General Program Highlights and Fees 

• Join a cohort of Latinx students from across the country
• Learn about Latinx Studies and Latinx theology in a Latinx majority environment
• Earn three credits toward your degree offered by Duke Divinity School
• Explore questions of vocation and further education
• Meet Latinx undergrads exploring graduate theological education
• Tuition
  • $475 for Masters Level Students from HSP Sponsoring Schools
  • $800 for Doctoral Students and Students from Non-HSP Sponsoring Schools 

2025 Program Information

Date: 

June 14 – 28, 2025

Location: 

Duke Divinity School | Durham, North Carolina 

Professors and Courses

Subject: Biblical Studies – New Testament

Professor Name: Dr. Efraín Agosto

Professor Title: Croghan Bicentennial Professor in Biblical and Early Christian Studies

Professor Institution: Williams College

Bio: Efraín Agosto is the Bennett Boskey Distinguished Visiting Professor in Latina/o Studies at Williams College. Efrain served as Professor of New Testament Studies at New York Theological Seminary (2011-2021), and Professor of New Testament at Hartford Seminary from 1995 to 2011.  Efraín, a Puerto Rican from New York City, received his B.A. from Columbia University (1977), M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (1982) and PhD in New Testament Studies from Boston University (1996). His books include Servant Leadership: Jesus and Paul (2005), 1 y 2 Corintios (2008), Preaching in the Interim: Transitional Leadership in the Latino/a Church (2018), and a co-edited volume, Latinxs, the Bible and Migration (2018). With a grant from the Louisville Institute, Efrain is researching the Puerto Rican independence leader, Pedro Albizu Campos. Efrain and his spouse Olga Gisela, live in West Hartford, Connecticut, and they have two adult children, Joel and Jasmin.

Course Title: Reading Paul Latinamente: Aspects of Empire, Race & Religion

Course Description: A highly contested figure in Biblical Studies, who was the Apostle Paul and how can/should we as Latine readers of the Christian New Testament study and analyze his writings? This course seeks to understand Paul in light of our 21 st century Latina/Latino/Latinx reality. In the first place, we will address issues of the immediate context of Paul’s letter-writing and ministry in the early first century CE Jesus movement, including aspects of the Roman Imperial order that dominated all spheres of life in that period, including the religious. Nonetheless, correspondences with empire, colonization, and religion today will critically inform that exploration of the past. Second, we will turn our attention to questions of interpretative approaches to these ancient religious texts, specifically from current day Latinx contexts. How do the traditional historical-critical approaches to understanding Paul’s letters relate to sociological and post-colonial readings that connect the documents to religious and political realities today, especially among Latinx communities? Finally, the course confronts difficulties in understanding and misunderstanding Paul considering religious, social, and political challenges our communities face. For example, how do current phenomena like Christian Nationalism, challenges to LGBQT rights, and gender inequality relate to Paul’s writings and their interpretation for today? These and other current issues will inform our reaching back to these important documents from first century Christian history, theology, and religious practice, as Latinx communities of faith and practice.

Subject: – Estudios interculturales/feministas Bilingual Class/Clase Bilingüe

Professor Name: Dr. María Pilar Aquino

Professor Title: Professor Emerita of Theology and Religious Studies

Professor Institution: University of San Diego

Bio: María Pilar Aquino was born in Ixtlán del Río, Nayarit, and was raised in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora, México. She is professor emerita of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego (California), and is a member of the international committee of the World Forum on Theology and Liberation. Aquino has served as the first woman president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, of which she is also a co- founder, and the first Latin American woman president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. Aquino has the distinction of having received doctorates Honoris Causa, in theology from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and in divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University, California. With thirteen books published as author, editor, or coeditor, and more than 80 book chapters and articles in professional journals addressing themes of feminist theology, social justice, and intercultural thought, she is internationally recognized for her pioneering work in the development of feminist liberation theologies from the Americas.

Course Title: Latina Feminist Theology: Intercultural Possibilities Teología Feminista Latina: Posibilidades Interculturales

Course Description: The contribution of Latina Feminist Theology to intercultural transformation will be explored, including approaches from decolonial, ecofeminist, and Abya Yala’s indigenous-community feminisms, and resources for intervention in crucial realities of concern, such as sexual violence, feminicide, undocumented migration, interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding. This is a bilingual class with readings, lectures, and discussion in Spanish and English. Se explorará la contribución de la Teología Feminista Latina a la transformación intercultural, incluyendo enfoques de los feminismos decolonial, ecofeminista e indígena-comunitario de Abya Yala, y recursos para la intervención en realidades cruciales de interés, como la violencia sexual, el feminicidio, la migración indocumentada, el diálogo interreligioso y la construcción de la paz. Se trata de una clase bilingüe con lecturas, presentaciones y discusiones en español e inglés.

Subject: Liturgical Studies

Professor Name: Rev. Dr. Cláudio Carvalhaes

Professor Title: Professor of Worship

Professor Institution: Union Theological Seminary in NY

Bio: Cláudio Carvalhaes is Professor of Worship at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Originally from Brazil, he has published several books and works in the interdisciplinary fields of liturgy, performance, ecology, liberation theologies, immigration, decolonial and Latinx studies. He is married to Katie and is the father of Libby, Cici, Ike and the little Amora.

Course Title: Liberation Theologies and Rituals

Course Description: In this course we will read basic texts of various liberation theologies in Latin American and across the globe, finding ways to shape and inform our spiritualities and theologies through rituals, always from the perspective of marginalized people. Along with these texts, the class will create liturgies/worship services that will help articulate Liturgical Liberation Theologies.

