Message from the Chair

 

Welcome to the Department of Religion. Established in 1958, we are the oldest religion department in Canada, and one of the oldest and largest in North America, with sixteen full-time faculty and nearly 100 graduate students. We offer a broad array of courses and seminars that cover all the major religious traditions of the world, and reflect our faculty's research strengths in multiple overlapping and interdisciplinary field areas.

Let me highlight a few exciting facts about our department:

• Since 2005, our faculty members have published over 30 books and edited volumes, and been awarded nearly 4.0 million dollars in external research grants.

• Two Religion professors have been nationally honoured as Killam Research Fellows: Charles Davis (1981) and Michel Despland (1991 and 1992). Michel Despland was also elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1997.

• Two Religion professors have been named to the Provost's Circle of Distinction: Michel Despland (2009) and Ira Robinson (2013).

• Religion professors have won three Dean's Awards since their institution in 2006: Lorenzo DiTommaso (New Scholar Award 2006), André Gagné (New Scholar Award 2010), and Carly Daniel-Hughes (Award for Teaching Excellence 2011). In 2010, Donald Boisvert won the Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching, while in 2012 Carly Daniel-Hughes won the President's Excellence in Teaching Award (New Teacher).

• Religion is home to two endowed Chairs: the Chair in Hindu Studies (the first endowed Chair at Concordia) and the Chair for Canadian Jewish Studies.

• Religion is home to or maintains close ties with many Concordia Institutes and Interdisciplinary Programs, including the Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies, the Azrieli Institute for Israel Studies, the Program for Southern Asia Studies, and the Centre for Iranian Studies

• Religion regularly hosts international conferences, most recently the 2009 meeting of the American Academy of Religion (with McGill and U. de Montréal), and the SSHRC-funded 2011 colloquium on History, Memory, and Jewish Identity. In 2014, we will co-host the Fifth Enoch Graduate Seminar with McGill, a biennial event previously held at Michigan, Princeton, Budapest, and Notre Dame, as well as the Tenth Annual International Society of Iranian Studies (ISIS) Conference, also with McGill.

• We have three superb graduate programs, two that lead to the M.A. degree, and one that leads to the Ph.D. Our large, research-oriented faculty is able to offer graduate supervision in full disciplinary depth and interdisciplinary breadth, supported by a world-class collection of libraries in Montréal. Our most recent addition is the Nag Hammadi Seminar.

I invite you to explore our website and discover more about us.

Lorenzo DiTommaso

Chair, Department of Religion