From June 2023 onwards, contributions to the academy and the community: faculty and student achievements including fellowships, grants, awards, fellowships and appointments.
September 2023
- We are proud to note that in July 2023, John Kloppenborg presided at the 72nd Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense, KU Leuven, July 18-20 2023. His presidential address was “Early Christianity in Civic Space.” The colloquium featured 38 invited papers in English, German, French, and Flemish, all treating civic aspects of the early Jesus movement. Presenters included scholars from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Romania, the UK, Canada, the US, Spain, Australia, and Austria.
- PhD candidate Janani Mandayam Comar was selected as a Critical Digital Humanities Initiative Graduate Fellow, with her project “Caste, Literature, and Reading Publics: A Print History of Nandanar’s Story in Colonial and Postcolonial Tamil Nadu.” supervised by Srilata Raman. Read all about it in this feature Q&A.
August 2023
- PhD alumnus Amin Mansouri (2022, supervisor Shafique Virani) was shortlisted for the British Association for Islamic Studies Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World, for his dissertation, “Azīz-i Nasafī (fl. 7th/13th c.), Hierarchies, and Islamic Cosmopolitanism.”
- Suleyman Dost has been awarded a Connaught New Researcher grant for his project “Materializing” Islamic Origins: Using Archaeology and Epigraphy for a Religious History of Arabia before Islam.”
- In an international collaboration, Walid Saleh co-organized and presented at “Bridging the Gap: Texts, Commentaries and the New Audience” held on July 27 at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
- Recent DSR PhD graduate and Assistant Professor of New Testament at Moravian Seminary Brigidda Bell was profiled by the Jackman Humanities Institute, in which she reflects on her graduate fellowship there and the role of the humanities in fostering the imagination of possibility.
June 2023
The DSR awards up to two DSR Equity & Justice Awards annually to undergraduate students who have contributed to the promotion of diversity, equity-oriented awareness, and social justice in relation to the DSR or the University more generally. One award relates to activities, and the other to production of work relating to themes of equity and diversity.
- Recipient of the Equity & Justice Award (Community Activity): Swamini Sagar. Swamini completed her second year of undergraduate studies in 2023 and is double majoring in Religion and Philosophy, with a minor in Writing & Rhetoric. She was nominated by Postdoctoral Fellow Michael Ium for her regular contributions to the Anti-Racism, Decolonization and Equity committee, which included co-organizing a book club with the Religion Undergraduate Student Association on Tibetan-Canadian author Tsering Yangzom Lama's We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies.
- Recipient of the Equity & Justice Award (Scholarship): Maria Vidal Valdespino. A 2023 graduating student, Maria completed a major in Critical Studies in Equity & Solidarity, and double-minored in Women & Gender Studies and Sociology. She was nominated by PhD candidate Allison Murphy for coursework submitted in RLG313H1F Love, Sex, Family in Fall 2022, which was a two-part exploration of gender and sexual dynamics in Mexican families.