Ritual Studies and Liturgical Design
M. Macha NightMare
The art of ritual plays an important role in our individual and collective lives, yet little attention is given to creating effective new rituals that speak to our diverse and changing worlds. This course will begin an exploration of ancestral sources of ritual; ritual theory and practice; effective sacred technologies; public and large group rituals; intimate personal rituals; and the role of ritual in our lives and the many ways it can enrich our lives, such as honoring rites of passage, healing from pain and loss, and creating celebrations fostering group solidarity. Students will collaborate on the design and performance a ritual as a final project. This course overlaps SKSM’s categories of Life in Religious Community and Interfaith Engagement, Thea/ology in Culture and Context, Educating for Wholeness and Liberation, and Embodied Wisdom and Beauty. / M. Macha NightMare designs rituals for multiple religious paths, including rites of passage. In 2001, she created “Call of the Dark Mother: Working with the Dying, Death, and Grieving,” a seminary course. Macha co-authored The Pagan Book of Living and Dying; published Witchcraft and the Web and Pagan Pride: Honoring the Craft and Culture of Earth and Goddess; and is a contributor to anthologies, encyclopedias, religious studies textbooks, and periodicals. She is a member of the Pagan Studies and Ritual Studies sections of the American Academy of Religion and serves on the Advisory Board of the Sacred Dying Foundation. For more information, visit http://machanightmare.com/herself/.
RAHM-8405          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 20             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed

Aging and Religious Leadership
Devorah Greenstein
Our dominant cultural paradigm ignores systems of privilege and difference in our society and encourages caring professionals to understand aging-related issues only as individuals’ personal problems. This basic misapprehension lessens our ability to be effective in our ministries. We will bring pastoral and societal contexts of aging together and examine role loss; spiritual growth/development in later years; worship resources; successful faith-based programs; end-of-life issues. After successfully completing this course, students will be able to examine and understand aging-related issues both as individual circumstances, and as manifestations of the broader societal context in which these individual situations and problems are situated. / The Rev. Dr. Devorah Greenstein retired from eight years leading the Office of Accessibility Concerns at the UUA. Since her retirement she has been a visiting research fellow at Yale Divinity School and she continues her community ministry with the National Council of Churches, the Society for Disability Studies, and the American Academy of Religion. Her educational training (M.Div. from Starr King School for the Ministry; M.S. degree from Cornell University in Family Studies; M.S. degree from Syracuse University in Counseling; Ph.D. from Cornell University in Developmental Psychology) has given her contextual and theoretical perspectives in which she grounds her anti-oppression work. Her work has always been along side of, and on behalf of, people from historically marginalized communities.
SPFT-8430          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 20             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Sample Syllabus
Registration closed

Unitarian Universalist History
Susan Ritchie
The course begins with an examination of the (alleged) antecedents to Unitarianism and Universalism in pre-Reformation Europe. We move on to trace the theological and then institutional emergence of Unitarianism out of the Radical Reformation. The Unitarian churches in Poland, Transylvania, and England will be considered in detail with attention to issues of sameness and difference in their development and declines. Special focus will be given to the relationship of these communities to their Jewish and Islamic contemporaries. We will also look at the universalism of 18th century England, and the current state of Unitarianism in Europe. Then we cross the ocean to examine the emergence of Unitarianism from developments within Puritan Congregationalism. We explore the uniquely North American institution of Universalism as response to the same cultural setting. Next: the major themes and developments of North American Unitarianism through its classical age, the Transcendentalist development, and the various crises of identity and purpose that develop into and through the late 19th and 20th centuries. Then we turn our attention to Universalist ascendency, decline, and then consolidation with Unitarianism (perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of Unitarian/Universalist history). Careful attention will be paid throughout to the Unitarian/Universalist social location in relationship to class, race, and gender identities, and how these sometimes enabled and sometimes impaired social justice advances.

