Reflection

The objectives of Spirituality Research

Three years ago we started the project Spirituality International. It was an initiative of Kees Waaijman. Already in the nineties he understood that for the study of Spirituality it was necessary to join forces. The journal Studies in Spirituality was a result of this need to develop a kind of international platform. Now the Titus Brandsma Institute is willing to enter the field of communication technology. To understand this initiative we have to take into account that spirituality is not only a field of study within theology, but is studied in different scholarly disciplines like religious studies, psychology, philosophy, sociology, history, anthropology, natural sciences and literary science. A recent study of Kees Waaijman tries to map out this interdisciplinary research in Spirituality (Spirituality - a multifaceted phenomenon, Interdisciplinary explorations).
The research in spirituality promoted by the Titus Brandsma Instituut is focused at one hand on the traditional sources of religious experience (the Bible, mystics, spiritual traditions) and at the other hand is reaching out to all different forms of expression and spiritual consciousness. For this reason this research is hermeneutical, but the texts studied may be classical in written form, but also oral, musical or pictorial as in many other cultural contexts is the case. We call a text also an interview, a dialogue of spiritual accompaniment, a novel, a film or a painting. In all cases we will ‘read the text’ and try to discover layers and processes of spirituality lived and expressed. Therefore, the research is phenomenological (describing all different forms, the material object) and dialogical (looking for processes of transformation, the formal object). Traditionally there was a question of spirituality if the lived and described form was embedded in a theological and ecclesial context, (e.g. the spirituality of prayer, of religious life, priesthood etc.). Limiting spirituality to these objects, most of lived spirituality was not observed. For this reason the spirituality research of the Titus Brandsma Instituut is above all inter- and pluridisciplinary. Many disciplines that traditionally have nothing to do with theology or Church, study forms of spirituality and spiritual processes although the word spirituality will be unknown for them, e.g. spirituality and healthcare, spirituality and management, spirituality of leadership, spirituality and economics, peace, ecology, farmers, atheist spirituality, etc., etc. etc.
SPIRIN wants to contribute to the reframing of spirituality opening the discourse of the spirituality research, articulating the lived spirituality in different contexts in often hidden and unconscious forms. Specialists of spirituality may be found in many different disciplines, even if they do not use the name spirituality. SPIRIN wants to promote the dialogue and interactions between all these people in a creative process of discovering what might be ‘spirituality’ in all these forms of expression. More than the forms, we focus on the spiritual processes of transformation which are lived in persons, groups or even societies. SPIRIN ENCYCLOPEDIA will be the platform where these people meet each other in reflection and dialogue searching in a creative way ‘what could be called spirituality’. This dialogue is a permanent interaction between tradition and modernity. Spirin must be considered as an integral project, that encompasses expert meetings, communication, research, publications, internationally organized education. The website Spirin is a part of this whole project.
In this phenomenological-dialogical approach of the institute it is essential not to limit ourselves to the description of forms of spirituality or of the content of texts, but to analyse and describe the processes of transformation that these forms might want to promote in the persons confronted by them. Although the content of the forms or texts mediates the implied mystagogy, the question is how these mystagogic intentions are perceived by the persons who encounter them and how they might work in them provoking the inner transformation of the whole person. In lived spirituality the human person becomes conscious of his/her own essence perceived as a divine-human relationship. However, this consciousness of our dependence on a trancendent reality is often in tension with our desire of autonomous existence. Human sciences focus primarily on the human person as an autonomous being. Spirituality studies the growing consciousness of what goes beyond the construction of a world which we may inhabit as autonomous beings. Nevertheless, this consciousness of a spiritual and divine reality is always in dialogue with a host of cultural constructions. These constructions may be partly implicit and unconscious like our human language, the society, work and workrelations, media communication, housing, architecture, etc. Lived spirituality is always the result of this dialogical interaction of the human person who becomes conscious of this fundamental reality of his dependence from God and who inevitably engages in the construction of a habitable world in order to create order in the chaos of events, impressions and relations. As human beings we are unable to sustain at length the crisis provoked by unforeseen, disturbing and incomprehensible events. As a result we are forced to construct a world which might enable us to cope with them.
While the mystic consciousness faces and articulates the breakthrough of the divine reality in human life, schools of spirituality map this dialogical interaction in forms, liturgies, texts, communities, regulations and practices etc. In that sense authentic spiritualities are always creative, because they enable the spiritual journey of the person in this concrete world and culture. An important aspect of spirituality in the modern world is that schools of spirituality are not longer enclosed and stable systems but rather specific groups that engage in the dialogue of tradition and modernity, of subjectivity and objective structures of regulations.

Points of special interest for the implementation of Spirituality International (Spirin)

1. It is important to concentrate Spirin on specific groups or disciplines that are central for the development of Spirin. Keep it small!! (Juan Carlos Henríquez & Adan Medrano)
2. Researchers in the field of spirituality are often isolated in their own disciplines. It is important that researchers present themselves and their researchprojects in such a way that it helps them to find partners and interlocutors for their reseachquestions. (Steward M. Hoover)
3. The last decennia spirituality has become a phenomenon studied in different disciplines. It is necessary to promote dialogues between this different approaches. See article of Kees Waaijman: Spirituality – a multifaceted phenomenon, Interdisciplinary explorations.
4. In the scholarly approach of the Titus Brandsma Institute, art in all its different forms of expression constitutes an essential aspect of the discipline of Spirituality. Art is a creative space where lived spirituality is invented and expressed. See article of Kees Waaijman: Spirituality – a multifaceted phenomenon, Interdisciplinary explorations.

