. Oh, these guys are human.
They're a little funny. Andbecause we don't want them to
drop out after the first day,because many students come, oh,
will this work for me? Then theyleave. So it's really you want
(28:44):
to catch them right off. And Ithink that's been effective for
us.
Hillary Rodrigues (28:49):
Right? If I can jump in. It is quite
remarkable that students come intoo early. I mean, we have a
liberal education policy at or,let's say, philosophy at the
University of Lethbridge. Andthere are liberal education
(29:10):
requirements that students haveto take. So if they're a major
in chemistry, and so on, theystill have to take some courses
in the humanities and the socialsciences. That's often why they
end up taking a religiousstudies course. As Tom said, if
we're able to turn them on toreligion, the study of religion,
activate that curiosity. Thenthey will sign up for our
(29:34):
second, third and fourth yearcourses. Some actually have
switched majors and becomereligious studies majors, though
that's really not by any meansour bread and butter as you
said, the vast majority willtake one religious studies
course and that's it. But we arealways we feel that there's a
sense of success if we'vemanaged to lure them into large
(29:57):
numbers taking second and thirdyear courses. And we find that
we are effective at doing thatif you have the right materials,
if your delivery is appealingand interesting and stimulating
mentally to the students, theyfind that they are actually
learning something of value. Youcan you can draw them in because
(30:19):
they do have courses that theycan choose outside of their
major. And let's face itreligious studies, is for the
most part, a kind of a servicecourse, there are these a
service courses for students whoare majoring in something else,
and who are broadening their,their their education.
Chip Gruen (30:39):
So one of the things that I really feel privileged to
do is, you know, havingconversations like this reaching
out to people from othercolleges, universities from
from, frankly, you know, acrossthe country around the world.
And I'm always astounded at thereally interesting work that
people are doing, not only inpublishing, but but also in,
(31:00):
like the Robinest project. Andit is often the case that there
are really great people doingreally great things that are
unheralded, and I'm interestedin your project because it
stands up and says, Hey, we aredoing this work, we want to
share this work. It's at, it'seither free or low cost. You
(31:23):
know, and you've done mailings,like I said earlier, you know, I
got a cold, cold mailing fromyou and that's how I learned
about you. Can you talk a littlebit about how you've been
received, you know, eitherlocally in Lethbridge or around
the country around the world,how the materials that you've
sought to share have beenreceived, and what are some
(31:44):
indicators of your success?
Tom Robinson (31:46):
Well, I think it's clear that we're not winning any
prizes in marketing, that's notour skill. And it takes
persistence. So we're at thebeginning of, of putting
material out that advertises theproduct and learning how to do
that. So we're not, let's justsay, we're not good at
(32:16):
marketing. And a lot of profsare like that, right? They're,
they're, they're good at theirscholarship, but they're not
good at marketing it. And so,but we're proud of our product,
and we're learning how to makeourselves known. But it's a
(32:36):
learning process for sure.
Hillary Rodrigues (32:38):
There is a tendency for professors when
selecting materials for theircourses to turn to the well
known publisher. And even thoseguys find, I mean they've got a
huge machine of agents that sortof show up at your door talking
(33:00):
about the newest book, and soon. We don't have any of that
infrastructure. This projectRobinest is really Tom, and me
and a few other people we'veenlisted to help us. So putting
the word out and so on isimportant. And, as Tom
mentioned, we're not experts atdoing it. We've got students,
(33:21):
we've had students who have goneon to become professors
themselves. And they will oftenturn to our materials having
used our materials before theyfind that they're useful. Others
come upon them as you did fromfrom things like these cold
mailings, and so on. That's ourway of trying to get the word
out. And we really appreciatethis podcast, for instance,
(33:43):
because it will make more peopleaware of what's out there. Those
who have used it who've writtenback and generally very
favorably, because they see theimpact that it has on their
students. And I mean, this iswhat we this is where we've come
from, we've come from a place ofwanting to be effective at
(34:05):
teaching this material and areconstantly seeking out new ways
to try to make the materialengaging and have students go to
the text want to flip it openand look through it. Remember
certain key aspects you know,perhaps we'll have a chance to
talk a little bit about some ofthose innovative approaches
(34:26):
we've used for for pedagogy, butthat's what ultimately is the
source of success is theresponse that it has from
students its effectiveness atteaching.
Chip Gruen (34:39):
Yeah, I'd love to follow up on that, right now
actually about about innovativepedagogy about some of the
things that you've really soughtto incorporate into these, you
know, into these works. And asTom, as you alerted, alluded to
earlier, you know, the digitalthe, the digital platform allows
so much more than just a bookoff the shelf can do. So, you
(35:04):
know, I'd love to hear a littlebit more about, about how you're
thinking about, you know, notonly using the technology, but
using the platform of theRobinest project to, to inform
pedagogies on the academic studyof religion as well.
Tom Robinson (35:17):
Oh, I think as we work together, it's an enjoyable
process for us. And there's acertain creativity in working
with somebody else. So there,there is just kind of an energy
that we get from working on theproject, and discovering a new
way to do something, we've spentquite a bit of time in finding
(35:45):
how to make visual, a conceptand put it in some sort of graph
or illustration. So that thestudent can remember the image,
the graph, that's, that's intheir memory, in a way that
(36:07):
words sometimes can slide out.
So we've done quite a bit ofthat. And we've been pleased
with how, how effective theythey are, what, but we're
disappointed that we didn't dothis when we first started
teaching, you know. So we have alot of things like that. We use
color. For each tradition,there's a distinctive color. So
(36:32):
if they can remember the colorof the image they know what
tradition it is. We've usedthings like postage stamps, the
image from a postage stamp tocapture an event that what how
do you capture an event like theany war or any anything like
(36:54):
that, it would be almostimpossible to capture, we think
of videos or something, but youcan capture it in a stamp.
Because the stamp gives theartist a inch by two space to
actually put a historical eventon in that space. And so we view
(37:17):
the stamps in, in our books, andour PowerPoint slides. And we
find them, they can be quiteeffective, because there's an
image with this event that wouldotherwise kind of float away. So
we've used various things likethat. Plus, in addition to the
(37:39):
text, the standard flow of thetext, oh, we've found little
tidbits of information that wecan put in a sidebar, with an
illustration. For example, onthe Danube in Budapest, there's
about 40 pairs of iron shoes.
