Teacher of the Month-- James Foard

An Professor with the Department of Religious Studies since 1983, James Foard has been called a "quintessential scholar" dedicated to expanding his students world view. "Professor Foard has become a master teacher not only because of his deep erudition and his skills at communication, but because of his deep love of the teaching enterprise," said Linell Cady, Chairwoman of the Religious Studies program.

Teaching Philosophy Curriculum Vitae E-Mail Link

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Teaching Philosophy

Some General Principles

All good teaching in the humanities comes from two fundamental values: 1) a compassion for students, and 2) an absolute loathing of the shallowness of their thinking about both the world and themselves. Some may find these positions contradictory, but they logically necessitate each other. From these values flow some general principles. First, teaching must be one's highest priority. Second, the good teacher must make students think for themselves. This requires gaining their trust early, so that they will risk thinking. Third, courses must be designed carefully to affect students in ways beyond just covering some material. Finally, one must maintain high standards, while at the same time instilling confidence in students with marginal abilities and being flexible with students of all sorts of ages and experiences in life. One of the great challenges in teaching at ASU is the enormous variety of students.

Religions of the World

My teaching repertoire can be divided into two areas: 1) Religions of the World and the Study of Religious Traditions (REL 100 and 200), and 2) everything else. Someone said that the value of a course is what one retains after one has forgotten it, and in REL 100 and 200, that means several things. For most students in these courses, this is their only opportunity in their entire high school and college education to learn how large and diverse the world is and how much there is to know. The course also gives them a sense of history, in particular that the most basic structures guiding human thought and society have, in fact, changed, not the least in the modern era. Taken together, I hope these geographical and historical dimensions give them a sense of their own place in all this variety. Finally, by encountering the several religious traditions discussed in the class, they should realize that individual and collective life entails some difficult and inescapable problems for which humans have created sharply different answers and that these answers have consequences in the real world. In short, I try to open their eyes to both the variety of human experience and to the necessity of informed commitment. (Some of my thoughts on the place of religious studies in liberal education are in my article, "Beyond Ours and Theirs: On the Global Character of Religious Studies.")

I enjoy teaching these large, introductory courses because I feel that I am doing some good in the world and also, frankly, because I seem to be talented at lecturing in this sort of situation. I have, however, struggled mightily over the years with the format of the large lecture course. My first substantial innovation was the creation of REL 200, the writing intensive version of REL 100, in 1989. In it, I sought to bring weekly writing assignments into a class of 200 students with only one instructor and one teaching assistant. These writing assignments were designed to develop three specific skills: interpretation, comparison, and criticism. In addition, students kept journals in which they summarized lectures and recorded their own thoughts. This is described in detail in my article, "Writing Across the Curriculum: A Religious Studies Contribution," the publication of which has resulted in numerous inquiries from other universities.

My major innovation in REL 100 itself has been the introduction of multimedia presentations, including art slides, music, and video clips of rituals, an effort which has been aided by the new mediated classrooms on campus. Using these shows students that religion is expressed in all areas of human culture, not just in ideas. For example, in introducing Chinese religion, I showed one Shang Dynasty ritual bell and asked the class of 290 students what the design was. Only gradually did they notice the remnants of an animal face that had become almost totally abstracted. This led to an important contrast with ancient civilizations whose rituals were grounded in myth and which therefore employed more representational art. Since the relative lack of myth in ancient Chinese high culture can be attributed to the ascendence of ancestor worship, which has little use for mythic narrative, this slide led to my introducing the effects of ancestor worship on the development of Chinese civilization. This is fun.

Writing

At the heart of all my upper division courses is the teaching of three things: 1) the subject matter of the course, 2) what this subject matter shows about human life generally, and 3) the skills necessary to grasp the first two. The last is the most important and always involves writing. In fact, every one of my courses other that REL 100 is writing intensive, regardless of the enrollment or general studies designation. I do this because, as I tell students, writing is thinking. There is no such thing as having an idea and not being able to express it; if you can't express it, you don't have it. At its most basic, this emphasis on writing seeks to make students stop summarizing and give me a thesis and an argument. In my weaker moments, I sometimes feel that if I can just do that, which is no small feat, I have taught students how to think. Since citizens who think independently are vital for a democratic society, I therefore feel I have earned my salary from the taxpayers of Arizona by this above all.

