Stories

Students in Elizabeth Drescher's introductory Exploring Living Religion course (RSOC 14) visited several religious sites and events this fall, including the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, the Center for Spiritual Living, Echo Church (Northside Campus), First Unitarian Church, the Rosicrucian Peace Garden, San Jose Sikh Gurdwara, Stone Church of Willow Glen (PCUSA), and the Silicon Valley Diwali Festival, the San Jose Museum of Art Dia de los Muertos celebration, and Dia de los Muertos San Jose. Students in the course conduct field research to better understand how religion functions in the lives of ordinary people, such as reinforcing cultural identity, shaping interpersonal and community relationships, cultivating embodied understandings of sacred space, and mitigating characteristic tensions in everyday life. Exploring Living Religion invites students to engage religion "beyond belief," as a social and cultural phenomenon that has practical significance in the lives of people who identify as religious and as well as those who see themselves as nonreligious. Elizabeth is currently working with Bloomsbury Press on an undergraduate textbook based on the course she developed at SCU.

Claire Andre, Megan Barstad, Evy Kimball, Caitlin Degnan, Clara Barnes, Daisy Darby, Heidi Havecamp, and Lucy Fillippini had the opportunity to talk with Yogacharya Ellen Grace O’Brien, founder of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment about how women's leadership in religious communities shapes women's social experience in the world more generally.

Aarav Surapeneni, Taven Harris, Cuitlahuac Ramirez Borrego, and Colin Leung were joined by San Jose Sikh Gurdwara security guard, Simrit Kamboe (second from the left), for a vegetarian lunch at the gurdwara's langar dining hall.

Nico Candelario Alves Pinto, Cash Carrillo, Griffin Mello, Timothy Scherer, and Cole Alexis enjoyed the company of a San Jose Museum of Art staff member with traditional face painting for the Dia de los Muertos Celebration.