Implementation of a strategy concerning Spirituality International

1. The Titus Brandsma Institute in collaboration with the faculty of Theology started to devise a plan for a new Master in Spirituality. The core of this Master is Spirin as the work and learning environment of the student.
2. An important aspect of this Master is the yearly expertmeeting in which students and researchers come together. It is the purpose that several disciplines are given a chance to enter into a dialogue with spirituality (psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, anthropology, sciences etc.). The discussion taken place in this context forms the starting point for the ongoing discussion on the website spirin.
3. As a result of the ongoing discussion during the trip the website will be devised differently:
a. The encyclopedia. This is a more static environment were articles can be published approved by the board. The articles can be discussed, but can not be changed. Only the author can make changes as a result of the discussion and further research.
b. The research environment. This is a dynamic environment were researchers and students have their workspace and collaborate. Students can be accompanied in their research on distance. At the moment there is a pilot of a PhD research that seems promising. We are planning that in the same way Spirin will be the central work environment of the students who are inscribed in the Master of Spirituality. This is important, because it concerns an international education partly on campus and partly on line.
4. Soon will be established a Dutch association for spiritual accompanists. The nucleus will be formed by about 40 students of the training in spiritual accompaniment of the Titus Brandsma Instituut. The idea is to bring together in this way the practice of spiritual accompaniment and research. A possibility will be to start a website as Spirin in order to offer people receiving spiritual direction the possibility to present their spiritual autobiography or parts of it. This material may function subsequently as research object for spiritual accompanists, both researchers and students. This reflection takes place in Spirin. Eventually this can be material fot PhD thesis’s.

Meeting with Mary M. Lampe, Executive Director of SWAMP

Mary M. Lampe

Link:
Southwest Alternate Media Project

Other links
Texas Motion Picture Alliance
Austin Museum of Art
The Territory

Mary M. Lampe has been the Executive Director of the Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP) since 1998. She is widely recognized for her development of innovative educational programs at both the Amon Carter Museum (Fort Worth) and the Dallas Museum of Art, including notable documentary and feature film programs for the Carter Museum. Lampe created numerous award-winning educational video and film documentaries on the arts, culture and art techniques for both museums. She served as Jury Chair for the American Association of Museum?s MUSE Awards (for visual arts-related films) for five years and as a grant advisory panelist for the American Film Institute. In addition to her work with arts institutions, Lampe has taught film history courses at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Lampe has been a grant reader for Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) and the Independent Television Service (ITVS). She has served on media and visual arts grant panels for the Texas Commission on the Arts and the Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County. She is also a regular participant in festivals statewide as a speaker and juror. Mary Lampe is a member of the Artist Advisory Board for DiverseWorks in Houston. She curated an exhibition of video installations at the Arlington Museum of Art in November 2002. Lampe also organized a revival of the statewide Texas Media Arts Conference in October 2001. In addition to her duties as Executive Director of SWAMP, she serves as the Co-Executive Producer of THE TERRITORY, a series of 13 half-hour programs of short independent film, video and new media works that is broadcast on PBS stations throughout Texas.

SWAMP

The Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP) promotes the creation and appreciation of film, video, and new media as art forms of a multicultural community.
DESCRIPTION Incorporated as a non-profit media arts center in 1977, SWAMP promotes film, video and new media through education, information and presentation activities for all ages.

PHILOSOPHY

SWAMP is a Texas-based media arts center committed to the film and video art of this region, the artists producing independent images, and to the cultivation of an engaged audience. It is vital to the intellectual and cultural development of any community to have the ability and resources to create its own artistic vision. In order to cultivate a climate for media representation of this region, SWAMP supports the tradition of artists who express their visions through film, video, and new media. SWAMP encourages development of audiences who seek out artistic voices that reflect, celebrate, and examine the cultural, social, and political diversity of their localities.

EDUCATION

SWAMP believes it is essential to our society to support the development of a population of media literate individuals. Media Literacy is defined as the ability to access, analyze and evaluate and produce communication in a variety of forms. A population with a capacity to decode and demystify mass media is the basis of a democratic society who can appreciate and create multi-cultural and alternative media works.

SWAMP presents educational workshops and programs year-round. During winter 2005 - 2006, don't miss our Master Classes and Workshops. In the summer, we offer Moviemaking Camps for Teens. Check out the links to the left for program listings, or visit our Calendar for upcoming workshops.

Conversation

Mary wants to set up a project in which experienced filmmakers accompany joung filmmakers in their grow towards their own form of expression. In this mystagogy (to get in touch with yourself) plays an important role.

Andrea Grover, Aurora Picture Show

Andrea Grover is Director of a micro cinema. This micro cinema is called Aurora Picture Show.

Aurora Picture Show (Aurora) is a Houston, Texas-based non-profit cinema. Aurora supports non-commercial film, video and new media artists, through promotion, exhibition opportunities, and artist fees. Housed in a converted church building, Aurora is the only venue of its kind in the Southwest. Aurora’s human scale promotes a meaningful and community-oriented exchange between artists and audiences.

What Aurora Does:

Aurora presents 50 or more screening programs per year in Houston at Aurora Picture Show and in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and around the country. Aurora frequently commissions original screenings curated by artists, writers and critics that consist of short films and videos grouped by subject. Over 20 visiting artists come to Aurora each year.

Andrea Grover is also lecturer at the university in Houston in the school of Art.

