An experiential course for journalism students
Granada, Spain, is one of those cities where multiple religious communities converge. It is home to mainline Protestants, Catholics, Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists, and Anglicans as well as Muslims, Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists, Jews, and Rastafari. Like many multicultural cities, it has seen the rise and fall of different occupying powers—such as the Iberians, the Romans, the Umayyad Caliphate, and the Nasrid Emirate. After being under Muslim control from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries, Granada passed into Castilian Catholic hands. In the seventeenth century, the city was occupied by France. It was ruled by the Nationalist government from the 1930s to the 1960s. Today, architectural vestiges of its 745-year Muslim heritage are an unmistakable part of the city, although devotees of Islam are significantly overshadowed by followers of Protestantism (the majority) and Catholicism.
Given this complicated history, Granada is an ideal setting for students to understand how different cultures and religions overlap in time and space. This is why, in 2016, two Northeastern University professors Carlene Hempel (religious studies) and Elizabeth Bucar (journalism) chose the city to apply the concepts taught in their course “Reporting Religion.”
The fourteen students of Bucar and Hempel’s “Reporting on Religion” course conducted multimedia journalism projects focused on religious life in Granada and Boston. The following are the student reports that came out of the trip to Granada:
- “Life Inside the Great Mosque of Granada” by Tyler Blint-Welsh
- “Exiled Five Centuries Ago, the Jews of Granada Are Still (Barely) There” by Megan McKee
- “Muslims Lose Livelihoods for Their Beliefs” by Marie Sheena
- “Spain’s Secularization Continues as Some Want Catholicism Out of Schools” by Charlie Wolfson and Irvin Zhang
- “Arte es Presarte: Young Musicians Criticize Spain’s Religious Climate” by Emily Mitchell and Casey Rochette
- “Granada – A City’s Rich Religious Soundscape” by Bradley Fargo
- “Granada: A City Where Religious Tourism Dominates the Beautiful Landscape” by Yumeng Ren
You can explore all the student journalism that resulted from the “Reporting on Religion” course at this website.
