Research Catalog

Title

Fifty years of religious studies in Canada : a personal retrospective / Harold Coward.

Author

Coward, Harold G.

Publication

• Waterloo, Ontario, Canada : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, [2014]
• ©2014

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xi, 225 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

In Canadian universities in the early 1960s, no courses were offered on Hinduism, Buddhism, or Islam. Only the study of Christianity was available, usually in a theology program in a church college or seminary. Today almost every university in North America has a religious studies department that offers courses on Western and Eastern religions as well as religion in general. Harold Coward addresses this change in this memoir of his forty-five-year career in the development of religious studies as a new academic field in Canada. He also addresses the shift from theology classes in seminaries to non-sectarian religious studies faculties of arts and humanities; the birth and growth of departments across Canada from the 1960s to the present; the contribution of McMaster University to religious studies in Canada and Coward's Ph.D. experience there; the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria; and the future of religious studies as a truly interdisciplinary enterprise. Coward's retrospective, while not a history as such, documents information from his varied experience and wide network of colleagues that is essential for a future formal history of the discipline. His story is both personally engaging and richly informative about the development of the field. -- Provided by publisher.

Series Statement

Editions SR ; 36

Uniform Title

• Project Muse UPCC books
• Editions SR ; v. 36.

Subject

• 1900 - 1999
• Religion > History > Canada > 20th century
• Theology > History > Canada > 20th century
• Universities and colleges > History > Canada > 20th century
• Religion > Histoire > Canada > 20e siècle
• Théologie > Histoire > Canada > 20e siècle
• Religion > Study and teaching (Higher)
• Theology > Study and teaching (Higher)
• Universities and colleges > Curricula
• Canada

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Additional Formats (note)

• Issued also in electronic format.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Preface -- Early Days: From theology in seminaries to non-sectarian religious studies -- The Golden Decade 1966-1976 -- McMaster Days / My personal experiences of McMaster in early 1970s -- McMaster's contribution to religious studies in Canada -- Growing into maturity: Development of religous studies departments from the late 1970s to the present -- The Centre for Studies in Religioun and society at the University of Victoria -- Taking seriously our interdisciplinary heritage: The future of religious studies -- Conclusion.

ISBN

• 9781771121156 (bound)
• 1771121157 (bound)
• 9781771121163 (pbk.)
• 1771121165 (pbk.)
• 9781771121033 (canceled/invalid)
• 1771121033 (canceled/invalid)
• 9781771121040 (canceled/invalid)
• 1771121041 (canceled/invalid)

OCLC

882190623

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library