The particular writing skills required, however, differ by level. For the 300-level classes, they are to write critically about reading that is assigned to everyone. For these classes, I provide guides, consisting of background information and questions, to assist their reading. Their frequent writing then becomes the basis for class discussions. (Long ago, I learned that, since writing is thinking, trying to discuss something without assigning writing invites a thoughtless discussion.) For 400-level classes, I require both that kind of writing and a research paper. The research paper must be done in stages in consultation with me.

Outside the Classroom

A commitment to undergraduate teaching, of course, extends beyond the classroom. Most obvious is just plain old office hours, which must be plentiful and at various times and days of the week. The trick, though, is to have assignments that force students to see you, otherwise the students that need you most never come in. Often overlooked is the extent to which a concern for undergraduates also requires one to pursue issues of their education in various forums at the department, college, and university levels.

The Future

In the future, I hope to extend the initiatives I mentioned above. In REL 100, my dream is to develop multimedia CD-ROM software. This would improve the course in two ways. First, there is a fundamental structural problem in any world religions course. One does not know whether to introduce traditions through a geographical survey (if it's Tuesday it must be Tibet) or through comparative categories (if its Monday it must be myth). Right now I do the former, while developing the latter as I go along. With a hypertext format, both could be done at once. There might even be interactive possibilities for students to engage in comparisons on their own. Second, by getting students to master the information at their own pace, class time will be freed for more a nalysis and student participation. Funding from publishers may be possible, since our course has the highest enrollments of any world religions course in the country.

Also, I would like to pursue more interdisciplinary teaching. I have never enjoyed a course more than the "Japanese Cities and Cultures to 1800," which I just taught for the first time. Although cross-listed in our department, it is really an inter-disciplinary humanities course. Beyond this sort of thing, I have pushed at the college level for courses that bring together people from two different departments. Usually, these have been low-enrollment seminars in which the two professors pursue some rarified common interest. What I have in mind are two people who have widely differing, perhaps opposing, views of a major issue that captures students' imaginations. I encountered one at Stanford in which a visiting military historian and a philosophy professor in peace studies jointly taught a course on war. I have wanted to do something on cosmologies and societies with someone from the natural sciences. If we had more of this sort of thing at ASU, students could see that disciplines are not prepackaged u nits of knowledge, but really imperfect, always changing, human struggles to understand. They could reflect on their own education accordingly, and, I would hope, realize the necessity of continuing it throughout their lives.

Curriculum Vitae - James Foard

Professor Department of Religious Studies Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona 85287-3401 (602) 965-2067 (602) 965-5139 (FAX) james.foard@asu.edu

EDUCATION

PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS

Hiroshima Shudo University, Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology, April, 1990 - March, 1991.

Exchange Professor, Department of Sociology, Hiroshima Shudo University, March-August, 1989.

Arizona State University, Assistant Professor, Religious Studies Department, January, 1977-1983.

Stanford University, Visiting Associate Professor, Religious Studies Department, Winter - Spring, 1987.

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Visiting Fellow, Institute for the Study of Asian and African Languages and Cultures, 1983.

Tokyo University of Education, Lecturer, Faculty of Letters, Japan, 1975-1976.

COURSES TAUGHT AT ASU

Religions of the World, The Study of Religious Traditions, Religion and the Meaning of Death, Afterlives (Freshman Seminar)

Junior-Senior Level

Religion in Japan Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, Zen, Interpreting Hiroshima, Religion and Values in Japanese Life, Religion in the Nuclear Age, Japanese Cities and Cultures to 1800

Graduate Level

Methods in the Study of Religion, Religionand Literature in Japan, The Holocaust and Hiroshima (Team Taught) The Taoist Tradition

TEACHING AWARDS

Promoter of Excellence Award, Spring 1995. (Sponsored by Honors College Council, selected by students)

Other teaching nominations: Alumni Faculty Achievement Award for Teaching (1994), Burlington Northern Teaching Award (1989), CLAS Outstanding Teaching Award (1988), Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award (1987)

PUBLICATIONS

The Pure Land Tradition: History and Development. Edited with Richard Payne and Michael Solomon. Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series 3. Lewis Lancaster, series editor. Berkeley: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, in cooperation with the Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1996. 548 pp.

