Santa Clara University

Grants - Valley of the Gods II: Catholic Worlds

Valley of the Gods II:

Catholic Worlds of the Bay Area

Philip Boo Riley
Local Religion Project
Religious Studies Department
Bannan Grant
November 1, 2005

Overview

The Local Religion (LRP) is designed to support teaching and research on the religious life of the south bay area, concentrating on the intersection of religion with distinctive dynamics of the region—immigration, globalization, religious diversity, civic engagement, regional identity. LRP has been up and running for nearly two years and has made progress on several fronts.

  • Curriculum and faculty development: three religious studies courses devoted to LRP have been developed by Prof. Riley, and seven religious studies faculty have integrated LRP community-based research into existing Core courses.
  • Program development: LRP sponsored the Spring 2005 Valley of the Gods: Religious Encounters in the Bay Area, co-sponsored the Fall 2005 Ramadan/Tishri series, and collaborated with deSaisset and Osher on developing the Fall 2005 lecture program for the Holocaust photography exhibits.
  • Research: LRP initiated two faculty-student research projects--on “representation of religious diversity in faith-based secondary schools” and “Social Capital Formation and Indonesian Churches”; a faculty research project on “comparative study of contemplative practices in the Silicon Valley” is just taking shape; and undergraduate students have produced multimedia overviews of seventy local congregations and organizations that are being prepared for a LRP web site.
  • Community  contacts: LRP has established working relationships with over twenty community and religious leaders.
  • External grants: Following a preliminary proposal in Spring 2005 LRP was invited to submit a full $100,000 proposal to the Ford Foundation’s Difficult Dialogues initiative (October 1, 2005).

At the same time, there is much more that needs to happen before we can declare LRP a going concern.  In addition to linking to related scholarly projects of a similar nature in other parts of the country,  LRP has more exploratory and documentary work to do locally in order to understand better and define the scope of its work here in the Valley.

And yet not all Catholic life takes place within institutional frameworks—in terms of vocation, for example, the Valley is home to networks of ex-priests and ex-nuns who have formed communities to support one anothers’ spiritual and liturgical interests.

How can we get a handle on such complex and varied Catholicisms? In this project we propose to start by turning to the public series format that has been used successfully by religious studies faculty for several years, most recently in the Spring 2005 Valley of the Gods. With the title Valley of the Gods II: Catholic Worlds in the Bay Area, we think this event will provide a high profile start to our documentary interests, and give focus to related teaching and research opportunities.

Methods

We propose to run Valley of the Gods II: Catholic Worlds in the Bay Area during Spring 2006. The 9 sessions of this series will stand on their own as a public series; but they will also be used to drive three related efforts: curriculum development, undergraduate research, and a pilot for dissemination of LRP research.
Established 1851