(38:06):
It's a display, a Holocaustdisplay, commemorating the
execution of Jews who werebrought to the Danube told to
take off their shoes, becauseshoes were valuable toward the
end of World War II, shot, andtheir bodies dumped into the
Danube. So we have an image oftwo of these iron shoes. Well,
(38:32):
when you're looking through areligious studies textbook, and
you'll see iron shoes, What'sgoing on here? And then there's
a little blurb explaining that.
Well, that's a bit of knowledge,that's forever there's. So we
often have it in a textbook orbring it to the PowerPoint
slides. So we're looking forthose little things that
(38:53):
whatever they leave with,there's certain things they will
never forget. So various thingslike that, that kind of add to
the whole experience
Hillary Rodrigues (39:08):
On this on this collaborative business. I'd
like to give you an example. Sothere is in Tibetan Buddhism,
there's a very striking paintingthat's often found on tankas or
monastery walls. It's called theBhavachakra, it's the the wheel
(39:30):
of existence or life. And itsort of has, you know the realms
of the various the gods and thehuman and animal and the hellish
realms and so on at the center.
And around it there are 12categories that deal with
perception leading to desire orleading to grasping and kind of
(39:51):
the rebirth of the psychologicalself. Well the images that are
used in the Tibetan Bhavachakraare sometimes appealing, but
sometimes they're kind of remotebecause they're culturally tied
to Tibetan culture. So Tom and Iwere like, This Bhavachakra is
(40:12):
very interesting, but how couldwe work it in such a way that
our students might actually beable to understand it? And I
would say, Well, I wonder if youcan, like how do we convey the
notion of grasping, and, and soon. And Tom would, of course,
look at various icons that hehad, together, collaboratively,
we'd come up with a way. Sowe've created like, a
(40:34):
Bhavachakra, in that one pageon, on, on Buddhism, that's a
kind of a nouveau representationof this classical Tibetan,
symbolic painting and diagramthat was designed as a teaching
tool, but we've made it ateaching tool for our students
(40:55):
who utilize the text. And that'sfound in a lot of different
places, you know, with the sevendeadly sins, or you know, the
stages of life, and so on, andso forth. So we're constantly
working that way with each otherto find innovative and
interesting ways of gettingideas across.
Chip Gruen (41:16):
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know,
when you think about what we'retrained to do, and what we're
not trained to do. I mean, Ialways joke that sort of 80% of
the life of a professor isthings that we were never
actually trained to do. And asyou talk about the challenges of
creating a textbook forundergraduates or creating these
(41:36):
visuals for undergraduates, Imean, I would say that, you
know, if we're writing ascholarly article, like, to a
large degree, we're workingagainst that, right, you're
working against that you'reworking with that sentence that
might have three dependentclauses on it, because you're
wanting to sort of, you know,show the complexity of the of,
(41:56):
of what's going on in here, itbecomes a matter of working
reverse of distilling, becomingmemorable, you know, having
something that wedges insomebody's brain, you know,
rather than rather than theopposite, that is that is all
Tom Robinson (42:11):
And there's a certain satisfaction when you
about the nuance.
know you've scored, that thisactually works. And so we we've
had a great time, putting thesethings together, just delighted
that some of our discoveries,quite surprised that just one
(42:35):
little tweak with something, andeverything falls into place. Not
everything there have beendisasters.
Hillary Rodrigues (42:43):
So for instance, just quite recently,
Tom thought of the idea of whenthere was like we had a
photograph of something toillustrate, you know, so there's
bodies being cremated on theGanges, let's say, so you've got
the cremation grounds in India.
Well, to have a small littlesection that shows a map of
India, where Banaras is located.
(43:05):
Right on the photograph, I mean,this is something that you've
been implementing Tom on your sowhen students see the
photograph, they instantly canactually see where this
photograph occurs, because welove maps. And we think that,
you know, it's a, it's a greatidea to teach geography of the
world and where these thesethings are, take place. Just
that little thing, of course, ittakes a lot of work to do. But I
(43:28):
find it an incredibly valuableaddition to the simple
photograph, because it has nowraised it to another level where
just the visual can convey tostudents where it is actually
situated geographically.
Tom Robinson (43:47):
And also, something that is effective to
ground something, historically,is that in our history section
of each discipline, of eachtradition, we have little bars
that run across the page thatgives a chronological sketch of
(44:09):
major events, so that thestudent when reading, can just
drop their eyes down to this.
And, and the particular point inthe chart, where this fits, we
will have highlighted in thecolor of that tradition. So
little things like that, that.
(44:29):
Without effort, they're gettingsome understanding of geography
and of history. A sly way to doit.
Chip Gruen (44:39):
Yeah, so it seems like orientation is really
important to you, right?
Orienting the student in whatthey're seeing. You know,
contextualizing both in spaceand time.
Hillary Rodrigues (44:51):
You know, the point you raised before, earlier
Chip, is so important. Thecrafting of textbooks is so
different from our typicalacademic writing. And to be
effective. I mean, I've writtena book on Hinduism. And what got
me interested in the e-stuff isthat I was asked to write a book
on Hinduism and a persons siadWe're thinking of doing a
(45:14):
digital book, this was way back.
So almost 10 years ago. Theywere the people who did one of
the first academic journals, theJournal of Buddhist Studies, as
a digital journal, and thosedays digital journal was viewed
with some suspicion and so onabout quality, etc. So when he
said, Oh, could you write abook, a digital textbook on
Hinduism, I thought, What? No,I, you know, but then as I gave
(45:37):
it thought, I realized what thepotential was for it. And I
thought, well, I'll just justbang out a textbook fairly
easily only to discover thatwriting a book on a tradition is
a huge challenge, one thattypically goes relatively, not
as acknowledged as it ought tobe in academic circles, because,
(45:59):
nevertheless, what I found oneof the bigger challenges,
besides covering the materialand so on, was writing in a way
for a different audience.
Writing not for my peers, eventhough they were constantly I
felt them staring over myshoulder and telling me, why are
(46:22):
you saying it this way? Whydon't you use you know, three
syllable words, as you weresaying, and so, like, constantly
having to, like shrug off the,the the gaze of my peers about
what I was writing, andrecognize and remind myself that
this is a book for students, fornovices, who you want to reach
(46:49):
so that we try to keep front andcenter in the way we craft these
books.
