The Write Stuff: Publications from December 2021 through May 2022, including books, articles and blog pieces. Our faculty and students are publishing widely, with topics including the Bible’s role in the history of slavery, the war on drugs in Guatemala, and the entwined histories of science and religion – and podcasts are in the mix, too.
Books (most recent first)
April 2022 saw the publication of Professor Srilata Raman's The Transformation of Tamil Religion. Ramalinga Swamigal (1823-1874) and Modern, Dravidian Sainthood (Routledge South Asian Religion Series). The book analyses the religious ideology of this 19th-century Tamil reformer and saint and his posthumous reception, shedding light on the resulting transformation of the Tamil religion.
We celebrated the launch of incoming faculty member Jeremy Schipper's book, Denmark Vesey’s Bible: The Thwarted Revolt That Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial, a timely and provocative account of the Bible’s role in one of the most consequential episodes in the history of slavery.
Professor Simon Coleman has published two books in 2022. First up is Religion in Cathedrals: Pilgrimage, Place, Heritage and the Politics of Replication (Routledge), which focuses on cathedrals as sites of worship, pilgrimage, and governance, that "replicate” each other in relations of mirroring and competition. The second work is Powers of Pilgrimage: Religion in a World of Movement (NYU Press). It argues argues that we must question the universality of Western assumptions of what religion is and where it should be located, including the notion that “genuine” pilgrimage needs to be associated with discrete, formally recognized forms of religiosity. (And PhD candidate Kyle Byron did a great job on the bibliography!)
Bloomsbury's New Testament Guides series includes Professor John Kloppenborg's James, an accessible and student-friendly introduction to the text.
Professor Pamela Klassen co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Religion, Medicine, and Health. It is made up of student-friendly chapters on various controversies and issues related to religion and medicine. One of Pamela's co-editors was Justin B. Stein, a 2017 DSR PhD alumnus (now with Kwantlen Polytechnic University), and another Philipp Hetmanczyk, a former DSR postdoc now at the University of Zurich.
Postdoctoral Fellow Maxwell Kennel published Postsecular History: Political Theology and the Politics of Time (Springer Nature (formerly Palgrave Macmillan)). In each chapter he follows and challenges the idea that we are in a "postsecular" time where society has overcome or moved past secularity. We talked to Max about the book and his work on the powerful lines of influence between time, history, politics, religion, and secularity → Read the article here
Articles and Podcasts (alphabetical by author/lead)
PhD student Mohannad Abusarah hosted the Reading Muslims podcast episode "Islamic Thought between Two Eras," examining the work of Professor Junaid Quadri of University of Illinois, Chicago.
PhD candidate Sadaf Ahmed: "Time for a “Hijab Ban”? The Hypervisibility of Veiling in Scholarship on Islam in North America,” in Producing Islam(s) in Canada: Knowledge, Positionality, Politics (eds. Jennifer Selby, Amélie Barras, and Melanie Adrian), University of Toronto Press.
Professor Ronald Charles:
- “Reading Romans in Greek: Translating and Commenting on it in Haitian Creole,” in Bitter the Chastening Rod: Africana Biblical Interpretation after Stony the Road We Trod in the age of BLM, SayHerName, and MeToo, edited by Mitzi J. Smith (Rowman & Littlefield).
- “Reading John 4 from away,” in Reading Biblical Texts Together: Doing Minoritized Biblical Criticism, edited by Fernando Segovia and Benny Liew. Semeia Studies series of the SBL Press, 2022.
Professor Suleyman Dost's article, ""Once again on Noah’s lost son in the Qur’ān: the Enochic connection,” appeared in Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques, vol. 76, no. 4, 2022.
Professor Christoph Emmrich:
- “‘I Don't Want a Wife without Ear Cuffs’: Jewels, Gender, and the Market among the Newars of Nepal,” in Jewels, Jewelry, and Other Shiny Things in the Buddhist Imaginary, edited by Vanessa R. Sasson (University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 112-153).
