On May 20-23, Senior Member Neal DeRoo, PhD candidate Mark Standish, and alumnus Theoren Tolsma will all be presenting at the joint Annual Conference of The Society of Phenomenology and the Human Sciences (SPHS) and The Interdisciplinary Coalition of North American Phenomenologists (ICNAP) at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA.
The theme of the conference is “Phenomenology at the Borders,” and the title of Neal's paper is: Stiftungen and the Border Between Phenomenology and Politics. The title of Mark's presentation is: A Hollow Definition?: Investigating the Borders of Definition with Lugones, Merleau-Ponty, and Balibar. Theoren's paper is titled: ‘Natural’ Generativity in Merleau-Ponty’s Conception of Radical Reflection.
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be an ICS student? Know someone who could flourish in the ICS community?
During the months of February and March, we’re opening up certain class sessions of our winter courses to any interested visitors who'd like a chance to see what an ICS course is like. We'll also be hosting an Open House for anyone who wants to find out more about our MA-EL program. All of these events will take place online and can be joined from wherever you are.
Anyone interested in attending these events can RSVP to Elizabet Aras at academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. And please help us out by sharing this information far and wide as it's a great opportunity for future Junior Members to see if ICS might be the place for them.
The dates and times for each session are listed below:
OPEN HOUSE:
MA-EL Program Open House February 15 @ 4:15pm EST
OPEN CLASSES:
Nothing Can Separate Us...!: The Dialectical Materialism of Slavoj Žižek February 8, 6:00-9:00pm EST
Spiritual Exercise as Christian Philosophy from Augustine to Bonaventure February 16, 6:00-9:00pm EST
Religion, Life, and Society: Reformational Philosophy February 28, 10:00am-1:00pm EST
Finding Joy in Learning March 2, 5:00-8:00pm EST
Faith, Freedom, and the Meaning of Politics: Liberalism and Its Discontents March 14, 6:00-9:00pm EST
How to Coach a Strong Team: Leading People, Building Institutional Capacity, and Securing Accountability March 30, 4:15-7:15pm EST
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be an ICS student? Know someone who’s curious about ICS?
During the months of November and December, we’re opening up sessions in several of our fall classes to any interested visitors who'd like a chance to see what an ICS course is like. We'll also be hosting an Open House for anyone who wants to find out more about our MA and PhD programs of study. All of these events will take place online and can be joined from wherever you are.
Anyone interested in attending these events can RSVP to Elizabet Aras at academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. The dates and times for each session are listed below:
OPEN HOUSE:
MA & PhD Program Open House - November 16 @ 6pm EST
OPEN CLASSES:
Imagining the World with Ricoeur - November 2, 10am-1pm EST
Biblical Foundations - November 8, 4:15-7:15pm EST
Grace as an Aesthetic Concept - November 17, 10am-1pm EST
Craft of Reflective Practice - November 24, 4:15-7:15pm EST
Transformative Teaching - December 1, 5-7:30pm EST
On the evening of Friday, June 3, the ICS community gathered to celebrate the Convocation of our Junior Members for the first time since 2019. We also had the opportunity to grant Dr. Barbara Carvill the degree Doctor of Letters (honoris causa).
Dr. Carvill delivered this year's Convocation Address, expounding upon the deep, ethical importance of Christian education to enriching the “how” of teaching and learning to those gathered in person and through our livestream. In her address, Dr. Carvill took us on a journey through the pedagogical work of Clarence Joldersma and David Smith and their contributions to distinctly Christian education, and into an imaginative exposition of a 15th-century vision for how to lead a godly life in our work, study, and community.
After this address there followed a litany of joyful and heartfelt celebrations of the successfully completed projects of our Junior Members over the past two years. Project topics ranged from improving Bible education and classroom dynamics in K-12 schools, to an investigation into a contemporary spirit of malaise; from an honest inquiry into some of the unintended but baked-in destructive characteristics of Christianity, to a Biblical exposition of the difficult question of redemptive violence; from a consideration of Indigenous ecologies on philosophies of education, to textual studies of figures like Heidegger, Irigaray, Seerveld, Goudzwaard, Aquinas, Ricoeur, and Kierkegaard. The array of work put forward by our Junior Members is inspiring, both deeply and honestly grappling with a host of today's difficult and pressing questions.
Congratulations to our Graduates!