This year she gives a course with the name: Participation Art: From Social Sculpture to Distributed Creativity

What was it about the social climate of the 1960s that gave way to group-participation, happenings and actions? And can today's networked communication give the crowd even greater creative agency? This course looks at the history of participation art from the 1960s to present, and examines the social and technological trends that have ignited a new genre of democratic art-making--incorporating ten to ten-thousand participants in the creative process. Students will become familiar with seminal participatory art works of the last 40 years, read critical texts on Social Sculpture, Distributed Creativity, Gift Economies, and Relational Aesthetics, and finally, collectively create a new "crowdsourced" work of art.

Conversation

In her cinema we saw several short films in which amateur filmmakers with simple material shoot films in which they expressed for exampe: silence, transformation, growth, time etc. We have had a conversation about non narative films in which the viewer is the meaning maker or narrator and not the film. The film brings the viewer in the world beyond. Adrea Grover is willing to give us some examples.

Connexions, Rice University

Conversation with:

Raymond S. Wagner

He is a Ph.D. student in the Digital Signal Processing group of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Rice University . He is currently pursuing a course of research in distributed signal processing for sensor networks, advised by Prof. Richard Baraniuk . Prior to my Ph.D. research, I completed a B.S.E.E. at Rice University in 2001 and an M.S. at Rice in 2004, co-advised by Prof. Baraniuk and Prof. Robert Nowak (now of the University of Wisconsin-Madison).

Maxwell Starkenburg

Connexions is

a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:
authors create and collaborate
instructors rapidly build and share custom collections
learners find and explore content

The Connexions approach

Connexions is an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web. Our Content Commons contains educational materials for everyone — from children to college students to professionals — organized in small modules that are easily connected into larger collections or courses. All content is free to use and reuse under the Creative Commons "attribution" license.

Content should be modular and non-linear

Most textbooks are a mass of information in linear format: one topic follows after another. However, our brains are not linear - we learn by making connections between new concepts and things we already know. Connexions mimics this by breaking down content into smaller chunks, called modules, that can be linked together and arranged in different ways. This lets students see the relationships both within and between topics and helps demonstrate that knowledge is naturally interconnected, not isolated into separate classes or books.

Sharing is good

Why re-invent the wheel? When people share their knowledge, they can select from the best ideas to create the most effective learning materials. The knowledge in Connexions can be shared and built upon by all because it is reusable:

technologically: we store content in XML, which ensures that it works on multiple computer platforms now and in the future.

legally: the Creative Commons open-content licenses make it easy for authors to share their work - allowing others to use and reuse it legally - while still getting recognition and attribution for their efforts.

educationally: we encourage authors to write each module to stand on its own so that others can easily use it in different courses and contexts. Connexions also allows instructors to customize content by overlaying their own set of links and annotations. Please take the Connexions Tour and see the many features in Connexions.

Collaboration is encouraged

Just as knowledge is interconnected, people don't live in a vacuum. Connexions promotes communication between content creators and provides various means of collaboration. Collaboration helps knowledge grow more quickly, advancing the possibilities for new ideas from which we all benefit.

Conversation

Connexions is an initiative to share educational materials. The materials of Spine can easily be stored in this environment. However there is not macro to convert the HTML language of the Spine website to the XML language of connexions. They have chosen for XML because it has more content oriented possibilities.

An interesting possibility is that the in XML written modules can easily be converted to pdf file that can be printed. They have a printing house where the course books can be printed automaticly one by one for a very cheap price and a creative commons licence.$

Lynn Schofield Clark, Department of Mass Communication, University of Denver

Biography

Lynn Schofield Clark Ph. D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mass Communication and Director of the Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media. She teaches courses in journalism and new media, journalism history and social movements, cyberculture studies, media and music, and qualitative research methods.

Lynn is author of the book From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural (Oxford University Press, 2003/2005), which received a Best Book award from the National Communication Association. She is also co-author of Media, Home, and Family(Routledge, 2004), editor of Religion, Media, and the Marketplace(Rutgers University Press, 2007), and co-editor of Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media(Columbia University Press, 2002). She is currently working on a book about how young peoples’ emergent practices with new media challenge traditional sources of authority.

Lynn came to DU in the Fall of 2006. Prior to that, for five years she was an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Colorado's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Before her university career, she worked in advocacy, educational, and not-for-profit journalism, and was also a writer and producer for educational, inspirational, and advocacy television programs on HGTV and the Hallmark Channel.

Research

Lynn's research centers on the ways in which we all use the stories and myths of culture, particularly stories in the entertainment and news media, to make sense of our lives and to ascribe meaning to our actions. She is especially interested in how our own ideas about "the way things are" tend to echo the taken-for-granted ideas of a society - and how, through life experience and perhaps through our consumption of media, we can learn to question what we think we know. Her research looks for models of how and when that happens, particularly among young people and in families. In addition to the books listed on the home page of her portfolio, she has written several articles and book chapters on young people, families, and media use that have been published in the Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, New Media & Society, and in other places. She serves on the Board of the International Communication Association and is Chair of their Popular Communication Division, and also serve son the editorial boards of the journals New Media & Society, Popular Communication, and Communication and Religion.

