Pedagogical Cliff-Jumping

This article chronicles how Introduction to the Study of Religion has become my favorite course to teach. In it, I narrate my process of pedagogical reinvention and syllabus redesign. Framed by professional and personal backstories, I share my pedagogical desires, list some pedagogical cues I took, and articulate pedagogical decisions and associated wagers. (Along the way, I draw on a range of disciplinary, interdisciplinary, arid pedagogical materials as guides.) Then I tell how my Intro course realized these elements in its design and its execution. By doing so, I make a case for taking pedagogical risks and for reinventing Intro courses as performative responses to the practical and disciplinary question "how might we study religion?"