Karin Boonstra (MA, 2022)
Grace Carhart (MA, 2022)
David Grills (MA, 2022)
Abbigail Hofstede (MA, 2022)
Theoren Tolsma (MA, 2022)
Fred VanderBerg (MA, 2022)
Danielle Yett (MA, 2020)
Jon Andreas (ICS PhD, 2021)
Benjamin Shank (ICS PhD, 2021)
Shane Cudney (ICS/VUA PhD, 2021)
Dean Dettloff (ICS/VUA PhD, 2021)
Josh Harris (ICS/VUA PhD, 2020)
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A video of the full ceremony, including Convocation Address, may be watched below and on ICS's Youtube Channel.
Two Junior Members who will be starting their ICS studies in the fall are looking for housing opportunities in Toronto before the start of the fall semester. One is named Robert Woods and the other is Traver Carlson.
Robert is looking for a location that is not too far from public transport (i,e,. the subway) and can be contacted at robertwoods548@gmail.com.
Traver aims to move to Toronto in the first week of August and is looking for somewhere with parking and some means of preparing food (shared kitchen, kitchenette, space for electric induction tops, etc.). Access to laundry would be nice but it's not a deal-breaker. He is also fine with roommates and sharing space. Traver can be contacted at tcarlson@icscanada.edu.
If you or anyone you know has available Toronto housing opportunities for these new JMs, please don’t hesitate to email them directly with any leads.
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be an ICS student? Know someone who’s curious about ICS? During the months of March and April, we’ll be opening up several of our classes to any interested visitors who'd like a chance to see what an ICS course is like. Online open class sessions are taking place on the following dates (all times listed are EST):
March 10, 10am-1pm: IDS: Colonization, Racial Identity, and What it Means to be Human (Ron Kuipers) - The Americas have yet to work through the damaging legacy of European colonization, and the deleterious consequences of the European colonizers’ attempt to dominate or eliminate the different cultural groups with whom they came into contact. This seminar will attempt to confront this legacy by listening to some of the voices that colonizers had sought to silence, particularly prominent Black, Indigenous, and Latin American thinkers as they engage Western thought on the question of what it means to be human.
March 15, 2pm-5pm: Reformational Philosophy (Bob Sweetman) - Explore central issues in philosophy through the lens of Herman Dooyeweerd, Dirk Vollenhoven, and the “Amsterdam School” of neoCalvinian thought. In this foundational ICS course with Bob Sweetman, you'll test the relevance of the reformational philosophical tradition for recent developments in Western philosophy and attend to critiques of foundationalism, metaphysics, and modernity.
March 24, 4pm-7pm: Deeper Learning (Edith van der Boom) - In this course for instructional leaders, explore learning as a journey from wonder to inquiry to practice. Edith van der Boom helps Christian educators develop Deeper Learning within the context of a celebration of the learner, a mindfulness towards learning design, and a responsiveness to culture.
March 31, 2pm-5pm: Individuality in the Franciscan Thought of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham (Bob Sweetman) - Examine the thought of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham in relation to the doctrine of “individuality” in this seminar with Bob Sweetman. Against the backdrop of Franciscan spirituality and Aristotelianism, this course will closely consider philosophical accounts of our daily experience of both universality in the world (the fact that creatures come to us in kinds) and individuality (the fact that it is individual creatures that come to us in kinds).
April 7, 4pm-7pm: How to Govern a School: Board Governance, Decision-Making, and Community-Engagement (Gideon Strauss) - Designed for new and aspiring principals, school leadership teams, and school boards; this new course, taught by Gideon Strauss, provides frameworks and tools for leadership in educational governance. Learn about the work of nurturing relationships among school stakeholders, with a focus on the pivotal relationship between the board and school leadership.
ICS graduate Shane Cudney, who successfully defended his joint ICS / Vrije Universiteit PhD dissertation in January 2021, has published this dissertation as a book with Pickwick Publications (an imprint of Wipf & Stock). The book is titled: Where the Truth Lies: Pseudonymity, Complicity, and Critique in Fear and Trembling.
Johannes de Silentio, the pseudonymous author of Fear and Trembling, concludes that faith is "absurd" (irrational), and therefore lies beyond the scope of reason. But if we ascribe authorship ultimately to Kierkegaard, as is common practice, we must conclude that he himself is an irrationalist. Given the myriad of competing voices throughout Kierkegaard's writings, this seems highly questionable at best.If, however, we take the pseudonymous author strictly at his authorial word, it changes the shape and dynamic of the text inviting us to read it, instead, as a "thought experiment." In this way, the text demonstrates both the absurdity and sin of reason in its bid to fully grasp the mystery of faith on its own rational terms.