Chip Gruen (46:56):
So one of the things that I'm fundamentally
interested in both the work theInstitute and the ReligionWise
podcast is the way that we talkabout religion, the way that
thinking about religion, not asa personal identity thing, but
as a phenomenon in the world,how that happens in the public
square how that happens inpublic conversation. And so what
(47:17):
I always like to ask people onthe podcast is, you know, for
the listener out there, what canthey do? What, what advice would
you give them to eithercultivate within themselves, or
within the community that theylive? To enhance the public
(47:37):
conversation of religion? Or howdo you see your project also
contributing to that to thatgoal?
Tom Robinson (47:43):
Well, I think, if we can educate students, in the
variety of religious traditions,make sense of them, to them, at
some level, then we've, we'vealready accomplished at least
(48:07):
the first step in making societylargely aware of a different way
to perceive the religiousexperience or religious people.
So I think it's a baby step,baby step, baby step process. As
(48:30):
we kind of, we don't saturatethe society, that, that that's
not the job we're doing. We knowit's a step by step, small, baby
step process, bringingindividuals to a better
understanding of the, the aspectof human society that has been
(48:56):
there since the beginning, thatis found everywhere, even in the
modern world. And that is somesort of religious sensibility
and concern. And if we can havestudents begin to think that
way, that this is the way theworld is, they may have a place
for the diverse traditions thatthey hadn't had until they
(49:19):
encountered them in an academicsetting. So because often you
encounter the other in a hostileenvironment. We are, this is us.
That is them. And there'sopposition. In religious
studies, they don't get thatthey find that everyone has a
(49:43):
place in that world. So I thinkbut that that's a long, tedious
process. generation bygeneration finding a new way to
do it. Ours is a smallcontribution to that.
Chip Gruen (50:00):
All right. Well, thank you very much. I know I
promised you all that I wouldonly take an hour of your time.
So I want to be mindful of that.
But thank you very much. Thankyou very much for your work. I
know that I've only startedexploring all of the materials
that are available on theRobinest site. So I'm gonna keep
doing that. And of course, givecredit where credit is due. But
I'm excited to continueexploring those things. I, I'll
(50:23):
tell you, I'm also veryinterested, I've been poking
around at both of your CVs. AndI'm interested in other work
that you've done. If you everwant to talk about it, reach out
to me, and I'd be happy to dothat again. But thank you very
much for coming on ReligionWiseToday, we appreciate it.
Tom Robinson (50:42):
We appreciate being asked. Yeah. Thank you.
Hillary Rodrigues (50:45):
Thank you, Chip, for having us.
Chip Gruen (50:50):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. For moreinformation and additional
programming, please visit ourwebsite at
religionandculture.com There,you'll find our contact
information, links to otherprogramming, and have the
opportunity to support the workof the Institute. ReligionWise
(51:13):
is produced by the staff of theInstitute for Religious and
Cultural Understanding ofMuhlenberg College, including
Christine Flicker, and CarrieDuncan. Please subscribe to
ReligionWise wherever you getyour podcasts. We look forward
to seeing you next time.
Welcome to ReligionWise the podcast where
we feature educators,researchers and other
professionals discussing topicson religion and their relevance
to the public conversation. Myname is Chip Gruen. I'm the
Director of the Institute forReligious and Cultural
Understanding at MuhlenbergCollege, and I will be the host
for this podcast.
(00:30):
In today's episode, we talked toTom Robinson and Hillary
Rodrigues, two professors fromthe University of Lethbridge in
Canada. They are the foundersand directors of a project
called Robinest that can befound at robinest.org. On this
website, they not only providedigital textbooks, but also
materials that are intended todraw students to the academic
(00:52):
study of religion. Theseresources, particularly the
posters, are free to use. Theseposters are both witty and
poignant. And what firstinterested me in the Robinest
project. In our conversationtoday, we talk about drawing
students to the discipline,attracting interest in the
academic study of religion, anddifferentiating between the
(01:13):
teaching of theology and theacademic study of religion, I
would encourage all of you totake a look at robinest.org. and
see the ways that they're tryingto enhance public discourse on
religion, through the buildingof materials and sharing them
with the community. As thepurpose of ReligionWise is to
think about and enhance publicconversation on religion, it was
(01:35):
really great to sit down andtalk with Tom and Hillary, who
are in many ways kindredspirits, in their view of the
discipline, and their feeling ofresponsibility of sharing that
discipline with the worldoutside of higher education. Tom
and Hillary welcome toReligionWise.
Tom Robinson (01:52):
Thanks.
Hillary Rodrigues (01:54):
Hi, Chip.
Chip Gruen (01:55):
So before we start talking about the project
itself, I'm always interested incollaborations and how
collaborations come about. Socan you tell me a little bit
about how you all both startedworking together and, and, and
then also how you startedthinking about this project
together?
Tom Robinson (02:16):
I suppose our story should be somewhat
similar. I was teaching at theUniversity of Lethbridge, and
seven years after I startedthere, we hired Hillary. And it
was we both did our PhDs atMcMaster University. And so we
(02:39):
had a sense of somewhat commonbackground. And at McMaster, if
you did a major in a Westerntradition, you had to do a minor
in the East, I had done mine inthe West. So I did a minor in
the East, and Hillary did majorin the last, and then a minor,
major in the East, and then aminor in the West. So we had, we
(03:03):
already started with a kind of acommon background. And then we
did a team teaching course ofthe first year religious studies
course. And it was a natural fitfor us. We had fun with it, we
(03:24):
had a similar kind of approach.
And it was just a kind of anatural, healthy relationship.
Now, here's your his, Hillary'sstory, which may be different.
Hillary Rodrigues (03:40):
You know, there was a time that each of us
taught all of the worldreligions course that is Eastern
and Western and this backgroundthat we had enabled us to do
that, because we had a level ofexpertise in an area in areas
that were, let's say, less than,you know, our areas of
specialization. But when westarted team teaching, we
(04:03):
started taking over, you know,Western ,Tom would do Western I
would do with the Easterntraditions and so on. And we
also found that the textbooksthat we were attempting to use,
were somewhat falling a bitshort. So part of what motivated
the project of working on atextbook together was to try to
(04:24):
find something suitable for ourstudents. I mean, that's always
been the motivation to kind oftry and put together textbook
materials.
Chip Gruen (04:36):
So what you're saying actually sounds fairly
familiar to me. When I did mywork at the University of
Pennsylvania, it was similarwhere I was majoring in
Christianity, ancientChristianity, actually, and then
had to did a minor was happy todo a minor in Daoism. So that
seems similar but so I'mcurious, because I know I've
(04:58):
been in public universities,large private universities now
I'm at a small liberal artscollege. What is the context of
Lethbridge? How would youdescribe the university for
people who don't know? And howis the study of religion
situated in that context?
