Caleb P.S. Finegan, a faculty member in the History Department and director of the Center for Civic Engagement and Student Leadership, is one of seventy-five scholars worldwide invited to participate in the inaugural Pilgrimage Studies Workshop.
The event will be held in Washington, D.C., in February. The workshop will begin with film stars Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen hosting a screening of their new movie, the Way, a fictional account of one man's journey on the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James). The movie was filmed entirely in Spain and France along the pilgrimage's actual historic route from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Scholars attending the workshop are seeking to create a consortium of more than thirty American and Canadian universities that will offer summer seminars in Pilgrimage Studies in Spain starting in 2012.
According to Finegan, IUP will play an important role in the creation of this consortium and the summer seminars.
“I have been working with a group of dedicated professors over the years to help broaden the scope of the Pilgrimage to Santiago, and I am honored to represent IUP and our students at this prestigious and groundbreaking workshop.”
Finegan will be leading a course this summer titled “The Road to Santiago: A Medieval Pilgrimage across Northern Spain.” The course is designed to unite “the academic, artistic, spiritual, and physical realms of life by focusing on and participating in one of the most traditional and perennial activities of human beings: pilgrimage,” Finegan said.
In addition to seven days of study in Madrid, students will take a five-week, five-hundred-mile hiking journey across northern Spain along the ancient Camino Francés to the city of Santiago de Compostela, located in the province of Galicia in northwest Spain.