Stfx Religious Studies

Religious Studies has room for you! This fall: Death and Dying in World Religions with our very newest Religious Studies colleague, Dr. Rebekka King!

📚Looking for a meaningful course? RELS 230: Death & Dying is still accepting students. Join the Religious Studies department's newest faculty member to dive into a comparative examination of social and ritual practices, religious beliefs, and emotional responses surrounding death in various cultural contexts. Explore diverse perspectives on death, the concept of a good death, funeral traditions, and the afterlife. Gain a deeper understanding of death’s significance in different cultures and traditions, and its personal significance for you.

See all our 2026-27 RELS courses here: https://www.stfx.ca/department/religious-studies/courses
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📚Religious Studies has room for you! This fall only: RELS 397 - Pilgrimage with Dr. Anderson!

📚RELS 397: Special Topic for 2026-2027 is Pilgrimage. Matthew Anderson is a pilgrimage scholar, pilgrimage filmmaker, pilgrimage podcaster, and pilgrimage author, not to mention a pilgrim himself who has walked and led walkers on ancient paths in Iceland, Norway, Spain, UK, and Ireland, and even helped make some new ones in Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. This may be your only chance to take Pilgrimage Studies with him at StFX. Explore the history, theory, practice, and material culture of pilgrimage, critically examining journey, “space versus place,” and religious tourism, and surveying transformational spiritual travel as it has operated throughout history and across major religions. An emphasis of the class is on the local: especially the interplay of identity and land within Canada’s settler-colonial context.

Check out Pilgrimage and other 2026-27 RS courses here: https://www.stfx.ca/department/religious-studies/courses
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📚Religious Studies has room for you! This fall: Introductory Greek with Dr. Ken Penner!

📚You've seen Nolan's Odyssey. You've seen all the hot takes about whether it does a good job of capturing Homer's collection of tales. Or maybe you've been to church. You've heard all the hot takes on what Jesus really taught. Imagine skipping the takes and reading the OG yourself. It starts here, with RELS 113.

Let Dr. Ken Penner be your gateway to ancient Greek with RELS 113 this fall. And, if you dare, with RELS 114 in the Winter.

Cross-listed as CLAS 121.
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StFX Religious Studies has room for you! This fall: Religion and the Environmental Crisis with Dr. Matthew Anderson.

📚RELS 221: Religion and the Environmental Crisis addresses one of the biggest challenges Gen Z faces. Join Dr. Matthew Anderson and special community guests to explore how religious and spiritual traditions down through time and right now in Antigonish conceive of the relationship between humans and the other beings with whom we share the planet. Consider how and whether various religion are a cause of the current climate crisis, or part of the solution -- or both.

Check out all of the 2026-27 RELS courses here: https://www.stfx.ca/department/religious-studies/courses

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StFX Religious Studies has room for you! This fall: Indigenous Spiritualities with Dr. Marc Lagace!

📚This fall, we are fortunate to have Dr. Marc Lagace teaching RELS 291: Special Topic - Indigenous Spiritualities. Explore some of the many spiritual traditions practiced by Indigenous peoples (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) across North America - aka Turtle Island.

Check out all of the 2026-27 RELS courses here: https://www.stfx.ca/department/religious-studies/courses

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StFX Religious Studies has room for you! This fall: Digital Methods for Ancient Manuscripts with Dr. Ken Penner!

📚RELS 398: Special Topic for 2026-2027 is Digital Methods for Ancient Manuscripts. A practical course on digital methods for processing historical documents. Skills covered include cataloguing, transcription, textual criticism, linguistic markup, translation, annotation, and presentation. Crosslisted as ENGL 398.

Check out Digital Methods and other 2026-27 courses here: https://www.stfx.ca/department/religious-studies/courses

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StFX Religious Studies has room for you! This fall: Religion, Violence, and Peace with Dr. Adel Hashemi!

📚Is religion violent? To answer this question from evidence, as opposed to sensationalism, take this course! Contrary to an old belief, in our time religion is increasingly being associated with violence rather than peace. Explore how, whether, and why this maps onto religious groups through history and today.

Check out the other fall Rel Studs courses here: https://www.stfx.ca/department/religious-studies/courses
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StFX Religious Studies has room for you! This fall: Fantastic Beasts in World Religions with Dr. Gerjan Altenburg!

📚Looking for a wild ride? RELS 222: Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them in World Religions is accepting new students. So much contemporary fantasy is actually recycled from ancient and medieval myths about beasts and monsters of various sorts. Explore the religious origins of the fantastic, and how it continues to resonate in our world!

Check out Beasts and other 2026-27 courses here: https://www.stfx.ca/department/religious-studies/courses

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📚StFX University Religious Studies has room for you! This fall: ARABIC CLASS!

📚Looking for a door-opening, brain-changing course? RELS 209: Arabic is accepting new students until Monday August 17th. Arabic is a modern language with ancient roots, a fascinating history, and a beautiful calligraphic tradition. Whether you find yourself travelling for business, tourism, and cultural exchange, or you just enjoy learning languages and cultures, Arabic is a great choice, and right here on your doorstep for Fall 2026!

Check out this and other 2026-27 courses are here: https://www.stfx.ca/department/religious-studies/courses
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Warm congratulations to StFX Religious Studies student Kate Peters for winning the 2026 award for excellence in second-year Religious Studies. The Dr. John M. Berridge Memorial Prize is for all-around outstanding performance across religious studies courses, including exceptional grades. This new prize was generously endowed by Dr. Robert Kennedy and Dr. Patricia Cormack, in honour of forward-thinking and beloved past member of the Religious Studies department, the late John Berridge. Kate is the prize's inaugural winner. Well done, Kate!

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