Hillary Rodrigues (05:16):
Well, we are a relatively small university. I
think our enrollment now issomewhere around 8,000 students,
primarily undergraduate, butwe've had a burgeoning graduate
program for the last 10 or 15years. I mean, when Tom and I
got here there were 4,000students. The population the
(05:39):
students are really culled fromrural areas around Southern
Alberta, southern Saskatchewan,southern British Columbia. So
Lethbridge itself is a city ofabout 100,000 people. Most of
these students do not have muchexposure to world religions.
(06:00):
It's not a very multiculturalcity, although it has been
growing and changing. So ingeneral, our demographic of
students are exposed toChristianity, primarily, Judeo
Christian culture. As a prof whoteaches the Eastern traditions
I'm, I'm especially aware ofthat lack of knowledge. But at
(06:24):
the same time, I find that ourstudents are highly interested
in learning about othercultures. So where what they
lack in background, they make upfor in enthusiasm. And that, for
me has been particularlyrewarding. Tom, I don't know
what you want to add to that.
Tom Robinson (06:46):
There is a religious texture to the area.
There's a heavy Mormonpopulation, not so much in the
city, but just south of thecity. And in the towns. The
first Mormon temple outside ofthe states, was built in
Cardston, just just five milesor so from the Montana border.
(07:08):
So there's that influence. Andthere's a heavy Dutch Reformed
influence. There is all themainstream traditions. There is
a large Japanese community inLethbridge that comes from World
War II and internment camps. Sothere's a mixed, mixed bag, but
(07:34):
some strong religioussensibilities in the area.
Chip Gruen (07:41):
So I know my interest, and we're sort of
starting to come up on this myinterest in thinking about,
like, sort of metacognitivelythinking about how we study
religion, which I think to alarge extent, is what the
Robinest project seems to beabout to me. But that that
really arose in me out of alittle bit of a frustration
(08:02):
between, you know,misconceptions about, about
studying religion and practicingreligion or between theology and
religious studies, it seems tome like there is something
similar at your, in your work.
So you say, on the one hand, theproject sort of rose out of
creating materials for yourstudents. But clearly, given the
(08:22):
some of the promotionalmaterials that you're sharing,
freely, I might add, thatthere's something else going on
here, there's some other impetusrather than just reaching out to
students in your classroom. Um,can you talk a little bit about
that and how you becameinterested in these broader
issues?
Tom Robinson (08:40):
I think all religious studies professors
know that there's going to besome misunderstanding about the
academic study of religion, fromstudents who happen to, for
whatever reason, enroll in areligious studies course. And
that's something we all preparefor in trying to make clear,
(09:03):
what motivated me, particularlyto do those posters, to kind of
challenge misconceptions aboutreligious studies is that one
day I walked into a classroom,and the prof. before me, was
just picking up final exampapers. So I knew he hadn't
given a lecture. So I said tohim, Well, it looks like you
(09:27):
haven't given a lecture today.
Why don't you stay and give alecture to my class? And he
said, Oh, I couldn't do that.
I'm not religious. And I said tohim, he was a biology prof. I
said to him, do you have to be afrog to teach biology? And you
could see it as somethingclicked, that he could
(09:48):
understand a bit of adifference, but the reality was
that most profs outside ofReligious Studies, unless maybe
they were in sociology oranthropology, didn't understand
what we did, what religiousstudies was about how you
separated the priest from theprofessor, the temple from the
(10:13):
academy. And so I was motivatedto do these posters. And then
all the members of the religiousstudies department began to
throw me ideas to work on. Andwe had about 50 posters, and
we're making them free and ouridea book, and they work, well
(10:35):
post them up, see what theresponse is. It they really hit
a nerve with some people, what'sthis? And it's a significant
challenge to their way ofthinking. And so that was a
start for us, trying to producegood material.
Chip Gruen (10:53):
Tom, I think we were separated at birth, because I
often say some of my favoriteornithologists are not birds. So
it's very similar to your, yourexample.
Tom Robinson (11:08):
If we were separated at birth, then we're
triplets because I'm a twin.
Chip Gruen (11:17):
So and how long ago was this, that you started sort
of making this foray intosharing these materials more
publicly?
Tom Robinson (11:27):
Oh, I retired about five years ago. And so I
guess, the trying to get thesevarious products in shape, that
they would be useful to a widerange of professors in the
discipline. I suppose we startedabout five years or years ago on
(11:51):
that, though, we were usingmaterials that we had developed
throughout our career.
Chip Gruen (11:56):
Yeah.
Hillary Rodrigues (11:58):
Yeah, if I could just jump in. I mean, Tom,
and I and other members of ourdepartment had collaborated with
writing the World Religionsbook, and Tom is sort of the
he's sort of both the creativeand tech brains behind our
project and does everything inthat regard. And for that early
(12:21):
World Religions, book, Tom hadcreated a CD ROM, if you
remember those things that wentalong with the book that had a
question database and hadphotographs and so on. So this
idea of moving in the directionof implementing some kind of
(12:42):
digital technological dimensionto regular textbooks, had been
there for decades, I would say,then, eventually, the use of CD
ROMs, and so on, became passe.
And it was taken away. And wewere sort of toying with the
idea of constructing materials,again, for the benefit of
(13:06):
students. Kind of taking the sumtotal of what we had learned
over decades of teaching worldreligions, and offering it to,
to professors and students, kindof at a reasonable cost, and
also making use of all thematerials we have gathered over
over decades of teaching. And wethought the best way to do this
(13:27):
was to do it digitally. That wasa bit of a jump, as opposed to
doing it in the moreconventional format. So our
books have taken on this notionof, you know, the value of
digital media and what are twoof the doors that it opens up to
people. Price is one of thethings you can really keep
(13:51):
prices down. You can havemarvelous visuals, you can have
sound files, and so on, as youwell know, doing this podcast.
Chip Gruen (14:01):
Yeah, I actually one of the things I wanted to talk
to you about, every year when Igo and look for textbooks for my
courses, I am just astounded atthe expense of some of these
things. I had, you know, a verythin I mean, a half inch thin
introduction to Christianitythat was running my students
well over $100 until I justcouldn't stomach it anymore. So
(14:23):
we'll put a link to your all'sresources in in our show notes
today. But it should be notedthat that the different texts
that you have and there areseveral there, there's what
Eastern religions, Westernreligions, Christianity,
Judaism, Hindu, East Asianreligions,so it's a wide
variety.