Subject: Sociology of Religion

Professor Name: Dr. Jonathan Calvillo

Professor Title: Assistant Professor of Latinx Communities 

Course Title: Sociology of Latine Religions

Professor Institution: Candler School of Theology, Emory University

Bio: Jonathan Calvillo is Assistant Professor of Latinx Communities at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. His work examines how distinct Latine populations build communities of belonging through faith and creativity, often amidst systemic exclusion.  As a sociologist and ethnographer, his expertise resides at the intersections of Latine lived religion, ethnoracial formation, civic engagement, urban migration, and grassroots creative movements. Calvillo published The Saints of Santa Ana: Faith and Ethnicity in a Mexican Majority City (Oxford University Press), in 2020.  His new books, In the Time of Sky-rhyming: How Hip Hop Resonated in Brown Los Angeles, and When the Spirit is Your Inheritance: Reflections on Borderlands Pentecostalism, are published by Oxford University Press and Fortress Press, respectively.  These latest projects draw on oral histories, autoethnography, and cultural analysis.

Course Description: This course draws on the tools of Sociology of Religion to analyze and theorize about the lived religious experiences of Latines. The place of religion in the private and public lives of Latines remains a hotly debated topic. Often, Latine religious traditions are discussed as marginal religions of newcomers — traditions newly transplanted from foreign homelands to the US or traditions of recent converts outside the US mainstream. Pushing beyond such narratives, this course contextualizes Latine religion as a longstanding presence in the US with ongoing transnational ties and continued influence in the US religious landscape. Furthermore, this course examines how particular assumptions about religion and spirituality limit understanding of what religion looks like in the lives of Latines. Course materials will introduce key scholars engaging Latinx spiritualities, primarily from a social scientific perspective. Likewise, students will be introduced to concepts and theories from the broader field of sociology of religion. Through the course, students will design a project around a topic of their own interest related to Latine religion and spirituality with the aim of employing resources from sociology of religion to better engage the diversity of Latine spiritualities. The course is especially designed to encourage the accompaniment of Latine communities through qualitative methods of social scientific research.

Subject: Philosophical Theology

Professor Name: Dr. Elaine Padilla

Professor Title: Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Latinx/Latin American Studies

Professor Institution: La Verne University

Bio: Elaine Padilla is Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Latinx/Latin American Studies. Padilla constructively interweaves current philosophical discourse with Christianity, Latin American and Latino/a religious thought, aesthetics, ecology, gender, and race. She is the author of Divine Enjoyment: A Theology of Passion and Exuberance published by Fordham University Press (2015), co-editor of a three-volume project with Peter C. Phan, Theology and Migration in World Christianity published by Palgrave MacMillan: Contemporary Issues of Migration and Theology (2013), Theology of Migration in the Abrahamic Religions (2014), and Christianities in Migration: The Global Perspective (2015), and co-editor of Ecological Solidarities with Dhawn B. Martin and Krista E. Hughes published by Penn State University Press (2019). She has also published numerous articles and chapters, and her most recent manuscript provisionally titled, The Luminous Darkening of Her (under review) decolonizes views on indigenous and Afro women’s interiority and spiritualities. She recently became a member of the Caribbean Philosophical Association and has been a longstanding member of the American Academy of Religion and the Catholic Theological Society of America, where she has served in various steering committees and consultations.

Course Title: Being Luminously Dark: Exploring Latinidad in Philosophical Theologies

Course Description: This class delves into philosophical, Latin American, and Latinx theologies that contemplate on the boundary line (“/”) between darkness and luminosity and that serve as alternatives to Western metaphysical constructs that set the basis for invisibility or negation of personhood (being not human enough). Students will learn about the development of symbolic language which impact on interiority or the soul has resulted in what is known as the colonial wound or the subjugation of cultural, ethno-racial, gender, and religious differences. We will also discuss acts such as protest, lament, and defiance as potential components in the cultivation of personhood. The purpose is to expose the effects of coloniality and to study spiritualities of luminous darkness that aid in the processes of dwelling in-between spaces of sharp oppositions such as nonperson/darkness and true-person/light and of becoming authentically visible through the nodal points that the boundary line creates. The biographies of and diagrams, paintings, diaries, and theatrical pieces created by or based on several figures–mostly religious women–in history or legend will serve as the philosophical and theological starting points in our class discussions.

Subject: Theological Studies

Professor Name: Dr. Robert Rivera

Professor Title: Associate Professor of Theology

Professor Institution: St. John’s University

Bio: Dr. Robert J. Rivera is Associate Professor of Theology at St. John’s University, NY. He earned his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston College. Dr. Rivera’s research and teaching interests focus on Latina/o/x and Latin American theologies, Theology and Social Theories, and contemporary Christologies. He is currently completing a book length manuscript that develops a Christology of liberation in the context of globalization and exclusion for the T&T Clark Studies in Edward Schillebeeckx Series. He is also working on a project tentatively titled, “Teologia en La Brega: Theological Reflections on Debt, Disaster, and Diaspora.” With Michele Saracino, he co-edited the book, Enfleshing Theology: Embodiment, Discipleship, and Politics in the Work of M. Shawn Copeland, Lanham, MD: Lexington/Fortess Academic, 2018. A Nuyorican (New York born Puerto Rican), Dr. Rivera and his partner have three sons, and they enjoy road trips, sports, movies and ice cream.

Course Title: Liberation Theologies in the U.S.

Course Description: This course is an interdisciplinary and intersectional examination of liberation theologies in the context of the United States. Analyzing the emergence and development of liberation theologies in the United States, this course focuses on methods, socio-political contexts, and key themes and figures in U.S. liberation theologies.

Eligibility 

• Masters or Ph.D. Level Student at an Accredited Institution
• Preference given to Students from HSP Sponsoring Schools 

Application Dates

• Applications open November 15th, 2025
• Close February 15th, 2025