Department for the Study of Religion

Five faculty members have been honoured with School of Graduate Studies Supervision Awards in recognition of their outstanding and thoughtful supervision of graduate students.

Pamela Klassen, a professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department for the study of religion who is cross-appointed to the department of anthropology, and Angela Colantonio, a professor in the department of occupational science and occupational therapy at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine who is cross-appointed to the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, received JJ Berry Smith Doctoral Supervision Awards, which recognize excellence in supervision over a minimum 15-year period. Elizabeth Peter, a professor in the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, received an honourable mention.

Cillian O’Hogan, assistant professor in the department of medieval studies in the Faculty of Arts & Science, and Angela Mashford-Pringle, an assistant professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, received Early Career Supervision Awards, which recognize pre-tenure faculty members who have been supervising graduate students for up to six years.

Read about the School of Graduate Studies Supervision Awards

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Amira Mittermaier awarded Guggenheim Fellowship

lanthierj — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 19:31:52 +0000

Amira Mittermaier awarded Guggenheim Fellowship

Research & Innovation

lanthierj Mon, 04/12/2021 - 15:31

Faculty

St. George

Guggenheim Fellowship

Faculty of Arts & Science

Department for the Study of Religion

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Amira Mittermaier, a professor in the departments for the study of religion and the department of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the UUֱ�� has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Mittermaier’s work weaves textual analysis with ethnographic fieldwork. Her research focuses on modern Islam in Egypt.

“I’m thrilled and honored to have received a Guggenheim Fellowship,” Mittermaier said. “I look forward to getting started on my book about God and humans in Egypt today. My recent half-sabbatical was taken over by COVID-19 so I’m doubly grateful for this extra time coming my way.”

Mittermaier’s first book, Dreams that Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination, explores Muslim practices of dream interpretation, as they are inflected by Islamic reformism, Western psychology and mass mediation. Her more recent work, Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times, describes a religious ethics of giving in which believers engage with God by way of giving to the poor.

“The question of how theologies shape lives has stayed with me throughout my career,” she says. “Working with Egyptian interlocutors with whom I have established long-term relationships, I study and write about Islam as it unfolds in the midst of their everyday lives.”

Mittermaier describes her upcoming book as her most ambitious to date: an ethnographic study of God. In this work, she will apply her expertise in Islam and work with other scholars in the Abrahamic faiths.

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Kevin Lewis O'Neill awarded Guggenheim Fellowship

lanthierj — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 19:29:55 +0000

Kevin Lewis O'Neill awarded Guggenheim Fellowship

Research & Innovation

lanthierj Mon, 04/12/2021 - 15:29

Faculty

St. George

Guggenheim Fellowship

Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies

Faculty of Arts & Science

Department for the Study of Religion

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Kevin Lewis O'Neill, a professor in the department for the study of religion in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the UUֱ��, has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

The director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, O’Neill is a pioneering scholar on the subject of clerical sexual abuse, particularly as it transcends borders. He is currently writing two books. The first considers clerical sexual abuse in Latin America, with a focus on U.S. priests who moved – or were moved – to Central America to evade suspicion. The second is an ethnography of traffic in Guatemala City that realigns conversations about security, mobility, and infrastructure in Latin America.

“The Guggenheim Fellowship comes at exactly the right time for me: at a moment when I need some time to consider the conceptual and political intricacies of transnational clerical sexual abuse,” O'Neill says. “I’m very grateful to the Foundation.”

O’Neill’s examination of the moral dimensions of contemporary political practice in Latin America informs the trilogy he has already written on the politics of Pentecostalism in Guatemala. Each of these books explores the “waning viability of disciplinary institutions and how new strains of Christian piety have become recognizable modes of governance in Central America.”

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Four UUֱ�� professors named 2021 Guggenheim Fellows

lanthierj — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 19:29:00 +0000

Four UUֱ�� professors named 2021 Guggenheim Fellows

Research & Innovation

lanthierj Mon, 04/12/2021 - 15:29

Faculty

St. George

Guggenheim Fellowships

Faculty of Arts & Science

Department of Chemistry

Department for the Study of Religion

Department of Anthropology

Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies

Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies

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(L-R) Eugenia Kumacheva, Amira Mittermaier, Kevin Lewis O'Neill, Kamari Clarke

Four UUֱ�� scholars – Kamari Clarke, Eugenia Kumacheva, Amira Mittermaier and Kevin Lewis O'Neill – have been awarded prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships.

The Faculty of Arts & Science researchers are among 184 artists, writers, scholars and scientists selected through a rigorous peer-review process from almost 3,000 applicants this year.

“Congratulations to Professors Clarke, Kumacheva, Mittermaier and O’Neill on this prestigious honour,” said Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science. “We are thrilled that four members of our faculty are receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship. This is an incredible career achievement for a scholar, and it will allow them each to continue their important work in their respective areas of focus.”

The 2021 Guggenheim Fellows:

A distinguished professor at the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies and the Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies, Clarke conducts research on issues related to legal institutions, international legal domains, religious nationalism and the politics of globalization and race. Her books include Fictions of Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Challenge of Legal Pluralism in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Pamela Klassen receives award from Connaught Community Partnerships Research Program

lanthierj — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 15:44:32 +0000

Pamela Klassen receives award from Connaught Community Partnerships Research Program

Research & Innovation

lanthierj Thu, 10/01/2020 - 11:44

Faculty

St. George

Faculty of Arts & Science

Department for the Study of Religion

Connaught Community Research Partnerships Program

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(photo by Annie Heckman)

Professor Pamela Klassen of the Faculty of Arts & Science has received an award from the Connaught Community Partnerships Research Program for her project, Treaty Teachings: How Universities, Communities, and Museums Can Work Together to Tell the History of Treaty 3.

“I’m so grateful for the support of the Connaught Community Research Partnership Program, and want to give a shout out to Dr. Krista Barclay, my postdoctoral fellow, whose intellectual leadership and community engagement expertise is at the heart of this project,” said Klassen. “Building relationships beyond academia ensures that our research is accessible to broader audiences, but also that it is grounded in and responds to the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities who are invested in the work of being treaty people.

“We’re especially looking forward to the online teaching materials that will be developed during this project, which will be useful for students and museum visitors alike.

The new initiative builds on the Kiinawin Kawindomowin Story Nations website, a digital humanities project rooted in a long-term collaboration with Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre of the Rainy River First Nations, and will include small and large museums seeking to teach audiences about Treaty 3, an area west of Lake Superior that extends into Lake of the Woods.

“Professor Klassen’s Treaty Teachings project is a wonderful example of the exceptional work that can come to fruition through collaboration with Indigenous peoples and community Elders, fellow researchers, museum professionals and students,” said Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science.

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