Short Monograph

Wayfaring Holy Men and Medieval Society. Reference Materials in International Scholarly Exchange 87. Tokyo: Meiji University Press, 1984. 32 pp. (In Japanese)

Articles in Books

What One Kamakura Text Does: Practice, Place, and Text in the Account of Ippen at Kumano. In Reconsidering Kamakura Buddhism. Edited by Richard Payne. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press (in press).

"Ippen and Pure Land Buddhist Wayfarers in Medieval Japan." In The Pure Land Tradition (loc. cit.).

"Ritual in the Buddhist Temples of Japan." In Object as Insight: Japanese Buddhist Art and Ritual, edited by Samuel Morse and Ann Nishimura Morse, 12-17. Katonah, N.Y.: Katonah Museum of Art, 1995.

"The Universal and the Particular in the Rites of Hiroshima." In Communities in Question: Religion and Authority in Southeast and East Asia, edited by Laurel Kendall, Charles Keyes, and Helen Hardacre, 19-41. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994.

"Prefiguration and Narrative in Medieval Hagiography: The Ippen Hijiri E." In Flowing Traces: Buddhism in the Literary and Visual Arts of Japan, edited by James H. Sanford and William R. LaFleur, 76-92. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press , 1992.

"Beyond Ours and Theirs: On the Global Character of Religious Studies." In Beyond the Classics: New Essays in Religious Studies and Liberal Education, edited by Frank E. Reynolds and Sheryl L. Burkhalter, 163-175. Atlanta: Scholar's Press, 1990.

"Writing Across the Curriculum: A Religious Studies Contribution." In Beyond the Classics (loc. cit.), 203-217.

"The Loneliness of Matsuo Basho." In The Biographical Process: Studies in the History and Psychology of Religion, edited by Frank Reynolds and Donald Capps, 363-391. The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1976.

Articles in Journals

"Imagining Nuclear Weapons: Hiroshima, Armageddon, and the Annihilation for the Students of Ichijo School," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 65.1 (1997): 1-18.

"Text, Place, and Memory in Hiroshima," Senri Ethnological Studies 38 (1995): 65-76.

"The Boundaries of Compassion: Buddhism and National Tradition in Japanese Pilgrimage," Journal of Asian Studies 41, 2 (February, 1982): 231-251.

"Seiganji: The Buddhist Orientation of a No Play." Monumenta Nipponica 35, 4 (Winter, 1980): 437-456.

"In Search of a Lost Reformation: A Reconsideration of Kamakura Buddhism." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 7, 4 (December, 1980): 261-291.

Shorter Writings

Thirty entries in Harper's Dictionary of Religion, ed. by Jonathan Z. Smith. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1995.

"Toward a Comparative Buddhism Course." Suvannabhumi (Newsletter of the Program for Southeast Asian Studies at Arizona State University) 3, 2 (May, 1992): 8.

"Manifesting the Meaning of Hiroshima." (In Japanese) Invited newspaper column. Chugoku Shinbun. August 15, 1989.

"Ippen." In Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade et al. New York: MacMillan, 1987.

"Hijiri," "Jishu," and "Ubasoku." In Encyclopedia of Japan, edited by Gen Itasaka and Maurits Dekker. Advisory committee chaired by Edwin O. Reischauer. Tokyo and New York: Kodansha, 1983.

Reviews

Review of Bernard Faure, Visions of Power: Imagining Medival Japanese Buddhism (Princeton Univ. Press). Religion (forthcoming).

