The Department of Religious Studies is proud to announce Avery Santiago-Flores and Caleb Alcade as the first- and second-prize winners of the inaugural Mohini Jain Presidential Undergraduate Essay Competition. Both students are pursuing an undergraduate degree in History.
This year, students taking Professor Lynna Dhanani’s RST 31: Introduction to Jainism (WQ ’21) and RST 136: Images of Jain Devotion (SQ ’21) were asked to consider the important Jain notion of an-ekanta-vada--literally “non-one-sidededness,” also called the doctrine of multiple perspectives—as practical philosophy, after studying it within its Jain theological, philosophical, and social contexts.
Jain logic postulates that objects have infinite attributes, only a limited number of which are normally graspable by human beings, with the exception of enlightened Jinas. Anekantavada offers, among other things, a means to see “the larger picture” by taking different perspectives into account. Through this lens, students were asked to consider pressing political or environmental issues from multiple perspectives, or to convince others to understand a specific issue from a different point of view.
Our first-prize winner, Avery Santiago-Flores’s “Anekāntavāda in the Catholic Church: A Proposal for Vatican III,” and second-prize winner, Caleb Alcalde’s “Dakota Access Pipeline,” do just that. Santiago-Flores’s essay, written in RST 136: Images of Jain Devotion (SQ '21) calls for the opening of another Vatican council to address the major challenges facing the Catholic Church. He argues that taking into account the different marginalized voices within the Church would not only help to retain its adherents, but also form a renewed sense of Catholic identity. Alcalde’s essay, written in RST 31: Introduction to Jainism (WQ '21) assesses the arguments made for and against the building of the Dakota Access pipeline through the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota and points to the problems that arise when opposing parties refuse to acknowledge each other’s point of view.
In speaking about the prize, Avery Santiago-Flores says, "This course in Jainism taught me new ways of thinking about the world, especially the significance of iconography in culture and how to analyze culturally significant images. I hope that my experience with religious studies courses at Davis will help me to start a career as a teacher that is committed to empathy and multiculturalism. " Avery is pursuing an undergraduate degree in History and is planning a career in Education.
Both winners received a gift certificate and a citation in recognition of their achievement. The Mohini Jain Presidential Undergraduate Essay Competition is funded by the Mohini Jain Presidential Chair in Jain Studies.