In the most recent Prayer Letter we mentioned the passing of Phil Travis, a former student at ICS. We have since received details for his virtual memorial service. The service will be held online via Zoom on Saturday, February 13th, at 2pm (EST). You can join the meeting with the following information: Meeting ID (848 9782 6742) and Password (105 746). If you'd prefer to join by phone, you can call this phone number (312-626-6799) and join using the same Meeting ID and password.
You can also find Phil's obituary here: https://www.gatheringus.com/memorial/philip-william-travis/6560. You are welcome to offer your support and condolences at this site. And please continue to pray with us for Phil's friends and family in this difficult time, especially for Phil's wife Shauna and their daughters Montana, Georgia, and Virginia.
This means that classes for the winter term will now begin on Monday, January 11, 2021. For regular 13-week synchronous courses, final assignment deadlines will also be extended by one week. The dates for Reading Week remain the same (February 15-19, 2021). The Academic Calendar has been updated to reflect these changes, and a list of Winter 2021 courses is available here.
Below is a brief note from President Ronald A. Kuipers about this schedule change:
To quote President Gertler of the University of Toronto, these decisions are “prompted by the fact that we’ve all been under an extraordinary amount of stress for months now, because of the burdens imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.... [W]e care deeply about the wellness of each and every one of you. We want to make sure that you’re able to rest and recharge, and to make the most of the upcoming holiday break.”
Let me echo President Gertler's comments, and offer my own words of encouragement to the ICS community. The global pandemic has thrown many challenges our way, and has dramatically changed our daily working and studying routines. I deeply appreciate the efforts everyone has made to maintain community in the midst of our relative isolation. Let's continue to support, pray for, and reach out to each other. If you are struggling, please let us know, so that we can find ways to care for you or address any concerns that you have. Let us continue to bless each other as we have since this all began.
I wish you all God's strength and peace as we continue on this strange journey,
Ron
Please reach out to Elizabet, course leaders, or our Senior Members if you have any questions or concerns.
Junior Member and PhD candidate Dean Dettloff recently published an article entitled "Žižek’s Ruptured Monism: A Comparative Typological Reading of Less Than Nothing." The article considers whether D.H.Th. Vollenhoven's problem-historical "types" might illuminate the thought of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek—particularly by enabling the recognition of what Dean calls a "ruptured monism" at play in his work.
This article stems from Dean's participation in ICS's Winter 2016 Interdisciplinary Seminar, "IDS: Problem-Historical Approaches to Philosophy, Theology, and Art History," which considered the continuing relevance of Vollenhoven's methods for contemporary thought. The article appears in a 2018 issue of the journal Philosophia Reformata (vol. 83, issue 2).
"Sharing the beauty and mystery of art with others has always brought me tremendous pleasure and satisfaction. During the course of my life, I have loved looking at art, making art, displaying art, teaching art; as well as writing about it. In my experience, art connects with every aspect of life: spirituality, nature, people, places, and objects. There is virtually no end to what art can do to enrich and to enhance life. Art has felt like a religious calling or 'vocation' for me. And I believe that art is not meant to be greedily hoarded only for one’s own personal pleasure or monetary gain as a commodity. Rather, it is to be shared with others in this world which God has made and has so freely and graciously given to us. We have been made in the Divine Creator’s image. There is a natural rhythm built into our nature; to give and to take; to make and to share."
- excerpt from Ann Post's project reflection
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In the fall of 2018, recent ICS graduate Ann Post (MWS, 2019) put on her first solo exhibition of still life, landscape, and floral paintings in Mount Vernon, New York. This exhibition was hosted in the gallery of the Mount Vernon Library and was a great success. The exhibition was the culmination of work that Ann began earlier in 2018, and continued to work on during the summer while attending ICS's ART in Orvieto program with Rebekah Smick in Orvieto, Italy.
Her time spent in the Artists' Workshop in Orvieto gave her the time and space to focus her artistic efforts on creating a series of still life paintings inspired by the aesthetics writings of Calvin Seerveld—specifically, a chapter in his Rainbows for the Fallen World (1980) with which her exhibition shares its title: "Glory to God in the Kitchen."
As part of her final project for her MWS degree, Ann described the intersection of reflection and practice made apparent to her through the process of creating her exhibition. She highlighted these influences and put careful consideration into the craft of developing this particular art exhibition with special attention to the audience, the space and logistics, the various interactions of the individual pieces, and the overall desired outcome of displaying her work for others. All these various aspects of her project came together to solidify her desire to make her own experiences of the "gift" of art available to others in her community—to bring it into contact with people in the midst of living their everyday lives.