- "Repetition. Pāli iterations of ritual commitment, commentarial refrain, and assiduous practice" in the Routledge Handbook of Theravāda Buddhism, edited by Stephen C. Berkwitz and Ashley Thompson.
The journal Historical Studies in Education published PhD candidate Eric Farr's article '“Were It Not for the Spirit of the Boys... There Would Have Been No Story”: Memory and Childhood in Residential School Narratives.'
The Many Faces of King Gesar: Tibetan and Central Asian Studies in Homage to Rolf A. Stein, published by Brill, includes contributions from Professor Frances Garrett and from her former student Matthew King (PhD, 2014), now associate professor at UC Riverside.
Also, podcast episodes created as part of Professor Garrett’s Buddhism and Healing course are published as part of the Buddhist Studies Footnotes series. including work by PhD student Thinley Gyatso and MA student Sumeet Kumar. Find these and more at the Footnotes podcasting listing.
PhD candidate Sara Hamed: "The Relational Approach to Integration in Canada: An Interview with Abdie Kazemipur,” in Producing Islam(s) in Canada: Knowledge, Positionality, Politics (eds. Jennifer Selby, Amélie Barras, and Melanie Adrian), University of Toronto Press.
Professor Alexander Hampton:
- "The Role of Plotinus in the Romantic Philosophy of Novalis: Transcending Spinoza and Fichte" was published in the International Journal of the Platonic Tradition.
- “Pandemic and the Nature-Alienated Self” appeared in a special issue of the journal Religions devoted to Justice, Ethics, and Philosophy of Religion.
- He was also co-editor of Christian Platonism: A History, a collection of 21 essays on Christianity’s long and varied engagement with the thought of Plato, and a review appeared in the journal Religion, penned by Keith Ward of Christ Church, Oxford.
Professor Pamela Klassen (with co-author PhD candidate Suzanne van Geuns): “Promiscuous Affiliation: Evangelical Women, Biblical Mediation and Digital Structures of Conversion,” in the peer-reviewed book Digital Humanities and Material Religion: An Introduction, edited by Emily Clark and Rachel McBride Lindsey, and published by de Gruyter.
PhD candidate Roxanne Korpan co-authored Big Oil in City Hall: Climate and Energy Politics in the Queen City (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives). The report is the first comprehensive look at the oil industry’s lobbying and advocacy campaign against Regina city council's proposed fossil fuel sponsorship ban—and is strong evidence for the many ways that the skills developed in a religion PhD can be put to good use!
A special edition of Islam in the City, “Islam in the (Post) Colony,” inspired by Professor Nada Moumtaz’s course on understanding Islamic identity and culture through a postcolonial lens, has been published by the Institute for Islamic Studies. This visually striking issue of the magazine can be seen here.
Professor Kevin O'Neill: “Moral failure: a jeremiad of the war on drugs in Guatemala,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol 28, Issue 1.
PhD candidate Christina Pasqua: a reflection on religion, gender, and presence in the 2021 horror film Saint Maud – “Saint Maud and the Terror of God’s Presence”, The Revealer: A Review of Religion & Media.
PhD candidate Rachelle Saruya: “Creating Demand and Creating Knowledge Communities: Myanmar/Burmese Buddhist Women, Monk Teachers, and the Shaping of Transnational Teachings,” Religions 13(2), 98.
PhD student Julie Sharff published a blog post, ‘Soviet Ambivalence and Yiddish Continuities at “Hidden in Plain Sight: Yiddish in the Socialist Bloc and its Transnationality,”’ on the website In Geveb: A Journal of Jewish Studies.
PhD candidate and Schwartz Reisman Institute Graduate Fellow Suzanne van Geuns published an op-ed that reflects on the entwined histories of science and religion, “What does it mean to consider religion when thinking about AI?” Suzanne also co-authored (with Professor Pamela Klassen) “Promiscuous Affiliation: Evangelical Women, Biblical Mediation and Digital Structures of Conversion,” in the peer-reviewed book Digital Humanities and Material Religion: An Introduction, edited by Emily Clark and Rachel McBride Lindsey, and published by de Gruyter.
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