“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world.
And you have to do it all the time.”
– Angela Davis
Teaching
My goal as a teacher is to contribute to the formation of thoughtful and self-reflective human beings at any stage of life. I create a learning community dedicated to seeking truth in a complex and shrinking world, and I assist students in appreciating diversity, disagreement, and nuance, especially in matters of religion. Through carefully curated resources, I help students practice critical thinking and develop empathy and respect for others. Through experiential learning, I facilitate self-awareness and spiritual growth, which in a Christian context includes the self-transcendent love of God, others, and the world. And I help students learn how to be comfortable with silence, stillness, and mindful presence in an increasingly distracted world. These are all skills, I believe, that extend well beyond the religious studies classroom and that will benefit students of any age for life.
Undergraduate Courses Taught
- Food and Justice
- Religion and Environment
- The Spirituality and Ethics of Eating
- Women and Christianity
- Mystical Theology
- Medieval Christian History
- History of Christian Thought (Martyrs, Monks, and Mystics)
- World Religions
- Christian Spirituality
- Understanding Religion
- Modern Christian Thought
- Honors Special Topic: The Spirituality and Culture of Harry Potter
- Honors Capstone
- Junior Seminar for Rel/Phil majors
- Orientation to College and Lasallian values
- The Bible: Texts and Contexts
- The Search for Values in Light of Western History and Religion
- Systematic Theology
Graduate Courses Taught
- Biblical, Theological, and Historical Visions of the Land, Food, and Community
- Theologies of Food Justice
- Catholicism and Other Faith Traditions
SPEAKING TOPICS & ENGAGEMENTS
Topics
I enjoy leading Christian education classes and speaking to religious communities. Please reach out if you’d like me to lead a class, series, workshop, or speak to your community! These are some of the topics I’ve been invited to share:
- Cultivating Hope/Confronting Despair: A faithful response to climate change
- Food Justice and Health Equity
- Food Justice and Food Apartheid in Memphis
- Black Lives Matter
- Inequality in the Food System
- Food Futures: Food Justice in Memphis and Beyond
- Food Insecurity in Shelby County: A Collaborative Approach
- The Monkish Virtues: Hospitality, Local Food, and the Rule of St. Benedict
- Incarnational Food Justice
- Food and Faith
- From Refuse to Renewal: Rethinking Food Waste
- The Ethics of Eating: Healing the Body and Repairing the World
- Beguine Mystics: Women Writers of the 13th Century
- Mary of Magdala and Marguerite Porete: Faithful Witnesses
- Healing the Body and Repairing the World: The Ethics of Eating
- The Incarnation of Wisdom and the Mother of Love
- Making a Garden out of the Wasteland: A Christian Theological Perspective on Food Justice
- Lenten Spiritual Practices in Relation to Food and Eating
- What is the Significance of My Neighbor’s Religion for My Own? Deepening Faith and Learning from Others in a Context of Religious Diversity
- Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls
- Adult Sunday school book discussion series on: bell hooks, All About Love; Gary Paul Nabhan, Jesus for Farmers and Fishers; Rebecca Todd Peters, Trust Women; Sara Miles, Take This Bread; Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World; Martin Luther King, Jr., Where do we go from here?; James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree; Dorothy Bass, Practicing our Faith; Stephanie Paulsell, Honoring the Body.
PODCASTS
“We need to center the values of community, care, and collaboration. … It’s audacious and it requires tenacity to have a vision for a world we cannot materially see. It takes courage to challenge old ways and build a better future. And it requires love, the source of transformational power—love for ourselves, our people, and the places we call home.”
– Gloria Walton
Emily A. Holmes 