"Four Issues Raised by Alan Grapard's The Protocol of the Gods." Japanese Religions Bulletin Supplement, October, 1995.

Review of George Tanabe, Myoe the Dreamkeeper: Fantasy and Knowledge in Early Kamakura Buddhism (Harvard Univ. Press). In Monumenta Nipponica 49, 1 (Spring, 94).

Review of James C. Dobbins, Jodo Shinshu: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989). In Chanoyu Ouarterly 64, (Winter, 1990).

Review of C. Ouwehand, Hateruma: Socio-Religious Aspects of a South Ryukyuan Island Culture. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985). In Religious Studies Review 15, no. 1 (Jan., 1989).

Review of J. Victor Koschmann, The Mito Ideology. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987) In Religious Studies Review 15, no. 1 (Jan., 1989).

Review of Dennis Hirota, trans., No Abode: the Records of Ippen. (Kyoto: Ryukoku University, 1987). In Chanoyu Ouarterly 57 (1989).

Review of Oliver Statler, Japanese Pilgrimage (New York: William Morrow, 1983). In Journal of Asian Studies 43, no.3 (May, 1984).

Review of John Hall and Toyoda Takeshi, eds., Japan in the Muromachi Age (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977) in Asian Forum X, no. 2 (June, 1980).

Review of Jeffrey Mass, The Kamakura Bakufu: A Study in Documents (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976) in Asian Forum X, no. 2 (June, 1980).

PAPERS, PANELS, AND LECTURES (LAST TEN YEARS)

"American Studies of Japanese Buddhism." International Conference on Buddhist Studies: The State of the Art. University of California at Berkeley. Oct. 28-31, 1993.

"Text, Place, and Memory in Hiroshima." (In Japanese) Ninth International Taniguchi Symposium on Japanese Civilization in the Modern World: Comparative Perspectives on Tourism. The National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. March 18-25, 1991.

"The Universal and the Particular in the Rites of Hiroshima." SSRC Conference on "Communities in Question: Religion and Authority in Southeast and East Asia." Hua-Hin, Thailand, May 59, 1989.

National Meetings

"Wounded, Incomplete, and Discovered Statues: Divine Images in Japanese Tales." Symposium on Japanese Buddhist Art and Ritual. Amherst College, March 1-2, 1996.

Respondent at Conference on Buddhism, Modernity, and Politics in Southeast Asia. ASU, December 8, 1995.

Respondent, Panel on American Encounters with Meiji Japan. Conference on Bringing Japan to America: Frank Lloyd Wright and Japanese Art, Phoenix Art Museum, April 21, 1995.

"Ritual and Immortality in the Nuclear Age: Commemorating the Students of Ichijo School, Hiroshima." Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Chicago, November 19-22, 1994.

Discussant in Panel on Alan Grapard's The Protocol of the Gods. Annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Boston, April, 1994.

"Time and the Nenbutsu Dance." Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Los Angeles, March 25-28, 1993.

"The Death of Ojiichama: Endemic Religion and Japanese Spirituality." Conference on Japanese Spirituality, East-West Center, University of Hawaii, January 13-17, 1992.

Discussant in Panel on Gary Ebersole's Ritual, Poetry, and the Politics of Death in Early Japan. Annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Kansas City, November 23-26, 1991.

"What One Kamakura Text Does: Practice, Place, and Text in the Account of Ippen at Kumano." Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion. April 8, 1990, Chicago. (Read in absentia.)

"Japanese Imaginations of the Nation." SSRC Workshop on Religion in Modern Asia, Boston, April 8, 1987.

Regional Meetings

"Japanese and American Civil Religions: Mutual Challenges and Secularizations." Rocky Mountain/Southwest Japan Seminar, ASU, April 4-5, 1996.

"Making Sense of Magical Salvation: Ippen at Kumano." 1990 Rocky Mountain/Southwest Japan Seminar. February 3, 1990, ASU.

"Toward a New Interpretation of the Hibakusha Experience." (In Japanese) Symposium on The Hibakusha Experience: From the Inside and the Outside. August 12, 1989, Hiroshima, Japan.

