From January 2025 onward. For the summary of entries from September to December 2024, see the 2024 December Roundup DSR Newsletter.
March 2025
On July 1, 2025, Jennifer Bright, DSR alumna (PhD 2017, supervised by Frances Garrett), will take up her appointment as the inaugural Wutai Shan Venerable Dayi Professor in Buddhist Spiritual Care at Victoria University's Emmanuel College, where she has been assistant professor of Buddhist spiritual care and counselling since 2023. She will also mentor students in the Master of Psychospiritual Studies program.
PhD 2024 alumna Amber Moore has been awarded a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship in Buddhist philosophy, in the Department of Philosophy here at the University of Toronto.
DSR alumna Mona Tokarek LaFosse has been appointed by Victoria and Emmanuel Colleges to the new position of Assistant Professor of New Testament and Sacred Literature Studies. Supervised by John Kloppenborg, she received her PhD in 2011. Her research focused on age, aging and intergenerational relationships in early Christian communities.
January 2025
Postdoctoral fellow Chris Miller is profiled in the JHI Circle of Fellows Spotlight feature for his work on green burial.
Congratulations to undergraduate student and Mediaeval Studies Specialist James Nowak, who won the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion Undergraduate Student Essay Prize, with “Regarding Creation: Praise, Visual Perception, and Double
Movement in John Scottus Eriugena’s Periphyseon,” a paper he wrote in Professor Alexander J.B. Hampton’s course. Our interview with James takes a look at his path to the study of religion as he reflects on the intellectual freedom he found in his classes. This is the second year running that a DSR student of Hampton’s has been awarded this prize – in 2023 it was Religion Specialist Audrey Miatello. We have an interview scheduled with James and in the near future will publish an article about his achievement and reflections on the experience of studying religion.
PhD student Poulami Das received the 2024 Canadian Friends of Sufi Arts, Culture, and Knowledge Research Award, for a project to share Sufi arts and culture with a broader audience, with a focus on the embodiment and material culture of shrines in Bengal.