Abstracts for Session 2A

"Thrill Rides and Labyrinths: The Pedagogical Logic of Freedom and Constraint," Matt Walhout (Calvin College)

Abstract
How is stepping into a prayer labyrinth like climbing into a roller coaster? Both actions involve submitting to particular constraints in order to experience certain freedoms. Either action can be a metaphor for what students do when they enroll in a course or a program of study at a Christian college. Moreover, for students in a physics course, actual experience with roller coasters and labyrinths can translate the heady concepts of scientific and religious formation into the gut feelings of embodied knowledge.                             

"A Journey Begun," Ashley Woodiwiss (Erskine College)

Abstract
How can first-year college students begin to imagine their
educational experience in ways compatible with the tradition of Christian
liberal arts? This paper analyzes my efforts to import the Christian
practice of pilgrimage into a seminar for fifteen first-year students in
their first semester at college. Initial assessments while not profound
yet signal the possibility of nudging students away from a version of
Urry's "tourist gaze" with respect to their time in the academy and
towards one slightly more in tune with the pilgrim's way.

Back to Agenda

Abstracts for Session 2B

For further information contact:
Seminars @ Calvin
Calvin College
1855 Knollcrest Circle SE
Grand Rapids MI 49546-4402
616.526.8558
fax 616.526.6682
seminars@calvin.edu