DMin Seminar in Advanced Practical Theological Research

Instructor: Katherine Turpin, Ph.D.

Best First Contact: kturpin@iliff.edu, or for urgent conversation, you can also text  or call me at 303-698-4401

Course Description:

This collaborative seminar provides an opportunity for students to explore the process of practical theological research for their DMin project and to work collaboratively to shape research that is impactful and compelling. Students will establish the theoretical framing of their project through deep engagement with a body of literature relevant to their topic, engage in rigorous contextual analysis of their research site/community, and begin the descriptive work necessary for their particular question, and in doing so refine their research question and appropriate research strategies necessary to their project.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, with faithful engagement of course activities and practices, students should be able to:

1. Identify how theoretical framing functions in research with living religious communities and analyze the heuristic value and epistemological limitations of using such framing.
2. Speak knowledgeably and critically about an analytical approach or theoretical concept central to their own project, identifying academic conversation partners on that concept that they find useful to their own work, understanding where those partners fit in the larger scope of developing that concept, and demonstrating awareness of their critics and detractors.
3. Narrow the infinite potential elements of contextual description for their research context to the most central ideological, historical, political, and material factors contributing to current religious practice and theological understandings in that context. Identify quality resources to explore in writing their project that will allow for excellence in descriptive contextual analysis.
4. Describe what makes for impactful and credible practical theological research that contributes to the capacity for prophetic leadership.
5. Articulate their current understanding of their own commitments and styles of prophetic leadership in their ongoing positions of leadership and ministry.

Texts

Course Assignments-

1. Participation in developing a rigorous and supportive learning community that allows for diverse colleagues to grow in their capacity for advanced practical theological research. Demonstrated through participation in discussion forums, Zoom calls, and peer review assignments. 15% of final grade
2. Presentations in the 3-4 week with the initial identification of a key theoretical approach that will be central to their project. Students will share their initial research and understandings developed through independent reading and make a pitch for why this concept makes the most sense as a frame for their work. By receiving critical engagement from colleagues, they will both expand their repertoire of theories in the study of lived religion and develop a sense of the costs and limitations of this chosen framing for their project. 10% of final grade
3. Students will write a midterm paper in which they demonstrate depth knowledge of a theoretical construct central to the framing of their project, with a critical analysis of how that theory/school of thought/analytical concept both contributes to and limits their understanding of the situation they are investigating. 25% of final grade
4. Students will develop an annotated bibliography of 15 quality academic resources that help them describe the complexity of the contextual setting of their research. 25% of final grade
5. Students will create a “research reflections” journal that compiles their weekly exercises related to their project, their practice/grounding as a prophetic leader, and the connections between the two. The journal will be submitted at midterm and the end of the term for instructor feedback. 25% of final grade