History Publications
University Curriculum and Religions: Museum, Mausoleum, or Mansion?
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-2008
Volume
15
Issue
5
Journal
International Journal of Learning
First Page
291
Last Page
298
Abstract
This paper takes as its starting point an “exemplar” of Religious Studies education in the Ontario Secondary School System where students curated a museum exhibition of a religion. Taking the inherent implications of “museum” culture using Benedict Andersons’ Imagined Communities, this investigation imagines the death and rebirth of Religion in University education in a global world. The argument dissects the divisions and obvious exclusion of living religions from the more secular public space of learning and integration, and challenges the nature of this curriculum by proposing a grounded and centered application of religious knowledge at the post-secondary level as a natural concomitant to understanding the profoundly religious construction of the secular “mansion”, and its applicability in a world where boundaries have been eradicated by the Internet and other forms of telecommunications. While a curriculum and research fully integrates religious content, especially in the Social Sciences and literature, there remains a sense of remoteness. Finally, the paper concludes that the mansion model differs substantially from the “museum” of labels, glass cases, and disembodied scholarship into religions.