Watch an introduction to Unitarian Universalist History course by Dr. Susan Ritchie. (Video originally created for Fall 2010, but applies equally to the Fall '12 and Spring '13 courses.)

Unitarian Universalist History from Starr King Academic Affairs on Vimeo.

The Rev. Dr. Susan Ritchie has served as the minister of the North Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Lewis Center, Ohio since 1996. She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from the Ohio State University, and a Divinity degree from the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. She is also currently Professor of Unitarian Universalist History at the Starr King School for the Ministry, and serves on the UUA Board of Trustees. Ritchie is published widely on the topic of Unitarian Universalist history and identity, and also religious cultural studies. She was selected to deliver the Minns Lectures in Spring 2009, “Children of the Same God: Unitarianism in Kinship with Judaism and Islam.” A book resulting from the lectures will be out soon.
HSFT-8462          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 26             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed

Graceful Leadership IV
Tom Bozeman
Do you have a serious desire to grow past your “edges”? Would you like to cultivate more love, patience, kindness, joyfulness, and/or compassion in your life? In the nine-month Graceful Leadership course sequence (running from August 2012 to May 2013), students will explore interpersonal relating as a spiritual practice. In service of living more fully into an inspirational and healing grace, we will work to develop a stronger relational grounding (a “ministerial” or “non-anxious” presence) from which we can more easily approach issues of authority, work-life balance, self-care, conflict management, navigating expectations of yourself, and boundaries. We will provide an open-ended structure to help each participant get what they came for. Unlike what can be gleaned from one-shot workshops or retreats (which often fade rapidly), the Graceful Leadership course sequence will provide nine months of continuous support, resources, and training, allowing you to more fully integrate what you are learning into your habitual way of being. We will also emphasize experiential activities and using your day-to-day (personal and professional) life as a “text” over these nine months. You will also get a good deal of practice both receiving and providing pastoral care. [PIN code required; Interview required; prerequisite: Summer, Fall, and January portions; postrequisite: Spring intensive; 16 max enrollment] / Guy Sengstock is a life coach with over 15 years of experience in transformational work with individuals and groups. He also co-founded the Arete Center For Excellence and the Transformational Coaching And Leadership Training (TCLT). In his work, he draws on poetry, philosophy, theology, psychology, and semantics in helping people grow more fully into their authentic selves. / Tom Bozeman has experience in organizing and counter-oppression work and came to seminary in search of greater depth than he was finding in those secular contexts. A student of Guy Sengstock's, he is excited to bring to the GTU Guy's insights around cultivating I-Thou relationality and the art of authenticity ~ and to add an important dimension to counter-oppressive work.
FTSP-8484          1.5 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 16             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed

Forgiveness
Chris Fry

(Please note that the Fall 2012 online 'Forgiveness' course was a prerequisite for this Spring 2013 course.)

“Forgiveness honors the heart’s greatest dignity. Whenever we are lost, it brings us back to the ground of love. With forgiveness we become unwilling to attack or wish harm to another. Whenever we forgive, in small ways at home, or in great ways between nations, we free ourselves from the past.” ~Jack Kornfield / In this class we will meet people all over the world who have practiced forgiveness as a means of healing, peace and liberation. Through readings, films and exercises, we will develop our own “forgiveness practices” so that we might encourage forgiveness, as appropriate, in our own and others’ lives, and strengthen our pastoral, prophetic and public ministries. / The Rev. Chris Fry is a grateful graduate of Starr King School for the Ministry (‘96). An Adjunct Faculty member for more than five years, Chris has taught courses on poetry, illness and pastoral care; forgiveness; compassion and moral repair; and religious education. She offers “Write for Health” groups and spiritual direction, coordinates her church’s small group ministry, and is active in an interfaith shelter program in her hometown of Davis, CA. Her daughter, Esumi, was born during Chris’ second year at SKSM and is now a high school junior. Her husband, Isao Fujimoto, is a community organizer and professor at UC Davis.
PS-8430          1.5 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 28             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Sample Syllabus
Registration closed

