Wikipedia as Pedagogy: How faculty and students are shaping public scholarship in the field of religion

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Panelists

Caroline T. Schroeder is Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and of Data Scholarship at the University of Oklahoma, where she is also an affiliate faculty member in History and Religious Studies and a Fellow at the Data Institute for Societal Challenges. Dr. Schroeder works at the intersections of the cultural history of early Christianity, gender studies, and digital humanities. Her most recent monograph, Children and Family in Late Antique Egyptian Monasticism (Cambridge University Press), was named a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion book award for textual studies in religion. Dr. Schroeder also co-founded the interdisciplinary online research platform Coptic Scriptorium (copticscriptorium.org).

 Hussein Rashid is founding co-director of Religion and Public Life at Union Theological Seminary. His also founder of the consultancy islamicate, which focuses on critical religious literacy and cultural production. He has published extensively on Muslims in the US, including on diaspora identity, popular culture, intra-Muslim racism, museums, and Shi’i thought. His works including meanings of Imam Ali in the US Muslim experience. He’s produced award winning documentaries for The New York Times, and multiple series for PBS in the US. He works with a variety of museums, most recently as Project Director of The Arts of Devotion at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. He serves on the boards of Anikaya Dance Theater and the Interfaith Center of New York. His most recent projects are in Muslim Futurism. He has taught three courses with Wikipedia and has at least one more coming up in the next academic year. His website is https://husseinrashid.com.

Eliza Kent is Professor in Religious Studies at Skidmore College, with affiliations with the Gender Studies Program, Asian Studies and Environmental Studies, Eliza F. Kent earned her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her two books — Converting Women: Gender and Protestant Christianity in Colonial South India (Oxford University Press, 2004) and Sacred Groves, Local Gods: Religion and Environmentalism in South India (Oxford University Press, 2013) – both examine encounters across religious boundaries, a recurrent theme in her scholarship and teaching. The course for which students have been editing Wikipedia pages is RE216 Asian Religions in America, which examines how religious with historical roots in Asia (including Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhi) have been transported and translated to the United States by both convert and immigrant communities.

Moderator

Helaine Blumenthal is Senior Program Manager at Wiki Education. In this role, she oversees the Wikipedia Student Program wherein faculty incorporate Wikipedia editing into their pedagogy. In addition to supporting faculty and students, Helaine partners with a range of constituents to bridge the worlds of academia and Wikipedia. She is an historian by training and is deeply committed to opening up knowledge and ensuring its reliability.