For more information see: Lynn Schofield Clark's portfolio

Meeting August 24th 2007

Programm

10:30 Discussion and tour, University of Denver
11:30 ­ lunch with Luis Leon, University of Denver faculty, ReligiousStudies
12:30 ­ meet with Rabbi Levi Brackman, The Movement for a Tolerant World
1:30 ­ meet with Rachel Monserrate, research assistant, University of Denver
2:30 ­ meet with John Dolan, The Catholic Foundation (formerly withUniversity of Denver)

Conversation with Lynn

Lynn is working on a new project called: Religious Pluralism, New Media, and Public Good:
Fostering and Documenting Conversations Across Differences of Nation, Culture, and Religion.

Project Description:

Today’s Catholic young people grow up in a world that is religiously plural. By and large, young Catholics of the Western world are socialized into a Catholic identity within the contexts of their parishes and homes, but in other settings they learn about the need for understanding difference and negotiating with people of faiths other than their own. Because of the religiously plural context in which they live every day, some young people express concern about whether or not they are able embrace their own religion in a way that will not be perceived as a form of intolerance (Smith and Denton, 2005). As a result, some young people are therefore more likely to be silent about the convictions they hold that arise from their religious background, or they may not make a connection between those convictions and the institutional Catholic church at all (D’Antonio, Davidson, Hoge, and Gautier, 2007).

To what extent are young people able to talk about their commitments to justice and relate them to their own religious and cultural backgrounds? Many have claimed that talking about one’s own religious background can contribute to tension and greater misunderstandings; indeed, in the U.S. people adhere to the separation of church and state to avoid such problems within our civic life together (see Carter, 1994). Yet can such talk lead to better understanding and trust between people of differing backgrounds? Collaborators on this project believe that this is possible, but that we need to know more about how such conversations happen, particularly among young people who are in the process of embracing and enacting their religious identity in a religiously plural setting.

With the advent of the Internet, it is perhaps more possible than ever before for young people to experiment with conversing about their convictions among persons who do not share their backgrounds, beliefs, or even their nationality. Indeed, some have claimed that the Internet and its related technologies hold the promise of fostering relationships across differences of nation and culture (Castells, 1996).

In the everyday lives of young people, however, such grand goals are not likely to manifest themselves – at least, not without guidance. Young people use the Internet most often for prosaic matters: for relationship maintenance, consumer activities, and the completion of homework assignments (Goodman, 2007; Selwyn, 2006; boyd, 2006; Clark, 2005; Lenhart, 2005; Wellman, 2004). It is the goal of the current research effort, therefore, to build upon current patterns in the social uses of the Internet to explore how conversations across difference might be and already are being initiated, nurtured, and supported online. The project therefore holds implications for how university curricula might be developed to foster endeavors that utilize new media to encourage greater understandings across difference.

Research Design:

The “Religious Pluralism and New Media” research project will launch in early 2008. During the Spring semester/Winter quarter of 2008, at least five professors – each of whom is recruiting at least six young women aged 20-25 from Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and secular backgrounds – will follow a jointly-designed and simultaneously implemented curriculum that utilizes The Movement for a Tolerant World’s website and materials, and includes readings of various World Association of Christian Communication publications, such as The Media & Gender Monitor, Fundamentalisms Revisited, and various issues of Media Development (each of these emphasize communication as “a basic human right that defines people’s common humanity, strengthens cultures, enables participation, creates community and challenges tyranny and oppression” [WACC, 2007]). (NOTE: Additional readings nominated from Middle Eastern writers/scholars are needed). Elements of the curriculum include both in-person and online collaborative conversations and the development of joint analyses that focus on specific instances of media representation of religious intolerance or stereotypes.

Taking turns, each university-based group will compose and post questions about a specific instance of media representation of religious intolerance or stereotypes on the website of The Movement for a Tolerant World (http://www.tolerantworld.com/). Members of each of the other university-based groups will discuss this issue and its related questions in an in-person group, and each individual will be asked to write a response online. Additionally, each student will be assigned a “partner” from a differing nation, culture, and religion. These partners will exchange stories of personal experiences of discrimination or oppression, and each will offer the other what they aim to construct as an empathic response. Finally, each university participant is to invite a friend from their home country to read the entries of the collaborative effort and to offer their own online response. Students will therefore be encouraged to participate in a structured experience of collaboration as they create topic-driven questions and responses and draw upon their own personal experiences and their developing knowledge of those whose personal experiences differ from their own. Each participant will also be asked to continue as a member of The Movement, and will be invited to offer suggestions on how to further foster collaborative relationships across differences of nation, culture, and religion.

Once the first phase of the research is complete, researchers and advocates will analyze the materials developed in The Movement for a Tolerant World and the discussions that took place in person among the various university constituents. The researchers will consider patterns in the conversations, noting instances in which conversations seemed passionate and engaging and instances in which dialogue seemed halted or certain participants seemed silenced. Working together, they will develop an interpretation of these findings and the implications of their findings for others who wish to develop online cultures of collaboration.
This research is thus designed to offer insights into how to incorporate social networking and multi-university collaboration into a university course curriculum that encourages conversations that cross differences of nation, culture, and religion. As Western universities continue to seek ways to meet the growing demand for greater understandings of the Arab world, this kind of close collaboration that intentionally links students from different universities across the world in a dialogical model of knowledge-building will fill a need and make good use of the available technology. At the same time, with its attention to the analysis of trust-building and conversational development as it has occurred online settings, this research project will provide insights into how young people strive to, and in some cases successfully maintain, their unique religious identities within the context of religiously plural conversations and actions. It is the goal of this research project to employ the Internet to foster the kind of understanding and mutual respect that leads to greater participation in campaigns for human rights that are taking place around the world and that are in constant need of new alliances, and that we believe are central to a life-giving religious identity within Catholicism as well as in many other religious affiliations.