Other Universities

"The Tale of the Burned-Cheek Amida: Divinity, Icon and Body in Medieval Japanses Buddhism." UCLA, April 14, 1997.

"Hiroshima and the Limits of Theodicy." Stanford Summer College. August 6, 1993.

"Contexts for Annihilation: Hiroshima and Memory." Center for Japanese Studies, University of California, Berkeley. November 11, 1991.

Presentation: "Sacred Place in Japan," for graduate seminar in Buddhist studies, University of California, Berkeley, November 11, 1991.

"Heaven Can't Wait: Magical Salvation in Japanese Buddhism." Invited public lecture, Amherst College, March 9, 1990.

"Hiroshima and the Japanese Pilgrimage Tradition." Bryn Mawr College, February 25, 1988.

"Japanese Religion and the Rites of Hiroshima." Center for International Security and Arms Control, Stanford University, May 22, 1987.

Major ASU Presentations

"Terminal Thoughts: Afterlives in the History of Life." Last Lecture Series. April 9, 1996.

"Mutual Challenges to National Identity Between Japan and the United States." Given twice at the ASU College of Business (November 5, 1991 and October, 1992) and at the ASU Downtown Center (February 19, 1993).

OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Organized 1996 meeting of Rocky Mountain/Southwest Japan Seminar, ASU. Sponsored by SSRC/ACLS. April 4-5, 1996.

Contributing Editor, Spotlight in Teaching, AAR, 1992-96.

Book Reviewer Editor for East Asia, Religious Studies Review, 19871990.

President, Society for the Study of Japanese Religions, 1984-1987.

Editor, Japanese Religions Newsletter, published by the Japanese Religions Group of the American Academy of Religion, 1979-1984.

Member of Steering Committee, Treasurer, and Membership Secretary, Japanese Religions Group, 1979-1984.

Co-Director, Conference on Popular Culture in Early Modern Japan, April 26, 1980, A.S.U., Sponsored by the Social Science Research Council, U of A and ASU.

Member, Editorial Board, Reprints in Religion Series, American Academy of Religion/Scholar's Press, 1979-81.

Member, Editorial Board, Classics in Religion Series, American Academy of Religion/Scholar's Press, 1979-81.

(Omitted are numerous reviews of manuscripts for university presses, refereed journals and textbook publishers, reviews of NEH proposals, and outside reviews for tenure and promotion.)

GRANTS AWARDED

"The Opening of the Eyes Ceremony in Japanese Buddhism." International Travel Grant, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Summer 1996.

Quality of Undergraduate Instruction Grants Program, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Summer, 1995, to develop course on Japanese humanities.

Two curriculum development grants as part of the Department of Education Grant for East Asian Studies, Center for Asian Studies, ASU, Summer, 1992.

"Religious Studies and Liberal Education: Opportunities and New Directions." Stipend for NEH Summer Institute, University of Chicago, June 18-July 30, 1986.

"Japanese Commemorations of World War II." Northeast Asia Council, Association for Asian Studies, Travel Grant for Research on Japan, Summer, 1985.

"Taoism in Japan." Joint Committee on Japanese Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council, January-December, 1983

"Japanese Commemorations of World War II." A.S.U. Small Grants Program, Summer, 1985 (transportation only).

"The History of Yuzu Nembutsu." A.S.U. Provost's Research Fund, Summer, 1981.

"The Hagiography of Prince Shotoku." A.S.U. Faculty Grant-In-Aid Program, Summer 1980.

"Japanese Pilgrimage Traditions." A.S.U. Faculty Grant-In-Aid Program, Summer, 1979.

"The Religious Origins of the Doboshu." A.S.U. Faculty Grant-In-Aid Program, Summer, 1978.

CURRENT RESEARCH TOPICS

ASU SERVICES

University Governance Grievance Committee, 1995-98.
Council on University Reorganization, 1988-89.
Faculty Senate, 1987-88, Fall 1988, and Fall 1989.