Tom Robinson (14:40):
...chapters, plus the Eastern and Western plus
some readers.
Chip Gruen (14:44):
Yes, yeah. And the readers are the primary sources
as well, but that they all runfor 9.99 Canadian, right rather
than these triple digit amountsthat we get in, you know, from
publishers. So I don't know ifthere's a question there other
than just to congratulate youbecause, you know, affordable
(15:04):
resources are so difficult now,particularly when we're trying
to democratize, right? Theavailability of these things.
Tom Robinson (15:13):
Well, that was always our concern when for any
of our courses to keep the costof text required text down. It's
somewhat of a scandal in thepricing of academic textbooks, I
think.
Chip Gruen (15:30):
Yeah.
Tom Robinson (15:30):
But that's another matter.
Chip Gruen (15:32):
It is, it is. And I think we should just say that
even if a textbook is very, veryexpensive through a publisher,
the authors of that textbook arenot getting the lion's share of
that as well. So it's,
Tom Robinson (15:43):
No, no.
Chip Gruen (15:46):
It's an industry to itself. Yes.
Tom Robinson (15:48):
Yeah.
Chip Gruen (15:49):
So, um, Hillary wanted to come back to for a
minute, because Tom was talkingabout, you know, misconceptions.
And I know, being somebody whostudies Christianity, you know,
I got on campus here atMuhlenberg 15 years ago, and the
one ran into one of the facultymembers, and he says, Oh, are
you the new theologian? And andI, you know, was, as you say,
(16:11):
Tom was ready for the questionand answered, No, no, that's not
me at all. Here, I'll tell youwho I am exactly. But that he
clearly was thinking of me whenhe asked the question, he knew
somebody had been hired to studyChristianity and assumed it was
a theologian. So Hillary, myquestion to you is, you know,
given that you study different,you know, a different body of
(16:33):
materials that you'refundamentally grounded in
studying the traditions in theEast, how does that play
differently for you than, say,somebody who, who comes at
Christianity and Judaism? Who'svery often imagined to be a
rabbi or a priest or a pastor orsomething?
Hillary Rodrigues (16:51):
That's a, Yeah, that's a great question. I
think to some extent, peoplestill make the assumption that
the person who teaches, youknow, Eastern religion belongs
to that faith. To some extent, Iwould say students are somewhat
(17:11):
less concerned and almost wantthe person who teaches it to
belong to that tradition. Ialmost have to disabuse them
from that orientation. So whilethere's a while there's
sometimes a bit of there's,there's almost a sense that
they'll get the real, the realgoods, if they are taught about
(17:32):
that tradition by an insider tothe tradition. So there is a
certain kind of a battle to sortof point out that look, even
though we're studying religionsthat are, you are less familiar
with, you still need to havecritical distance. Sympathy in
terms of being empathetic to theunderstanding of the religion,
(17:53):
but not such to such a degree,that you lose the kind of
scholarly distance that I'd liketo inculcate in students when it
comes to looking at thoseEastern traditions. So there's
a, there's this, this this oddattitude that students will
sometimes take, which kind ofothers these traditions in a way
(18:15):
that is not, not, let's say,academically appropriate for
what our, our discipline istrying to develop and inculcate
in students, I would often teachthe theory and method course,
that's sort of the capstonecourse, in religious studies,
(18:39):
and became, you know, highlysensitized, again, to the lack
of materials that for sort of aone, a one semester, seminar
course. So we started to lookagain, at ways in which we could
sort of begin to teach the doingof Religious Studies alongside
(19:04):
the acquisition of, of content.
For Eastern traditions, and toget back to your question,
there's a lot of new contentthere, gods and myths and
Hinduism, there are metaphysicalideas, and Buddhism and so on.
The content itself is veryappealing. But one wants to sort
(19:25):
of teach an approach to studyingthat in the same way that one
would study Christianityacademically. So there's this
sort of this double whammy thatyou have teaching the Eastern
religions, which is teachingcontent with which students are
unfamiliar, as well as havingthe critical distance to study
(19:46):
them with the quality ofobjectivity.
Tom Robinson (19:50):
And there's always some students who are on a quest
to I guess, maybe everyone is onsome sort of quest, but they're
they see in this, coming toreligious studies as a path
toward at least findingthemselves or whatever. And, and
(20:10):
again, we're not going to bethat helpful in in getting them
to their goal. As a matter offact, we may even detour them.
Chip Gruen (20:23):
Actually, what again, what we say sounds sounds
very familiar when we were doingthe mission statement for the
Institute for Religious andCultural Understanding we, it's
a two prong thing on the onehand literacy, right, knowing
the myths, the rituals, thestories, right the metaphysics,
etc. But then on the other hand,modeling and thinking about what
(20:46):
a sophisticated academicconversation about religion
looks like, which I think is away of saying theory and method
without, without saying, saying,theory and method. Another thing
that I'm interested in, you saythat you've been doing this work
together for for decades, thatyou built this body of
(21:09):
materials, you took it uponyourselves, not too many years
ago to start sharing this tocreate the Robinest project
itself, Have you found that,either in your own department or
in the field, your approach,this approach that is, on the
(21:30):
one hand comparative, on theother hand, rooted in these
theoretical questions? has thisbecome either more or less au
courant? Is this something thatyou feel when you have new
people in the department thatthey're absolutely gung ho, to
jump on board? Or have you feltlike the field has shifted
somewhat?
Hillary Rodrigues (21:51):
If I've got your question right, Chip, it's,
I mean, our texts have a, youknow, they have a certain
innovative quality about them interms of appeal, and so on. But
in certain other ways, they arefairly, you could say, standard
(22:13):
approaches to the presentationof religion. We do, we do sort
of break things up into historyand beliefs and practices and so
on. Embedded in the way we writethe material is a certain, let's
say, desire to conveytheoretical issues, complexities
(22:39):
within religion, and so on. Butwe don't make that front and
center. A lot of people who cometo the academy now sometimes
want to bring to their students,the newest theoretical approach
to problematize religion as acategory to talk about all of
the different variations thatexist within Christianity or
(23:04):
Hinduism. There are Hinduism'sand Christianity's and so on. We
have found that from years ofteaching decades of teaching,
that the all of this isimportant at the same time, it
can be terribly confusing tostudents. So trying to find that
sweet spot between informing andat the same time, not neglecting
(23:27):
that which is au courant is, ispart of what we've been
struggling to do. And perhapswe've, we, we err on the side of
wanting to present material atthe foundational level, because
we feel that students need tohave like knowledge at their
disposal, before they cantheorize and talk in a more
(23:52):
sophisticated way about thecomplexities of, of religions
and their variations. So as faras new people coming on and, and
seizing onto these texts, it'shard to say. You could say that
we even among our colleagues,there they are of two minds
about it. They sometimes have toteach the world religions
course, for a few years beforethey discover the value of going
(24:17):
back to sort of, you know, nutsand bolts to some extent in the
presentation of material.