Remarks

• The design of this research is very interesting, because in this project teaching and research are intermingled. The student is subject of his or her own learning process, but at the same time their materials are object of research. From the perspective of Spirituality, mystagogy could be an important notion. What is the transformation process of the student during this curriculum.
• The collaboration of students worldwide with the use of internet was very much appreciated by the students in the project of Spirin Education. I am looking forward to the results of this project.
• Maybe it is possible to have Dutch female students (Feminist Theology) of the University of Nijmegen involved in this project.

Luis Leon, Ph D

Luis Leon Ph. D., University of California, Santa Barbara (specializing in the history of religions in the Americas). Dr. Leon received the Master of Theological Studies (MTS), from the Harvard University Divinity School where he studied American religious history and liberation theology; he earned simultaneous A.B. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, in Chican@ Studies and Rhetoric. He is the author of La Llorona’s Children: Religion, Life, and Death in the United States – Mexican Borderlands (UC Press, 2004); and co-editor with Gary Laderman of the Encyclopedia of Religion and American Cultures (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO), 2003. He is currently writing a book entitled American Religious Politics from the Border: Cesar Chavez in light of Gandhi and Martin Luther King (under contract, UC Press); and working on a critical study of “machismo” focusing the intersection of spirituality and eroticism among Latino men, tentatively entitled American Machos: Religious Erotics among Latino Men. With Laura E. Perez he is co-editing a collection of essays on De-Colonizing Spirituality and Sexuality.

His teaching areas include religion and politics in the United States; Latin@/borderland religions; method and theory in the study of religions; cultural studies; and queer theory.

At the moment his object of studies is César Estrada Chávez. César Estrada Chávez (1927–1993) was a Mexican American (Chicano) farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers. Supporters say his work led to numerous improvements for union workers. He is considered a hero for farm laborers, and fought against illegal immigration to help keep wages higher and improve work safety rules. He is hailed as one of the greatest American civil rights leaders after Martin Luther King, Jr.. His birthday has become a holiday in four U.S. states. Many parks, cultural centers, libraries, schools, and streets have been named in his honor in cities across the United States.

He is interested in the field of spirituality and social action.

During lunch we have discussed the possibilities of Spirin Encyclopedia. Both were in favour of this project. Like Stewart Hoover, they stress the fact that you can present yourself in a kind of bulletin board or homepage with the field of research you are working in.

Rabbi Levi Brackman & The Movement for a Tolerant World

Biography

Rabbi Levi Brackman, 28, was born in London, England and studied in Yeshivot in Israel, America and Canada. He has taught classes in Halacha, Talmud, prayer and Jewish mysticism at Yeshivat Hadar Hatorah in New York and at the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. He received rabbinical ordination from the Tzemach Tzedek rabbinical college in the old city of Jerusalem, Rabbi Zalman Nechemye Goldberg and Rabbi Mordechai Ashkenazi. Levi also holds an MA in Hebrew & Jewish Studies from the University of London.In January 2001, Levi was appointed to the position of senior rabbi at the Enfield & Winchmore Hill Synagogue where he become known for his inspiring sermons, thought provoking articles, lively and insightful lectures, and effective life and marriage counseling.

Levi is also a founding member of The Movement for a Tolerant World, an organization that offers young people in Asia, the Middle East and internationally a positive and tolerant ideology and through that the opportunity to make real and positive changes in their world.
In August 2005, Levi moved together with his family to Evergreen, Colorado where he started a Jewish outreach and cultural organization entitled, Judaism in the Foothills, which serves the foothill communities of west Metro Denver, Colorado.Levi writes a weekly article, which is distributed over the Internet and is read by thousands globally. Levi's articles have been published on popular websites such as chabad.org, algemeiner.com, isralert.com and many others. Levi's articles have also been published in print in the Jewish Chronicle (UK), the Intermountain Jewish News (Colorado), Torah Studies (New York) and Etehaad (California). Levi has also appeared on TV and his work has been featured in newspapers both in the USA and in the UK.

Levi lives in Evergreen, Colorado with his wife Sheindy and their three young sons, Dovi age 4, Benny age 2 and Shmuley who was born on March 4, 2006.

The Movement for a Tolerant World

As a goal-driven advocacy effort, TMTW has been concerned with building real tolerance, democracy, and peace across communities, societies, and the world. The Movement’s leaders believe that “the true nature of religious conflict does not stem from disagreements over theological issues but rather from religious stereotypes and association of religious identity with ethnic divisions and economic factors.

TMTW employs Internet technologies to provide a platform for collective blogging, online forum, space for editorial comments on news stories related to issues of religious tolerance and intolerance, and other online resources. Each of these elements are mobilized to introduce people to one another through discussions of shared goals of tolerance and shared commitments to the opposition of dictatorships, intolerance, and terrorism. Not all who come to the online discussions of TMTW bring with them a religious affiliation or perspective, although some do. Discussions of differing religions, nations, and cultures are encouraged, as are discussions of differing experiences of intolerance whether based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality.

Internet Used for Bringing Awareness

There is much subtle and overt bigotry and intolerance in the United States and the rest of the world. Most people, when made aware that they are practicing bigotry will make an effort to stop doing so. TMTW will raise awareness amongst people about their bigotry through advertisements, both online and imprint and using online questioners.