Environmental Ethics & Liberation
Sofia Betancourt
This online course grounds its exploration in the fundamentals of environmental ethics, starting with the work of Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic and the following generations of ethical systems based in notions of an earth community, and progressing to debate over whether nonhuman nature has natural rights. From these fundamentals the class will expand its scope to specific liberation traditions within environmental ethics, covering moral questions posed by ecofeminism, indigenous human rights debates, liberation theology, and issues of environmental racism. / Rev. Sofia Betancourt is a doctoral student at Yale University in the departments of Religious Ethics and African American Studies. Her work focuses on environmental ethics of liberation in a womanist and Latina feminist frame. She served for four years as the Director of Racial and Ethnic Concerns of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and her ministry centers on work that is empowering and counter-oppressive. Betancourt holds a B.S. from Cornell University with a concentration in ethnobotany and an M.Div. from Starr King School for the Ministry. This is her fourth year on the adjunct faculty at Starr King.
CERS-8400          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 20             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed

Addiction and Recovery
Zvi Bellin
Addiction can be understood as the persistent desire to fill an existential void. Pastoral counselors and faith community leaders have a unique opportunity to identify the signs and symptoms of addiction, providing an opening for support towards recovery. This course will offer practical models of basic engagement with people who are actively using or in recovery from drugs, alcohol, and other addictions. Students will gain a solid foundation in current theories, diagnosis, and interventions in addiction and recovery. Topics covered will included the biochemistry of addiction, indentifying patterns of addiction, motivational interviewing towards change, dual diagnosis, the spirituality of recovery, and referral to appropriate levels of care. Course participants will gain confidence in supporting individuals in recovery. The class will also debate conflicting models of understanding addiction, conflicting treatment philosophies, and personal and professional ethics around drug use. / Dr. Zvi Bellin is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Fordham University in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Studies. He leads workshops and directs retreats that integrate body-heart-mind-soul in a variety of spiritual and religious contexts. Zvi earned a PhD in Pastoral Counseling and an M.A. in Counseling and Guidance. He is a Registered Yoga Teacher with the Yoga Alliance. He has worked as a therapist in a number of mental health settings, and has interned as a Psychiatric Chaplain. In addition to his work with Nehirim: GLBT Jewish Culture and Spirituality, Zvi is the Director of Jewish Education for Moishe House.
PSRS-8427          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 20             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed
           

SKSM and Institute of Buddhist Studies: Our Co-Sponsored Courses
During Spring 2013, the Institute of Buddhist Studies will offer the following courses. Please note ~ we participate in the same GTU registration periods. To register for an IBS course, follow the same instructions as registering for a Starr King course. See How to Register. Most, but not all, IBS courses do not require a PIN, so pay close attention to IBS Spring 2013 Online Course Listings here.

• Buddhist Japanese IV, Yufuko Kurioka
• Works of Shinran II, David Matsumoto [HRPH-1614 or Faculty permission required]
• Psychological Aspects Buddhism: Buddhist Psychology I, Gordon Bermant
• Readings in Mahayana Texts: Lotus Sutra, Taigen Leighton [PIN/Faculty permission required]
• Topics in Buddhist Thought: Japanese Buddhism Through Personal Perspectives, Lisa Grumbach

Again, the Institute of Buddhist Studies and Starr King School have different requirements for registration. For example, SKSM does not accept auditors, while some IBS courses do allow auditors. Please check course descriptions carefully before registering.