Tom Robinson (24:24):
And given the poor market in religious studies for,
for new profs, there are veryfew new profs in any department
unless they're sessionals, butthat's another matter.
Chip Gruen (24:43):
We could do a whole series on another matter, I
think.
Tom Robinson (24:47):
What we tried to do with the resources that we
produced, we know they won'twork for everyone. But there
there's such diversity therethat I think most people will
find something that can beuseful in their own
presentation.
Chip Gruen (25:04):
So I'm thinking about, you know, approaches. And
and I'm very, admire you verymuch for your very much student
centered approach to this, but Ithink we're in the process of
thinking about our curriculumtoo. And, you know, on the one
hand, you want to build a majorthat, you know, can lead people
to very good, complicatedexpertise level understandings.
(25:30):
But I would guess that you're inthe same boat that we are that
you might get students for onesemester, you know, fulfilling a
general ac-academic requirement,or they just have other fish to
fry as, as everybody does. Andso reaching those students with
things that are useful to themand choosing to hit the content
first, rather than, as you say,the more sort of complicated and
(25:54):
oftentimes confusingmethodological work, how many
students do you have that cometo you and, and sort of latch on
and continue on? And how much isit a one semester, get in them
as much as you can project?
Tom Robinson (26:06):
I think our 1000 course, is a course where we
capture people. They don't come.
because they really want to takeReligious Studies 1000, they
come because it fits theirschedule, or somebody's told
them, oh, this is a good course,or what, or the girlfriend's in
the class and they want to bewith her. All those factors. But
we know that we have to winthem. In that class, we teach
(26:32):
about 500 first year studentseach year. So we have a good
core, the Deans notice that thisis where their money is. So
that's helpful to religiousstudies as a department, but we
have to capture their interest.
(26:55):
And so we do a little bit ofentertaining, right at first.
And maybe maybe I should saywhat we have done. The two of us
appear for the first lecture.
And I would say, Good afternoonclass. I'm Professor Rodrigues.
And Hillary would turn to me andwhisper something in my ear. And
(27:18):
I'd say, Oh, I'm sorry,mistaken. I'm Professor
Robinson, this is ProfessorRodrigues. We've taught this
course so long together as teamteachers, that we sometimes get
confused about our own identity.
So they're this for many of themas a first class they've had,
(27:39):
and they just kind of don't knowwhat to do with that. Do they
laugh? What's going on? Andwe're so and then I usually make
the comment. Now half, I'll takethe first half of this course,
halfway through the semester,Professor Rodrigues will come
in. Now pay special attention tothe syllabus and note the
(28:00):
change, because you might getnot notice when Professor
Rodrigues comes in. becausewe're often mistaken for twins.
Well, impossible. I'm short,Hillary's tall, brown pink,
bald, balding. So by that time,there's a bit of humor, they're
(28:21):
prepared to laugh. And now notthe whole class becomes humor,
but we capture them from dayone. Oh, these guys are human.
They're a little funny. Andbecause we don't want them to
drop out after the first day,because many students come, oh,
will this work for me? Then theyleave. So it's really you want
(28:44):
to catch them right off. And Ithink that's been effective for
us.
Hillary Rodrigues (28:49):
Right? If I can jump in. It is quite
remarkable that students come intoo early. I mean, we have a
liberal education policy at or,let's say, philosophy at the
University of Lethbridge. Andthere are liberal education
(29:10):
requirements that students haveto take. So if they're a major
in chemistry, and so on, theystill have to take some courses
in the humanities and the socialsciences. That's often why they
end up taking a religiousstudies course. As Tom said, if
we're able to turn them on toreligion, the study of religion,
activate that curiosity. Thenthey will sign up for our
(29:34):
second, third and fourth yearcourses. Some actually have
switched majors and becomereligious studies majors, though
that's really not by any meansour bread and butter as you
said, the vast majority willtake one religious studies
course and that's it. But we arealways we feel that there's a
sense of success if we'vemanaged to lure them into large
(29:57):
numbers taking second and thirdyear courses. And we find that
we are effective at doing thatif you have the right materials,
if your delivery is appealingand interesting and stimulating
mentally to the students, theyfind that they are actually
learning something of value. Youcan you can draw them in because
(30:19):
they do have courses that theycan choose outside of their
major. And let's face itreligious studies, is for the
most part, a kind of a servicecourse, there are these a
service courses for students whoare majoring in something else,
and who are broadening their,their their education.
Chip Gruen (30:39):
So one of the things that I really feel privileged to
do is, you know, havingconversations like this reaching
out to people from othercolleges, universities from
from, frankly, you know, acrossthe country around the world.
And I'm always astounded at thereally interesting work that
people are doing, not only inpublishing, but but also in,
(31:00):
like the Robinest project. Andit is often the case that there
are really great people doingreally great things that are
unheralded, and I'm interestedin your project because it
stands up and says, Hey, we aredoing this work, we want to
share this work. It's at, it'seither free or low cost. You
(31:23):
know, and you've done mailings,like I said earlier, you know, I
got a cold, cold mailing fromyou and that's how I learned
about you. Can you talk a littlebit about how you've been
received, you know, eitherlocally in Lethbridge or around
the country around the world,how the materials that you've
sought to share have beenreceived, and what are some
(31:44):
indicators of your success?
Tom Robinson (31:46):
Well, I think it's clear that we're not winning any
prizes in marketing, that's notour skill. And it takes
persistence. So we're at thebeginning of, of putting
material out that advertises theproduct and learning how to do
that. So we're not, let's justsay, we're not good at
(32:16):
marketing. And a lot of profsare like that, right? They're,
they're, they're good at theirscholarship, but they're not
good at marketing it. And so,but we're proud of our product,
and we're learning how to makeourselves known. But it's a
(32:36):
learning process for sure.