The Movement for a Tolerant World’s Strategy: online and offline

TMTW’s strategy to achieving its aims is as follows. The organization has developed its website so that people of all cultures can interact and communicate. As people begin communicating with each other across the cultural, religious and international divide within a framework of tolerance much of the fear and stereotyping will be taken away. Our portal on the internet will become the global go-to place for young people for all things related to tolerance.

In the future TMTW planes to use some of the language translation software which is available to will allow people communicate with each other across the language boundaries as well.

Through the use of research, TMTW will develop curriculums for teaching tolerance to youth and those will be marketed and sold to schools and universities internationally.

Through these educational tools students of schools and universities where TMTW curriculums are taught will be directed to the TMTW networking website to put what they have learned into practice with other students their age who are culturally, religiously or ethnically different to themselves. Thus, TMTW’s educational programs and curriculums marketed to and used by schools and universities will work in tandem with its sophisticated networking sites.

Ultimately, through New Media and brick and mortar marketing and educational efforts in places young people are found TMTW will recruit young people to begin TMTW chapters which will spread an ideology of tolerance and peace to young people. An international revolution of tolerance will be created.

Rachel Monserrate, research assistant, University of Denver

Rachel Monserrate is Masters student at the University of Denver’s School of Communication. She is a documentary filmmaker with interests in racial/ethnic identity and its intersection with the economic interests of the rural southwest. She is currently conducting in-depth interviews with several young people involved in high school journalism efforts in the Denver area.

In early 2007, Rachel Monserrate embarked on a project to make a film about homeless veterans. Initially, her film was focused on finding agencies committed to helping homeless veterans get off the streets and telling the stories of those vets who had succeeded. But after hitting numerous bureaucratic roadblocks and being unable to secure interviews with government officials, caseworkers, and veterans, Monserrate’s vision changed.
Discarded became an exploration of the obstacles homeless veterans face while trying to receive the benefits they are due. Through documenting the filmmaking process, Monserrate highlights governmental sidestepping and the need for advocates who are willing to stand up for America’s discarded heroes.

Documentary film production on veterans of Rachel Monserate.

At the moment she is research assistant in the following project: Media, Meaning, and Work: Youth and Civic Engagement. This research effort is a qualitative interview-based project exploring how young people involved in high school journalism discuss the relationship between the responsibilities of work, familiy, and wider community in relation to publicly-available and mediated narratives of what it means to have a purposeful and meaningful life. She interviewed 25 teenagers and we had a conversation about the lack of language in expressing their involvement, because of the taboo on religious language.

John Dolan, The Catholic Foundation (formerly withUniversity of Denver)

Website: http://www.thecatholicfoundation.com/

With John Dolan we have discussed the possibilities of funding the project: Religious Pluralism, New Media, and Public Good: Fostering and Documenting Conversations Across Differences of Nation, Culture, and Religion.

Stewart Hoover, University of Colorado at Boulder

Meeting with Stewart M. Hoover

Armory 102A

School of Journalism and Mass Communication

University of Colorado at Boulder

1511 University Ave.

478 UCB

Boulder, CO 80309

Professor Stewart M. Hoover joined the faculty in 1991 after several years at Temple University in Philadelphia where he was associate dean for research and graduate studies in the School of Communications and Theatre. Hoover’s research concentrates on qualitative studies of media audiences. He is particularly interested in questions of communication and culture and the implications of media technologies and technological change. His work has focused on meaning and identity as constructed through media practice in the context of domestic and everyday life. He is particularly well known for his work on religion and media, looking most recently at how the realm of mediated popular and commercial culture serves as a context for meaning-making of the kinds traditionally (though no longer necessarily) thought of as "religious." He has received major research funding to carry out studies and explorations of these issues and has been actively involved in developing an international scholarly discourse on religion and media. He is the author of four books and the co-editor of three others. He holds master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

Discussion

Stewart Hoover is very much in favour of a collaborative network in spirituality. Especially the field of spirituality and religion in the social sciences is not very well known among collequeas. He would like to have a kind of bulletin board where scholars have the possibility to present themselves with their research questions. He thinks it will be a good idea to present this project in the next meeting of the International Study Commission on Media, Religion and Culture.

Frank Mc Alloon S.J., Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley

The Jesuit School of Theology is a few blocks away from the University of Berkely.

It forms a union with other schools of Theology:

For example the Franciscan School of Theology.

Encounter

In the Jesuit School of Theology I have met Patricia Abracia. She is Director of Admissions and Recruitment. With her I have spoken about the spirituality program in JSTB.

For more information see:

The website of JSTB

Paul Soukup advised me to speak with Frank Mc Aloon S.J., but at that moment he was not able to receive me.

Frank Mc Alloon S.J.

Assistant Professor of SpiritualityB.A., Stetson University; Ph.L., St. Michael's Institute, Gonzaga University; M.Div., S.T.M., and S.T.L., Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley; Ph.D., Graduate Theological Union.

Quotation

... and dost thou touch me afresh?Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.
--"The Wreck of the Deutschland"

I love teaching Christian spirituality and Hopkins because in the conjunction of prayer and poetry "there lives the dearest freshness deep down things" -- the encounter with self, the search for God's touch, the feeling that Christ finds me in all the imperfect particularities of my life, and therein invites, encourages, and challenges me to act justly, compassionately, faithfully.

In Hopkins' words:...the just man justices;Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is -Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not hisTo the Father through the features of men's faces. --"As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame"

JSTB

Fr. McAloon joined the faculty in August 2003 from Santa Clara University. As Assistant Professor of Spirituality Fr. McAloon will teach courses such as "Varieties of Contemporary Christian Spirituality," "Ignatian Discernment," a MA/STL seminar entitled "The Academic Study of Christian Spirituality," and a course on Ignatian spirituality and hermeneutics entitled "Prayer, Poetry, and the Spirituality of Gerard Manley Hopkins."

