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Summer Courses

If you are not a current JST student, you are welcome to apply to take one or more of our summer courses, either to audit or for credit. To apply, please follow these step-by-step instructionsApplications to enroll in a summer course must be completed and received by May 30.  

This practicum under the auspices of the Berkeley Jesuit community is a seminar with readings, practice, and supervision of spiritual direction. Participants will be evaluated on the basis of verbatims, participation, and supervision. A participant should have already done a practicum in spiritual direction (e.g, SP-2495 or equivalent). The seminar will include lectures, presentations by students, discussion, online learning to bring spirituality into direct dialogue with biblical texts, mystical traditions in poetics as well as imagery embedded in contextual theologies referring to the biblical text. The learning process will give the student the opportunity to detect hermeneutical approaches that are most fitting with her/his self-implicating research interest. [12 max enrollment]. Academic credits can be obtained through a complementary reading course (SRC-9999) taken during the Fall 2022 semester.

The practicum meets Monday-Friday 9am-2pm from June 20–July 15. Designed for advanced MDiv, MTS, MA, ThM, and STL or STD students.

For information and to register, contact the instructor: George Murphy, SJ

Religion is enormously important and, despite all the talk about us living in a “secular” society, persistent component of human experience. Focusing primarily, although not exclusively, on the United States, this course will attempt to introduce students to the sociological study of religion and provide them with the theoretical tools necessary for thoughtfully analyzing the place of religion in the modern world.  Among the topics, this course will address are the manner in which religion functions to provide a sense of individual meaning; people’s capacity for religious commitment and belonging; the types and dynamics of religious collectivities; and the impact of religion on social cohesion, conflict, and change.


Course meets remotely MWF from 2-4 pm for five weeks beginning July 11th (7/11/2022 – 8/12/2022).

Instructor: Jerome Baggett, PhD