Hillary Rodrigues (32:38):
There is a tendency for professors when
selecting materials for theircourses to turn to the well
known publisher. And even thoseguys find, I mean they've got a
huge machine of agents that sortof show up at your door talking
(33:00):
about the newest book, and soon. We don't have any of that
infrastructure. This projectRobinest is really Tom, and me
and a few other people we'veenlisted to help us. So putting
the word out and so on isimportant. And, as Tom
mentioned, we're not experts atdoing it. We've got students,
(33:21):
we've had students who have goneon to become professors
themselves. And they will oftenturn to our materials having
used our materials before theyfind that they're useful. Others
come upon them as you did fromfrom things like these cold
mailings, and so on. That's ourway of trying to get the word
out. And we really appreciatethis podcast, for instance,
(33:43):
because it will make more peopleaware of what's out there. Those
who have used it who've writtenback and generally very
favorably, because they see theimpact that it has on their
students. And I mean, this iswhat we this is where we've come
from, we've come from a place ofwanting to be effective at
(34:05):
teaching this material and areconstantly seeking out new ways
to try to make the materialengaging and have students go to
the text want to flip it openand look through it. Remember
certain key aspects you know,perhaps we'll have a chance to
talk a little bit about some ofthose innovative approaches
(34:26):
we've used for for pedagogy, butthat's what ultimately is the
source of success is theresponse that it has from
students its effectiveness atteaching.
Chip Gruen (34:39):
Yeah, I'd love to follow up on that, right now
actually about about innovativepedagogy about some of the
things that you've really soughtto incorporate into these, you
know, into these works. And asTom, as you alerted, alluded to
earlier, you know, the digitalthe, the digital platform allows
so much more than just a bookoff the shelf can do. So, you
(35:04):
know, I'd love to hear a littlebit more about, about how you're
thinking about, you know, notonly using the technology, but
using the platform of theRobinest project to, to inform
pedagogies on the academic studyof religion as well.
Tom Robinson (35:17):
Oh, I think as we work together, it's an enjoyable
process for us. And there's acertain creativity in working
with somebody else. So there,there is just kind of an energy
that we get from working on theproject, and discovering a new
way to do something, we've spentquite a bit of time in finding
(35:45):
how to make visual, a conceptand put it in some sort of graph
or illustration. So that thestudent can remember the image,
the graph, that's, that's intheir memory, in a way that
(36:07):
words sometimes can slide out.
So we've done quite a bit ofthat. And we've been pleased
with how, how effective theythey are, what, but we're
disappointed that we didn't dothis when we first started
teaching, you know. So we have alot of things like that. We use
color. For each tradition,there's a distinctive color. So
(36:32):
if they can remember the colorof the image they know what
tradition it is. We've usedthings like postage stamps, the
image from a postage stamp tocapture an event that what how
do you capture an event like theany war or any anything like
(36:54):
that, it would be almostimpossible to capture, we think
of videos or something, but youcan capture it in a stamp.
Because the stamp gives theartist a inch by two space to
actually put a historical eventon in that space. And so we view
(37:17):
the stamps in, in our books, andour PowerPoint slides. And we
find them, they can be quiteeffective, because there's an
image with this event that wouldotherwise kind of float away. So
we've used various things likethat. Plus, in addition to the
(37:39):
text, the standard flow of thetext, oh, we've found little
tidbits of information that wecan put in a sidebar, with an
illustration. For example, onthe Danube in Budapest, there's
about 40 pairs of iron shoes.
(38:06):
It's a display, a Holocaustdisplay, commemorating the
execution of Jews who werebrought to the Danube told to
take off their shoes, becauseshoes were valuable toward the
end of World War II, shot, andtheir bodies dumped into the
Danube. So we have an image oftwo of these iron shoes. Well,
(38:32):
when you're looking through areligious studies textbook, and
you'll see iron shoes, What'sgoing on here? And then there's
a little blurb explaining that.
Well, that's a bit of knowledge,that's forever there's. So we
often have it in a textbook orbring it to the PowerPoint
slides. So we're looking forthose little things that
(38:53):
whatever they leave with,there's certain things they will
never forget. So various thingslike that, that kind of add to
the whole experience
Hillary Rodrigues (39:08):
On this on this collaborative business. I'd
like to give you an example. Sothere is in Tibetan Buddhism,
there's a very striking paintingthat's often found on tankas or
monastery walls. It's called theBhavachakra, it's the the wheel
(39:30):
of existence or life. And itsort of has, you know the realms
of the various the gods and thehuman and animal and the hellish
realms and so on at the center.
And around it there are 12categories that deal with
perception leading to desire orleading to grasping and kind of
(39:51):
the rebirth of the psychologicalself. Well the images that are
used in the Tibetan Bhavachakraare sometimes appealing, but
sometimes they're kind of remotebecause they're culturally tied
to Tibetan culture. So Tom and Iwere like, This Bhavachakra is
(40:12):
very interesting, but how couldwe work it in such a way that
our students might actually beable to understand it? And I
would say, Well, I wonder if youcan, like how do we convey the
notion of grasping, and, and soon. And Tom would, of course,
look at various icons that hehad, together, collaboratively,
we'd come up with a way. Sowe've created like, a
(40:34):
Bhavachakra, in that one pageon, on, on Buddhism, that's a
kind of a nouveau representationof this classical Tibetan,
symbolic painting and diagramthat was designed as a teaching
tool, but we've made it ateaching tool for our students
(40:55):
who utilize the text. And that'sfound in a lot of different
places, you know, with the sevendeadly sins, or you know, the
stages of life, and so on, andso forth. So we're constantly
working that way with each otherto find innovative and
interesting ways of gettingideas across.
Chip Gruen (41:16):
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know,
when you think about what we'retrained to do, and what we're
not trained to do. I mean, Ialways joke that sort of 80% of
the life of a professor isthings that we were never
actually trained to do. And asyou talk about the challenges of
creating a textbook forundergraduates or creating these
(41:36):
visuals for undergraduates, Imean, I would say that, you
know, if we're writing ascholarly article, like, to a
large degree, we're workingagainst that, right, you're
working against that you'reworking with that sentence that
might have three dependentclauses on it, because you're
wanting to sort of, you know,show the complexity of the of,
(41:56):
of what's going on in here, itbecomes a matter of working
reverse of distilling, becomingmemorable, you know, having
something that wedges insomebody's brain, you know,
rather than rather than theopposite, that is that is all
Tom Robinson (42:11):
And there's a certain satisfaction when you
about the nuance.
know you've scored, that thisactually works. And so we we've
had a great time, putting thesethings together, just delighted
that some of our discoveries,quite surprised that just one
(42:35):
little tweak with something, andeverything falls into place. Not
everything there have beendisasters.