Unitarian Universalist History ~ NEW!! ~
Susan Ritchie
The course begins with an examination of the (alleged) antecedents to Unitarianism and Universalism in pre-Reformation Europe. We move on to trace the theological and then institutional emergence of Unitarianism out of the Radical Reformation. The Unitarian churches in Poland, Transylvania, and England will be considered in detail with attention to issues of sameness and difference in their development and declines. Special focus will be given to the relationship of these communities to their Jewish and Islamic contemporaries. We will also look at the universalism of 18th century England, and the current state of Unitarianism in Europe. Then we cross the ocean to examine the emergence of Unitarianism from developments within Puritan Congregationalism. We explore the uniquely North American institution of Universalism as response to the same cultural setting. Next: the major themes and developments of North American Unitarianism through its classical age, the Transcendentalist development, and the various crises of identity and purpose that develop into and through the late 19th and 20th centuries. Then we turn our attention to Universalist ascendency, decline, and then consolidation with Unitarianism (perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of Unitarian/Universalist history). Careful attention will be paid throughout to the Unitarian/Universalist social location in relationship to class, race, and gender identities, and how these sometimes enabled and sometimes impaired social justice advances.

Watch an introduction to Unitarian Universalist History course by Dr. Susan Ritchie. (Video originally created for Fall 2010, but applies equally to the Fall '12 and Spring '13 courses.)

Unitarian Universalist History from Starr King Academic Affairs on Vimeo.

The Rev. Dr. Susan Ritchie has served as the minister of the North Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Lewis Center, Ohio since 1996. She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from the Ohio State University, and a Divinity degree from the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. She is also currently Professor of Unitarian Universalist History at the Starr King School for the Ministry, and serves on the UUA Board of Trustees. Ritchie is published widely on the topic of Unitarian Universalist history and identity, and also religious cultural studies. She was selected to deliver the Minns Lectures in Spring 2009, “Children of the Same God: Unitarianism in Kinship with Judaism and Islam.” A book resulting from the lectures will be out soon.
HSFT-8422          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 26             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed

Promised Lands and Immigrants ~ NEW!! ~
Hugo Córdova Quero [contact Prof. at hugo.cquero@gmail.com]
This online course will focus on the cases of Latina/o immigrants in the United States and Japan in relation to their experiences of faith, ethnicity and gender. The approach is interdisciplinary as we will draw from several fields for the analysis of the class topics. The goal of the course is to provide grounds for students to acquire tools for understanding the different realities of immigrants. Issues of faith, race/ethnicity, gender and migration will be constantly connected to pastoral reflection throughout the course, especially since our world is increasingly becoming multicultural, multiethnic and multireligious. / Instructor Hugo Córdova Quero holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He is also visiting researcher at the Center for Lusophone Studies at Sophia University, in Tokyo. He has worked both pastorally and academically in Argentina, United States, Hong Kong and Tokyo. During 2006 to 2008 he conducted fieldwork in seven Roman Catholic parishes, interviewing Japanese Brazilian migrants who are currently residing in Tokyo Metropolitan Area. He has published in several journals and books, and he is currently editing books in the areas of migration and theology, gender, queer theology and queer theory.
RSHR-8427          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 20             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Instructor's email address: hugo.cquero@gmail.com
Registration closed

Graceful Leadership II
Tom Bozeman
Do you have a serious desire to grow past your “edges”? Would you like to cultivate more love, patience, kindness, joyfulness, and/or compassion in your life? In the nine-month Graceful Leadership course sequence (running from August 2012 to May 2013), students will explore interpersonal relating as a spiritual practice. In service of living more fully into an inspirational and healing grace, we will work to develop a stronger relational grounding (a “ministerial” or “non-anxious” presence) from which we can more easily approach issues of authority, work-life balance, self-care, conflict management, navigating expectations of yourself, and boundaries. We will provide an open-ended structure to help each participant get what they came for. Unlike what can be gleaned from one-shot workshops or retreats (which often fade rapidly), the Graceful Leadership course sequence will provide nine months of continuous support, resources, and training, allowing you to more fully integrate what you are learning into your habitual way of being. We will also emphasize experiential activities and using your day-to-day (personal and professional) life as a “text” over these nine months. You will also get a good deal of practice both receiving and providing pastoral care. [PIN code required; Interview required; prerequisite: Summer 2012 portion; postrequisites: Fall, January, and Spring portions; 16 max enrollment] / Guy Sengstock is a life coach with over 15 years of experience in transformational work with individuals and groups. He also co-founded the Arete Center For Excellence and the Transformational Coaching And Leadership Training (TCLT). In his work, he draws on poetry, philosophy, theology, psychology, and semantics in helping people grow more fully into their authentic selves. / Tom Bozeman has experience in organizing and counter-oppression work and came to seminary in search of greater depth than he was finding in those secular contexts. A student of Guy Sengstock's, he is excited to bring to the GTU Guy's insights around cultivating I-Thou relationality and the art of authenticity ~ and to add an important dimension to counter-oppressive work.
FTSP-8482          1.5 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 16             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed

Environmental Ethics & Liberation ~ course moved to Spring '13
Sofia Betancourt
This online course grounds its exploration in the fundamentals of environmental ethics, starting with the work of Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic and the following generations of ethical systems based in notions of an earth community, and progressing to debate over whether nonhuman nature has natural rights. From these fundamentals the class will expand its scope to specific liberation traditions within environmental ethics, covering moral questions posed by ecofeminism, indigenous human rights debates, liberation theology, and issues of environmental racism. / Rev. Sofia Betancourt is a doctoral student at Yale University in the departments of Religious Ethics and African American Studies. Her work focuses on environmental ethics of liberation in a womanist and Latina feminist frame. She served for four years as the Director of Racial and Ethnic Concerns of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and her ministry centers on work that is empowering and counter-oppressive. Betancourt holds a B.S. from Cornell University with a concentration in ethnobotany and an M.Div. from Starr King School for the Ministry. This is her fourth year on the adjunct faculty at Starr King.
CERS-8400          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 20             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus ~ course moved to Spring '13 ~

Elements of TransThe[ ]logy
Noach Dzmura
What are the implications of “trans-” when combined with “theology?” Trans- [-gender, -sex; -faith; race; (etc.)] embodiments alter both Divinity and Divine order: when a tradition opens to transpeople, it invites the demolition of shared reality. Binary categories collapse. The structures of thought and discourse fail to account for what we see. New structures emerge. How do gender-specific social roles, prayer and rituals accommodate a woman with a penis? What prayer space accommodates a Catholic/Jewish prayer? In this course, students will learn how ancient texts and modern progressive traditions in Islam, Judaism and Christianity manage ambiguity, exception and the unprecedented. / Noach Dzmura edited the Lambda Literary Award winning anthology, Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community and directs Jewish Transitions, a nonprofit increasing knowledge about conversion and burial practices for communities with gender variant members. Mr. Dzmura also serves as the Executive Assistant to the Provost and Director of Educational Technology at Starr King School. Dzmura has written for The Forward, Sh’ma, The Jewish Chronicle (UK), Tikkun and Zeek. For more information about Noach Dzmura, see http://www.jewishtransitions.org/.
ST-8457          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 20             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed

Forgiveness
Chris Fry

(Please note that this Fall 2012 online 'Forgiveness' course is a prerequisite for the Spring 2013 course.)

“Forgiveness honors the heart’s greatest dignity. Whenever we are lost, it brings us back to the ground of love. With forgiveness we become unwilling to attack or wish harm to another. Whenever we forgive, in small ways at home, or in great ways between nations, we free ourselves from the past.” ~Jack Kornfield / In this class we will meet people all over the world who have practiced forgiveness as a means of healing, peace and liberation. Through readings, films and exercises, we will develop our own “forgiveness practices” so that we might encourage forgiveness, as appropriate, in our own and others’ lives, and strengthen our pastoral, prophetic and public ministries. / The Rev. Chris Fry is a grateful graduate of Starr King School for the Ministry (‘96). An Adjunct Faculty member for more than five years, Chris has taught courses on poetry, illness and pastoral care; forgiveness; compassion and moral repair; and religious education. She offers “Write for Health” groups and spiritual direction, coordinates her church’s small group ministry, and is active in an interfaith shelter program in her hometown of Davis, CA. Her daughter, Esumi, was born during Chris’ second year at SKSM and is now a high school junior. Her husband, Isao Fujimoto, is a community organizer and professor at UC Davis.
PS-8430          1.5 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 30             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed

