Contextual Learning at PSR seeks to make it possible for all interested students to engage with immersion courses that stretch their awareness and strengthen their theological and multicultural capacities as leaders and change agents.

Upcoming Immersions

INDIA IMMERSION: January 13-24, 2014 This travel seminar and immersion course seeks to introduce participants to the histories, cultures, as well as the religious and economic/ecological diversities of India. Special attention will also be given to the legacy of colonialism and the Christian churches (including theological constructions and education) in India. You can download more detailed information about this course from links at the bottom of this page.

Akko, Israel Immersion: July 12-31, 2014 (TBC) Through excavation, lectures and field trips, students will learn about the social, political and religious heritage of these areas in northern Israel during this 16-day intensive.

This immersion course will be offered during the Summer Session through PSR’s Office of Community and Continuing Education. It will be led by PSR faculty Dr. Aaron Brody in conjunction with a Penn State study abroad program led by Dr. Ann Killebrew, Director of the Tel Akko Archeological Project in Israel.

This course will also be open to community leaders and alumni/ae.
Contact Dr. Brody – abrody[at]psr[dot]edu – for more information.

City of Refuge: Immersion 2014

This two-week intensive course will immerse students in hands-on learning in ministries with the most marginalized people in the inner city: ministries with people who are homeless, in recovery from substance abuse, and living with HIV/AIDS. We will also visit hospital and juvenile hall chaplaincy programs and feeding programs. Students will learn about the City of Refuge theology and model for ministry development and will reflect on praxis each day. Class generally meets three days at PSR, but may meet off-site at various Bay Area cities at various times for the remainder of the course.

Around the Table: Food, Creativity and Community CARE, the Center for Arts, Religion and Education, partners with PSR and engages the San Jose Museum of Art's exciting multidimensional regional program in an immersion course with CARE director, Carin Jacobs. This course will include a variety of explorations and experiences of the intersection of food, religion and culture and the global and spiritual connections between food and identity, faith and worship. It will be offered in January 2014.

Andrew Conley-Holcom was selected to be a Fellow in the FASPE Seminary program this summer. FASPE Seminary is an intensive two-week fellowship program that examines the roles played by clergy in Nazi Germany and during the Holocaust. Andrew will work with Dr. Randall Miller in a special reading course for this immersion.

Three PSR students have been selected to attend the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute at World Council of Churches, Oct 25-Nov 9, 2013.

Jorge Bautista, Rachel Cosca and Darnell Fennell will be among 25 seminarians representing North America and traveling with Dr. Randi Walker to Busan and Seoul, South Korea.
As part of this immersion, they will engage and prepare during Dr. Walker’s Fall 2013 course -- Working Together for Justice and Unity: World Christianity, Ecumenism and Mission in the 21st Century.

Previous Immersions

Read the Blog from the 2013 NYC Immersion

During a two week immersion trip in January 2013, graduate students at Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley explored the contested ways public memory is (re)constructed in urban space. With the streets of New York City as their laboratory, Devin Zuber, Assistant Professor of American Studies, Literature, and Swedenborgian Studies led them as they explored various cultural institutions (museums, historic houses) and memorials (the African Burial Ground Monument, the Irish Hunger Memorial) to investigate how various religious and ethnic communities have chosen to inscribe themselves into the city. Special attention was given to the fraught layers of memory surrounding the 9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan.

Over the course of the trip and upon returning to Berkeley, the students posted blog entries relating their experiences while visiting the various sites, museums, performances and interactions with the people of New York City. Through creative writing, innovative video blogging and interviews, the students share their interactions with cultural memory in urban space.

You can read their blog entries here:
culturalmemoryurbanspace.wordpress.com

Other blogs from past immersions:

Taiwan Immersion, January 2012

Akko Archaeology Immersion, Summer 2010