I love guest lecturing. It provides me an opportunity to connect with the wider audiences. What I like the most about guest lecturing is that when you are speaking to new audiences you need to present materials in a very accessible and engaging way.
Bringing guest speakers to my classroom proves to be very effective. Guest speakers add another level of authenticity to classroom conversations. Besides, interacting with guest speakers is especially useful for me as they bring new pedagogical insights. I have brought a Buddhist monk from Myanmar, a leader of a Islamic community in Orange county, a Sikh student to my class on Religions of the World in the last year.
My advice would be to say “yes” to opportunities of giving talks to new people. Many times, those talks don’t bring much in terms of material value. However, those opportunities pay off in the long run by creating wonderful professional networks as well as by bringing nuanced understanding of your topic in the process of presenting your expert knowledge to common audiences.
Mugdha Yeolekar, Ph.D. Bio:
Dr. Mugdha Yeolekar completed her Bachelor in Arts with a major in Political Science and minor in Philosophy from the University of Pune. She also holds a Bachelors in Sanskrit and Indology from the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, India. After her Bachelors, she pursued her Masters in Political Science from the University of Pune where she was awarded with a gold medal. Mugdha received another Masters in Political Science with a focus on study of religion and violence in India from the University of British Columbia in Canada. She received her doctorate from Arizona State University. Her dissertation is titled as “Gurucaritra p?r?ya?: Social Praxis of Religious Reading.” Prof. Yeolekar has presented at academic conferences in various countries including Thailand, China, United States, Canada, India, United Kingdom and Israel. Currently she works as assistant professor of Religious Studies at California State University at Fullerton where she teaches the following courses: World Religions, Introduction to Asian Religions, Introduction to Buddhism, and Introduction to Scientific Study of Religion. Her research interests include religion in South Asia with reference to issues of agency and power, women and religion, materiality and religion, and ritual reading.