Transcendentalist Spirituality
Barry Andrews
Transcendentalism is a uniquely American and decidedly Unitarian Universalist spiritual tradition. Its adherents, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Parker and Margaret Fuller sought to strike a balance in their lives between work and leisure, nature and civilization, spiritual aspirations and social change. They did so on the basis of a this-worldly form of spirituality characterized by a reverence for nature, an organic world-view, a sense of the miraculous, an optimism about human potential, a search for what is universal in religion and personal experience, a strong moral conscience, and an encouragement of the individual in his or her own religious quest. This course will explore the historical roots and contemporary significance of Transcendentalist thought and practice through reading, personal reflection and group discussion. / Barry Andrews received his Doctorate in Ministry from Meadville/Lombard Theological School and served UU congregations in Washington, California and New York as a Minister of Religious Education before his retirement in 2011. His ministry has always included a strong emphasis on adult spiritual development. He has been especially interested in the spirituality of the Transcendentalists and has written about and edited three of the major figures of the movement, Emerson, Thoreau and Fuller. His own spiritual practice has been deepened and enriched by his acquaintance these and other writers and activists in the Transcendentalist circle.
HRSP-8410          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 30             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed

Histories of UU Religious Practice
Emily Mace
This course offers a close consideration of how Unitarian Universalists have practiced their religion, liturgically speaking. It adds historical depth to contemporary approaches to ritual and practice, drawing on case studies from UUism’s American roots in Puritan Congregationalism to the present day. Throughout, questions of how knowledge of our liturgical past informs one’s practices in the present, and of how practices include, exclude, and create or harm communities, will be highlighted. Readings include secondary discussions of ritual and practice as well as a generous sampling of primary source liturgical material. No prior coursework in UU history is assumed; nor is this course intended to replace more general coursework in UU history. / Dr. Emily R. Mace received her doctoral degree in religious studies from Princeton University, where she specialized in the study of American religious history. She holds an M.T.S. in Christianity and Culture from Harvard Divinity School and a B.A. in Religion from Amherst College. Her scholarship focuses on religious liberalism in the late nineteenth century and emphasizes issues of practice, ritual, gender, and pluralism. Mace’s dissertation explored how radical religious liberals sought to embody an eclectic cosmopolitanism in their religious practices. Previously she has taught UU History and UU Congregational Polity for Starr King, and she is looking forward to teaching this new course that emerges out of her main areas of research.
HRHM-8420          3 Units       
Minimum 5       Limit 20             Pin Required: Yes
Click for Syllabus
Registration closed

SKSM and Institute of Buddhist Studies: Our Co-Sponsored Courses
During Fall 2012, the Institute of Buddhist Studies will offer the following courses. Please note ~ we participate in the same GTU registration periods, so General Registration for Fall '12 is Aug. 20 - Aug. 31, 2012. To register for an IBS course, follow the same instructions as registering for a Starr King course. See How to Register. Most, but not all, IBS courses do not require a PIN so pay close attention to IBS Fall 2012 Online Course Listings here.

• Readings in Early Buddhist Texts, Gil Fronsdal/Nona Olivia
• Buddhism in the West, Scott Mitchell
• Topics in Buddhist Thought: Women, Family, Dharma, Lisa Grumbach
• Critical Historiography of Buddhism, Galen Amstutz
• Buddhist Japanese III, Yufuko Kurioka
• Works of Shinran I, David Matsumoto [HRPH-1614 or Faculty permission required]

Starr King School for the Ministry does not accept auditors. However, some IBS courses do allow auditors, so although sponsored by SKSM, as IBS courses, they follow IBS rules.