Dr Peter Mudge

Biography

I am a lecturer in Religious Education and Spirituality at The Broken Bay Institute (BBI), Sydney, and Conjoint Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the UoN.

I teach courses in Religious Education (EDUC6043), Studies in Spirituality (THEO6016) and am currently preparing a course designed to assist teachers in presenting the HSC Board of Studies, Studies of Religion syllabus. Examples of my research can be found in journals such as Journal of Religious Education, International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, Journal of Catholic School Studies, and Australian Journal of Religious Education. I have co-authored four books on religious education: Out of the Desert Book One (1997), Out of the Desert Book Two (1998), Out of the Desert Book Three (1998), Out of the Desert Book Four (2000), as well as four editions of Living Religion (2009, 4th Edition). The latter supports the NSW BOS Studies of Religion Syllabus, 2006 revised. I have also contributed a number of articles to international handbooks on religious education and spirituality, namely a chapter on Kataphatic and Apophatic Ways of Knowing, in International Handbook of Education for Spirituality, Care and Well Being (2 Vols) (2009); and a chapter on the challenges of the New Monasticism and its values for schools, Routledge International Handbook on Religion (in press 2012). Full details on my publications can be found below. Refer also to my Flickr art website at: www.flickr.com/photos/ceoreals/sets

Office hours for 2012: Mon-Thursday, 8.30am – 4.30 pm

Qualifications

• Doctor of Theology, Melbourne College of Divinity, 2000
• Master of Theology, Sydney College of Divinity, 1991
• Bachelor of Theology, Sydney College of Divinity, 1986
• Bachelor of Arts/Diploma of Education, Macquarie University, 1981

Research

Research keywords

• Judaism, Christianity and Islam
• Studies of Religion
• art-based pedagogy
• religious education
• spirituality
• theological reflection

Research expertise

Religious Education (ongoing)

My past and ongoing research in Religious Education has centred on transformative pedagogies, values, gospel values, two-fold and four-fold ways of knowing, and links between the arts, pedagogy and religious education. More recently I have been conducting research in relation to Habermas’ four ways of knowing culminating in praxis and wisdom.

Spirituality and staff spiritual formation (ongoing)

My past and ongoing research in Spirituality has been focused on the nature of spirituality, the spiritual classics, meditation and lectio divina, poetry, sacred space, and more recently the narrative of Jonah and the two halves of life (Rohr, Rolheiser, Chittister).

Collaboration

Religious Education (ongoing)

My past and ongoing research in Religious Education has centred on transformative pedagogies, values, gospel values, two-fold and four-fold ways of knowing, and links between the arts, pedagogy and religious education. More recently I have been conducting research in relation to Habermas’ four ways of knowing culminating in praxis and wisdom.

Spirituality and staff spiritual formation (ongoing)

My past and ongoing research in Spirituality has been focused on the nature of spirituality, the spiritual classics, meditation and lectio divina, poetry, sacred space, and more recently the narrative of Jonah and the two halves of life (Rohr, Rolheiser, Chittister).

I welcome research applications on any of the above topics. I am currently supervising some candidates for THEO6032: Advanced Studies – Directed. My collaboration extends to several spirituality and Studies of Religion groups.

Fields of Research

Teaching

Teaching keywords

• Studies of Religion
• philosophy in the classroom
• religious education
• spirituality
• theology of religious education

Teaching expertise

My approach to teaching, lecturing, online discussion and education in general stems from the belief that students are best challenged when they are invited to move from their ‘comfort zone’ to more challenging topics and ideas. My reading in general of education and pedagogy is that the process involves ‘stretching’, ‘extending’ towards news ideas, and that this process often involves displacement, disorientation and at times disturbance and discomfort (see Brueggemann, Gittins, Rohr and others). This is how I aim to teach, to tutor, to present my teaching resources (e.g. Power Point), and how I challenge especially teachers to teach their own students. In the final analysis I follow some research I have done on Habermas’ four ways of knowing – that effective teaching follows a pathway from the Instrumental, through Hermeneutical, and on through Emancipatory, Self-Reflective, Self-Critical knowing, and finally on to praxis and wisdom ways of knowing (the pinnacle of knowing). I have also been influenced by other pedagogies echoed in the Book of Jonah, Walter Brueggemann, Quality Teaching, and many others.