Hillary Rodrigues (42:43):
So for instance, just quite recently,
Tom thought of the idea of whenthere was like we had a
photograph of something toillustrate, you know, so there's
bodies being cremated on theGanges, let's say, so you've got
the cremation grounds in India.
Well, to have a small littlesection that shows a map of
India, where Banaras is located.
(43:05):
Right on the photograph, I mean,this is something that you've
been implementing Tom on your sowhen students see the
photograph, they instantly canactually see where this
photograph occurs, because welove maps. And we think that,
you know, it's a, it's a greatidea to teach geography of the
world and where these thesethings are, take place. Just
that little thing, of course, ittakes a lot of work to do. But I
(43:28):
find it an incredibly valuableaddition to the simple
photograph, because it has nowraised it to another level where
just the visual can convey tostudents where it is actually
situated geographically.
Tom Robinson (43:47):
And also, something that is effective to
ground something, historically,is that in our history section
of each discipline, of eachtradition, we have little bars
that run across the page thatgives a chronological sketch of
(44:09):
major events, so that thestudent when reading, can just
drop their eyes down to this.
And, and the particular point inthe chart, where this fits, we
will have highlighted in thecolor of that tradition. So
little things like that, that.
(44:29):
Without effort, they're gettingsome understanding of geography
and of history. A sly way to doit.
Chip Gruen (44:39):
Yeah, so it seems like orientation is really
important to you, right?
Orienting the student in whatthey're seeing. You know,
contextualizing both in spaceand time.
Hillary Rodrigues (44:51):
You know, the point you raised before, earlier
Chip, is so important. Thecrafting of textbooks is so
different from our typicalacademic writing. And to be
effective. I mean, I've writtena book on Hinduism. And what got
me interested in the e-stuff isthat I was asked to write a book
on Hinduism and a persons siadWe're thinking of doing a
(45:14):
digital book, this was way back.
So almost 10 years ago. Theywere the people who did one of
the first academic journals, theJournal of Buddhist Studies, as
a digital journal, and thosedays digital journal was viewed
with some suspicion and so onabout quality, etc. So when he
said, Oh, could you write abook, a digital textbook on
Hinduism, I thought, What? No,I, you know, but then as I gave
(45:37):
it thought, I realized what thepotential was for it. And I
thought, well, I'll just justbang out a textbook fairly
easily only to discover thatwriting a book on a tradition is
a huge challenge, one thattypically goes relatively, not
as acknowledged as it ought tobe in academic circles, because,
(45:59):
nevertheless, what I found oneof the bigger challenges,
besides covering the materialand so on, was writing in a way
for a different audience.
Writing not for my peers, eventhough they were constantly I
felt them staring over myshoulder and telling me, why are
(46:22):
you saying it this way? Whydon't you use you know, three
syllable words, as you weresaying, and so, like, constantly
having to, like shrug off the,the the gaze of my peers about
what I was writing, andrecognize and remind myself that
this is a book for students, fornovices, who you want to reach
(46:49):
so that we try to keep front andcenter in the way we craft these
books.
Chip Gruen (46:56):
So one of the things that I'm fundamentally
interested in both the work theInstitute and the ReligionWise
podcast is the way that we talkabout religion, the way that
thinking about religion, not asa personal identity thing, but
as a phenomenon in the world,how that happens in the public
square how that happens inpublic conversation. And so what
(47:17):
I always like to ask people onthe podcast is, you know, for
the listener out there, what canthey do? What, what advice would
you give them to eithercultivate within themselves, or
within the community that theylive? To enhance the public
(47:37):
conversation of religion? Or howdo you see your project also
contributing to that to thatgoal?
Tom Robinson (47:43):
Well, I think, if we can educate students, in the
variety of religious traditions,make sense of them, to them, at
some level, then we've, we'vealready accomplished at least
(48:07):
the first step in making societylargely aware of a different way
to perceive the religiousexperience or religious people.
So I think it's a baby step,baby step, baby step process. As
(48:30):
we kind of, we don't saturatethe society, that, that that's
not the job we're doing. We knowit's a step by step, small, baby
step process, bringingindividuals to a better
understanding of the, the aspectof human society that has been
(48:56):
there since the beginning, thatis found everywhere, even in the
modern world. And that is somesort of religious sensibility
and concern. And if we can havestudents begin to think that
way, that this is the way theworld is, they may have a place
for the diverse traditions thatthey hadn't had until they
(49:19):
encountered them in an academicsetting. So because often you
encounter the other in a hostileenvironment. We are, this is us.
That is them. And there'sopposition. In religious
studies, they don't get thatthey find that everyone has a
(49:43):
place in that world. So I thinkbut that that's a long, tedious
process. generation bygeneration finding a new way to
do it. Ours is a smallcontribution to that.
Chip Gruen (50:00):
All right. Well, thank you very much. I know I
promised you all that I wouldonly take an hour of your time.
So I want to be mindful of that.
But thank you very much. Thankyou very much for your work. I
know that I've only startedexploring all of the materials
that are available on theRobinest site. So I'm gonna keep
doing that. And of course, givecredit where credit is due. But
I'm excited to continueexploring those things. I, I'll
(50:23):
tell you, I'm also veryinterested, I've been poking
around at both of your CVs. AndI'm interested in other work
that you've done. If you everwant to talk about it, reach out
to me, and I'd be happy to dothat again. But thank you very
much for coming on ReligionWiseToday, we appreciate it.
Tom Robinson (50:42):
We appreciate being asked. Yeah. Thank you.
Hillary Rodrigues (50:45):
Thank you, Chip, for having us.
Chip Gruen (50:50):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. For moreinformation and additional
programming, please visit ourwebsite at
religionandculture.com There,you'll find our contact
information, links to otherprogramming, and have the
opportunity to support the workof the Institute. ReligionWise
(51:13):
is produced by the staff of theInstitute for Religious and
Cultural Understanding ofMuhlenberg College, including
Christine Flicker, and CarrieDuncan. Please subscribe to
ReligionWise wherever you getyour podcasts. We look forward
to seeing you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.