Recent Publications and Presentations

• "A New Historicist Glance at Gerard Manley Hopkins," Gonzaga University, 2003.
• "Praying with Hopkins" In Hopkins Variations: Standing round a Waterfall, edited by Joaquin Kuhn and Joseph J. Feeney. Philadelphia and New York: St. Joseph's University Press and Fordham University Press, 2002.
• "Prayer, Poetry and Spiritual Transformation," paper delivered at Hopkins: the Rome Conference, The Gregorian University, Rome, Italy, October 2002. Posted at http://www.regis.edu/hopkinsrome.
• "Jesuit Spiritual Practices," Bannan Center for Jesuit Education, Santa Clara University, 2002.
• "All Shall Be Well: The Anchoritic Spirituality of Julian of Norwich," Santa Clara University Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program lecture series, 2002.
• "Poetry and Prayer, Reading for Transformation through the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins," a paper delivered by special invitation to the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality and the American Academy of Religion, Denver, Colorado, November 2001.
• "Praying Hopkins: A Method for Exploring the Spiritually Transformative Potential with Hopkins' Poetics," Regis University, Denver, Colorado, 2001.
• "To Seem the Stranger: Prayer, Poetry, and Hopkins," International Gerard Manley Hopkins Society, 2000 Summer School, Monasterevin, Ireland.

Research Interests

Christian Spirituality, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ignatian Spirituality, cultural poetics/new historicism, hermeneutics, prayer, and poetry.

Paul Soukup, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara University

The Santa Clara University is located in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, Santa Clara University offers a rigorous undergraduate curriculum in the arts and sciences, business, and engineering. It has nationally recognized graduate and professional schools in business, law, engineering, pastoral ministries, and counseling psychology and education.

The 8,377-student, Catholic, Jesuit university has a 155-year tradition of educating the whole person for a life of service and leadership. This diverse community of scholars, characterized by small classes and a values-oriented curriculum, is dedicated to educating students for competence, conscience, and compassion.

Santa Clara University, founded in 1851 by the Society of Jesus as "Santa Clara College," is California's oldest operating institution of higher learning. It was established on the site of Mission Santa Clara de Asís, the eighth of the original 21 California missions.

Paul Soukup S.J.

Academic/professional background: Fr. Soukup earned his Ph.D. in Communication from The University of Texas at Austin in 1985, concentrating on the philosophical grounding of communication research as it developed in the United States from 1920-1950. Before coming to Texas, he earned two degrees in Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley: a Masters of Divinity (1978) and a Masters of Sacred Theology (1980). He also holds a Bachelor's in Philosophy from Saint Louis University (1973).

Teaching areas/responsibilities: Fr. Soukup currently teaches courses in new communication technologies (COMM 012, COMM 161), theology and communication (COMM 175), quantitative research methods (COMM 110), and senior thesis (COMM 112). He has also taught interpersonal communication, most recently at the Gregorian University in Rome.

Research interests: Current research interests include work on orality and literacy studies, the use of new technologies in religious communication, multimedia translation, and the effects of new technologies. He serves as a consultant to the American Bible Society Research Center for Scripture and Media.

Sample publications:

• Soukup, Paul A. & Hodgson, Robert. (Eds.). Fidelity and Translation: Communicating the Bible in New Media. Chicago: Sheed and Ward and New York: American Bible Society, 1999.
• Soukup, Paul A. (Ed.). Media, Culture, and Catholicism. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1996.
• Rossi, Phillip & Soukup, Paul A. (Eds.). Mass Media and the Moral Imagination. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1994.
• Soukup, Paul A. "Vatican Thinking on Communication." In C. Badaracco (Ed.), Quoting God. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.
• Soukup, Paul A. "Service Learning in Communication: Why?" In D. Droge & B. Murphy (Eds.), Voices of Strong Democracy: Service-Learning and Communication Studies. Washington, DC: American Association of Higher Education, 1999.
• Soukup, Paul A. "Church, media, and scandal." In J. Lull & S. Hinerman (Eds.). Media Scandals, pp. 224-239. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1997.
• Soukup, Paul A. "Ethics @ Email: Do new media require new ethics?" Issues in Ethics, 8(2): 16-18.

Address:
Paul A. Soukup, SJ
Arts and Sciences Building 223
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara, CA 95053

Conversation

In 1977 Paul established a 'virtual' institiute in communication. The name of this institute is: The Centre for the Study of Communication and Culture (CSCC). This community is responsible for the journal Communication, Research Trends. Paul is the Managing Editor of this journal which started in 1981.

See CSCC

Paul is very much in favour of the project SPIRIN and the new encyclopedia in Spirituality. He agrees that for scholars it is important to have the possibility of peer review. They need credits. For this it is important to have official publications, either by internet of published in the traditional way. Especially scientists are now more and more publishing in digital journals, because for them it is important to publish fast. He thinks that the hesistance among scholars will change eventually. For digital publication it is important to use some kind of legal system like 'science commons'.

Paul was so kind to introduce me to some of his collegueas, who are interested in the field of Spirituality:

Fr. Paul Crowley, S.J.

