Madrasa-Midrasha Emerging Scholars Colloquium
Please join the GTU's Madrasa-Midrasha Program for an event featuring the work of current GTU students researching topics in Islamic Studies and Jewish Studies. Presenters include recent CIS graduate Dr. R. David Coolidge and CJS MA student Carey Averbook.
This is a hybrid event, with the in-person portion taking place in the Multiuse Room of the GTU Library.
Register Here
Panelists:
Carey Averbook grew up in North Carolina, lived in Washington, DC and Bolivia, and moved to the Bay Area in 2019. They have background in anthropology and international development, photography and video production, storytelling, human-centered design, emotional hygiene and spiritual resiliency coaching. All their work has come back to questions about “what’s a good life?” and “what it is to be well as human beings given climate collapse and systems of violence and domination?" Carey is currently an MA student in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union and is completing an Earth-based Judaism certificate with the Alliance for Jewish Renewal. She works at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco doing community building and spiritual care work and is on the Ner Shalom Synagogue Nitzanim B. Mitzvah Academy Faculty. They teach Jewish spiritual practice as a community member with congregation Sha'ar Zahav and at Moishe House Rockridge.
R. David Coolidge received his Ph.D. in 2023 from the Graduate Theological Union. Prior to his PhD program, he taught at Brown University and Dartmouth College as a Muslim chaplain, as well as New York University and St. Francis College as an adjunct instructor. He also received an MA in Religion from Princeton University in 2008.
Moderators:
Deena Aranoff is Faculty Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. She teaches rabbinic literature, medieval patterns of Jewish thought, and the broader question of continuity and change in Jewish history. Her recent publications engage with the subject of childcare, maternity and the making of Jewish culture.
Munir Jiwa is the Founding Director of the Center for Islamic Studies and Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Anthropology at the Graduate Theological Union, and serves as faculty at the Othering and Belonging Institute’s Religious Diversity Cluster at UC Berkeley. His research interests include Islam and Muslims in the West, Islamophobia studies, media, art and aesthetics, secularism, religious formation and leadership, religion in the public sphere, and interreligious and theological education.
We would like to thank the Walter & Elise Haas Fund for the generous support of the Madrasa-Midrasha Program at the GTU.
