Junior Year Abroad Network Annual Report 2007-2008

December 1, 2008

In December 2008, the Berkley Center's Junior Year Abroad Network (JYAN) members met to present reflections on their time spent living and studying around the globe. Forty-six Georgetown students studying on five different continents participated in the JYAN program. Participants write "letters from abroad" dealing with questions of religion, culture, and politics in a different part of the world. Sharing these letters with one another through the Berkley Center Website, the students engage in dialogue about their common experiences and perceptions of their different cultures, particularly the many roles that religion plays in their host country's culture. When the participants return to Georgetown, they meet several times to reflect on their experiences and develop and present a publication for the wider Georgetown community and beyond.

In Georgetown classrooms, students are presented with texts outlining ideological contradictions, cultural clashes, and the challenges of fundamentalism, and they learn these are often intractable issues. However, the students’ letters do not speak of encountering intractability or hopelessness. Instead, they are engaged by the contradictions and invested in the possibility of achieving solutions. Students learned to differentiate between religion as deeply embedded institutions and culture, and religion as an expression of belief and faith. Many came to realize that faith can transcend its “official” practice. Concurrently, the transnational movement of individuals has transformed the delicate interactions between religion and government as the faiths of immigrants diffuse throughout society. Student letters explored what happens when these new religions clash with the status-quo culture.The reflection process encouraged students to seek areas of collaboration and compromise between religion and politics in societies where they can seem diametrically opposed. Their words demonstrate that now, more than ever, there is potential for deeper collaboration and richer dialogue across the divide between religious and secular life. Flung across the four corners of the world, immersed in different languages, beliefs, and activities, the students learned one lesson that was universal: the revelation that they shared a common humanity with each individual they encountered.

Table of Contents
About the Junior Year Abroad Network
Student Reports from Abroad
   Learning About Religion and Culture
   Grappling with the Intersection of Religion and Politics
   Learning About Others, Learning about Oneself: Religion and Personal Identity
   Religion in Spite of Secularism
   The Global Challenge of Immigration: Integration and Diversity
   Traditional Religion Meets the Modern World

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