Stfx Religious Studies

09/30/2026

09/29/2026

Can you spot the four conference presenters from StFX University in this group pic from ReSAC 2026 at Memorial U? (The Religious Studies in Atlantic Canada annual conference.)

09/27/2026

All's quiet in the StFX dept. of Religious Studies this weekend, as many of the gang are off to Newfoundland! This year's ReSAC (Religious Studies in Atlantic Canada) conference is at Memorial U. Demarquis Moss, Rebekka King, Gerjan Altenburg, and Ken Penner are all presenting their research!

09/25/2026

🍋 Happy Sukkot, to all who celebrate!

Learn more about Sukkot (the biblical Feast of Booths) from Dr. Mark Zvi Brettler at Bible Odyssey: https://www.bibleodyssey.org/articles/feast-of-booths-sukkot/

09/10/2026

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Hear that? It's a horn! Tooting congratulations to Dr. Matthew Anderson, of StFX University Religious Studies! This spring, Matthew organised a panel of historians of religion whose research informs their fiction. An astoundingly exciting result of the conversation is the launch of a new historical fiction series from Equinox Press! Panel participant Dr. Zeba Crook is the founding series editor.

Anderson's major Gatto Chair output will be a historical novel (a murder-mystery!) set in late antiquity, in the context of early Christian women patrons of ascetic movements. I guess we know he'll be pitching it to Equinox!

Enjoy the recording here: https://youtu.be/U_tqWnRjb8g?si=oIQPErkZ03aGzZjh

Sneak peek at the new fiction series here: https://www.equinoxpub.com/projects/historical-fiction

Participants were:

💥Dr Matthew Anderson, Gatto Chair in Christian Studies, StFX
💥Dr Zeba Crook, Professor of Religion, Carleton University College of the Humanities
💥Dr James McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature, Butler University
💥Dr Joan Taylor, Emerita Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism, King's College London, and Honorary Professor of biblical and Early Christian Studies at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry in Australian Catholic University Melbourne
💥Moderated by Dr Sara Parks, Associate Professor in Religious Studies (Early Christianity), StFX
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Stfx Faculty of Arts Communications St. Francis Xavier University English Department Angus L. Macdonald Library Matthew Anderson Equinox Publishing James McGrath Sara Parks King's College London Australian Catholic University (ACU) Butler University AcademFic

09/09/2026

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Toot! Toot! There we go tooting our own horn again, this time for StFX University Religious Studies' Dr. Sara Parks, who won The 2026 Norman E. Wagner Prize for innovative use of technology by a Canadian Biblical Studies scholar.

Dr. Parks won for her upcoming project "Q According to U." It will invite everyone to read the ancient text she works on, and share a selfie video of their response. The Wagner Prize is awarded by the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. Pictured are Sara Parks and chair Ken M. Penner (who had previously received the same award!) at the CSBS annual meeting at Mount Allison University in May.

Read about the project here: https://www.stfx.ca/news/Dr-Sara-Parks-Wagner-Award

and read Q here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/175wcA-i1GN_NXkv_L6Tb_8h1nCgWGJFwZdMnNTKiSEs/edit?usp=sharing
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Stfx Faculty of Arts Communications

09/08/2026

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Woohoo! StFX University Religious Studies chair Dr. Ken M. Penner was on fire this summer. Another of his many outputs was a conference presentation at the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies annual meeting in May at Mount Allison University.

Dr. Penner participated in a session on innovative pedagogies, where he reported on his collaborative student-authored textbook project, which he piloted in his "Social Activists Inspired by the Bible" course earlier in the year.
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Stfx Faculty of Arts Communications Canadian Society of Biblical Studies

09/06/2026

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Toot toot! That's us blowing a celebration horn for StFX University Religious Studies' Dr Gerjan Altenburg. Gerjan has a new article out in the June 2026 issue of the Journal of Buddhism, Law, & Society:

Altenburg, Gerjan. "Voyeurism at the Abbey: R v Jack Hillie III," Buddhism, Law, & Society 9, 1 (2026): 92-122.

Abstract: In this article, I consider the implications for Buddhist legal studies of a contemporary Canadian criminal case, in which a Buddhist monk installed a spy camera in the male washroom at an abbey in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. I place passages from the Mūlasarvāstivādavinaya into conversation with documents contained in the casefile from the Provincial Court, housed at the Port Hawkesbury Justice Centre, and courtroom audio. Essentially, this article is an experiment in comparative law: an exploration of the ways in which Buddhist monastic law (vinaya) may or may not help inform our understanding of a contemporary act of voyeurism in a Buddhist monastic setting, and vice versa.

Congratulations to Dr. Altenburg on the publication of this important work.
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Stfx Faculty of Arts Communications

09/05/2026

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Kudos to StFX University Religious Studies' profs Anderson and Sara Parks, on their conference presentations in NB this spring.

Drs Anderson and Parks attended the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies conference at Mount Allison in May to participate on the pedagogy panel: "Decolonizing and Indigenizing Biblical and Religious Studies" along with other local and international Indigenous and settler scholars.

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Stfx Faculty of Arts Communications

09/04/2026

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Congratulations to Dr. Matthew Anderson, Gatto Chair in Christian Studies, who presented a new resource this summer at Université Laval, Quebec, at the 13th Sacred Journeys International Conference.

Dr. Anderson shared prototypes of his "13 Pilgrims" conversation and self-reflections cards, based on his research in pilgrimage studies and his experience leading and walking contemporary pilgrimages.

Illustrations by Nova Scotia's Kate Phillips Art and Design were supported by a grant from the Eastern Synod of the Lutheran Church of Canada.

More info here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/matthew-r-anderson-85a893229_im-presenting-the-13-pilgrims-card-deck-activity-7497351545844334593-t0nh
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Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada StFX University Stfx Faculty of Arts Communications