Paul G. Crowley, S.J. is Chair of the Religious Studies Department. Prof. Crowley is a native Californian. He earned his B.A. with honors in Political and Legal Philosophy from Stanford University in 1973. Within two years, he completed an M.A. in the Philosophy of Religion from Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York where he also studied with the Jesuit faculty at Woodstock College. In 1984, he took his Ph.D. in Philosophical Theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Post-graduate studies took him to the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, and in 1992 he was awarded the S.T.L. from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.

See for more information about the Religious Studies department

The website of the Religious Studies department

J. Buckley, S.J.

Michael J. Buckley, S.J. is the Bea Professor of Theology at Santa Clara University. Prior to his accepting this appointment, Professor Buckley was for fourteen years a member of the theological faculty at Boston College, during which time he served as the Director of the Jesuit Institute and as Canisius Professor of Theology. Previously he was a member of the Pontifical Faculty of Theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Visiting Scholar at Santa Clara University, Visiting Professor at the Gregorian University, Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, Professor of Philosophical Theology at the University of Notre Dame and Faculty Fellow at the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values at the University of Notre Dame. He is a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University.
Professor Buckley received his B.A. and M.A. in philosophy from Gonzaga University, his STM from Santa Clara University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (analysis of ideas). He has received two doctorate honoris causa.

He is very much interested in Spirituality and John of the Cross.

Tom Powers S.J.

Tom Powers is Director of the Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries and Arrupe Professor.
He is a member of the California Province of the Society of Jesus. He completed his S.T.D. (doctorate in sacred theology) in systematic theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkley (JSTB). His research has taken him to Peru and Spain where he has investigated the theological work being done by women in those countries. The State University of New York Press published his book, The Call of God: Women Doing Theology in Peru, in 2003.
Father Powers was the founding director of The Center for Ignatian Spirituality at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and he taught theology there, at the University of San Francisco, and at JSTB. His courses have focused on Latin American and Feminist theology, spirituality, and ecclesiology.

For more information see:

The website of the School of Education, counseling Psychology, and Pastoral Ministries

I have also met:

Fr. Paul Fitzgerald, S.J.

Fr. Fitzgerald was born in Burbank, California. He earned a B.A. in History from Santa Clara University (1980), and entered the Society of Jesus two years later. After first vows he went to Germany for studies, earning a Ph.B. in Philosophy from the Hochschule für Philosophy, Munich (1986) before returning to the States for two years of high school teaching in Sacramento. Then, he pursued studies for the M.Div. degree at the Weston School of Theology in Boston, Massachusetts (1991), and remained there to complete an S.T.L. with an emphasis in Ecclesiology (the study of the church). He was interested in how God draws people into faith through faith communities. If God interacts with the faithful, both immediately as persons and through communities, then religious experience and corporate discernment can and perhaps should cohere. He explored this thesis at the University of Paris IV - La Sorbonne, where he earned a D.E.A. in the History of Religions (1994), and a D. ès L. in the Sociology of Religion (1997). Concurrently he worked towards an S.T.D. in Ecclesiology from the Institut Catholique de Paris (awarded in 1999).
Since he joined the faculty in 1997, Fr. Fitzgerald has taught courses in both Systematic Theology and Practical Theology. He also directs the interdisciplinary Catholic Studies minor.

At the moment he is Senior Associate Dean of Arts & Sciences.

An important name for Spiriutality and Management is:

André L. Delbecq

André L. Delbecq is the McCarthy University Professor at Santa Clara University, where he served as Dean of the Leavey School of Business from 1979 to 1989. His research and scholarship have focused on executive decision-making processes, organization design, managing innovation in rapid-change environments, and leadership spirituality.

He is the Eighth Dean of Fellows of the Academy of Management, prior President of the Western Academy of Management and former Executive Director of the Organization Behavior Teaching Society. He is recognized internally for executive programs delivered to high technology industries as well as health, human services and government organizations. He has served as member of three corporate Boards of Directors, and twice as Board Chair.
Presently, he serves on the Board of Trustees of Ascension Health. He directs the Institute for Spirituality of Organizational Leadership conducting dialog between theologians, executives and management scholars.

Technology & Spirituality Seminar, Mexico City

I have attended Technology & Spirituality Seminar. This Seminar was organized by the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, 13-14 August 2007.

For more information see:

Technology & Spirituality Seminar

Madison: Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning 2007

I have attended the 23rd Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning in Madison Wisconsin.

For more information see:

23rd Annual Conference on Distance learning

Meeting with Mary Hess (July 10 &11)

She is developing an ICT network for Christians to share resources in the the field of formation and liturgy.

She is assistant professor of educational leadership at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.

She is especially interested in the internet as an expression of culture and how we can read the mass media as an expression of faith.

Important notions

Setting up a digital journal /encyclopedia.

- It is important not only to have a list of criteria, but also to have a technical infrastucuture in which the articles can be recognized (s.c. markers)

- Publish first within creative commons, and after that in the journal. At this moment articles published in the context of creative commons are red by publishers if they are worth wile publishing.

- The Wiki software is able to divide in certain levels. This means you could have an encyclopedia in a geneneral sense and in a more scientific sense. You could even have a certain group in one glance (for example the South Afircan association).

- The Wiki can be conbined with blogs.

- It is possible to make a difference between the main entry of the blog and the reactions.

- Essential is the common need of the people working in the project. For example the South Americans are very much in favour of the open resources project for Christians because they have the need of sharing materials. A project top – down doesn’t work.

Notes

- In Madison speak with Mary Hinkle – Shore - David Weinberger, Small pieces of loosely joined - David Stuart of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota (librarian).