ICS is grateful for the time Ann has spent studying and exploring her artistic vocation with us, and we eagerly look forward to keeping an eye out for her future work!
Want to study subjects such as feminist theology and the religious left? Contact Elizabet Aras, Academic Registrar, to register for ICS courses. You can find course descriptions for Winter 2019 courses here. Scroll down on this page to view the course schedule.
This year's Parliament of the World's Religions is happening in Toronto November 1-7, 2018. The event is one of the largest interfaith gatherings in the world featuring numerous presentations, panels, workshops, training, worship opportunities, and celebrations.
ICS Junior Member Héctor Acero Ferrer is participating in the week's events as a featured speaker of multiple panels:
Face to Face: Building Relationship and Understanding through Conversation (Panel and Workshop). This panel will deal with the realities of interfaith and intercultural dialogue among youth and young adults.
Navigating the New Religious Pluralism in Canada: The Growth of the Canadian Interfaith Conversation(Panel). This panel will consider ways in which the Canadian Interfaith Conversation is strengthening Canadians' notions of pluralism in practice.
In his role as Associate Director of the CPRSE, Héctor is also participating in a panel led by the Canadian Interfaith Conversation called Faith and Interfaith Engagement in Toronto. This session will look at interfaith engagement in Toronto and will explore questions like the following:
Assets: What initiatives are faith communities and others currently undertaking and what impact are these efforts having?
Liabilities: What is not being done and where are the biggest omissions?
Future: How do youth respond to interfaith and what might this mean for the future of faith engagement in Toronto?
The Parliament is an unprecedented opportunity to interact with various local and global religious communities, and a fantastic opportunity for Héctor to gain further engagement with his research. We are very excited that he has this opportunity.
If you are in Toronto and able to attend, tickets to the Parliament are still available at parliamentofreligions.org, and Héctor's panels will occur during November 2-4. If you're unable to attend, please pray for a fruitful time of discussion and interactions for Héctor and for the religious communities involved in the Parliament.
This May, ICS and The King's University will take an historic step in acting on their affiliation!
Both institutions will be offering their first joint course available to be taken for credit by both graduate and undergraduate students. ICS President and Senior Member Ronald A. Kuipers and King's professor of philosophy and ICS alumnus Jeffrey Dudiak will co-lead the seminar and workshop, which will occur on-site in Toronto over the course of the week of May 23-31, 2019.
The course is titled "To the Unknown God": Paul and Some Philosophers, and will consist of two parts: participation in this year's ICS Undergraduate Workshop—a presentation-based workshop driven by close interaction with contributing students' research—and a week-long intensive seminar. Students have the option of either applying to the workshop apart from participation in the seminar, or enrolling in the seminar, which includes participation in the workshop.
The workshop will allow undergraduate and graduate students to experience firsthand the kind of deep and careful attention to their ideas that is characteristic of both an ICS and King's approach to education. The intensive seminar around the current use of the thought of Paul in the realm of social and political philosophy will, in turn, allow them to engage deeply with current trends in the field and to make live connections to their own work, interests, and concerns.
We eagerly anticipate making this joint opportunity a reality for both institutions in the coming months. If you or anyone you know would be interested in participating in the seminar, the workshop, or both, please contact our Registrar at academic-registrar@icscanada.edu.
The Institute for Christian Studies in cooperation with the John Mary Fraser Centre for Practical Theology at Regis College is currently soliciting proposals for a three-day undergraduate workshop on the theme of Storytelling. Questions we hope to consider include but are not limited to the following:
How do stories create and disrupt meaning for human life?
Whose stories organize contemporary life, and whose stories go unheard?
Do different media (film, novels, paintings, children’s books) tell stories differently? Does digital media change the narrativity of our lives?
What do stories have to do with the sciences?
Are biblical, theological, or traditional stories malleable?
Does the postmodern “suspicion toward metanarratives” mean an end for big stories?
What stories construct social categories like race, gender, and class?
Selected participants will have the opportunity to present their own work before peers and receive feedback from ICS faculty and graduate students, making connections and “learning the ropes” of the scholarly enterprise at the graduate or professional level. The workshop is a great opportunity for outstanding undergraduate students who might be interested in deepening existing lines of research and pursuing new ones with guidance from budding and established scholars in disciplines such as philosophy, theology, religious studies, etc.
The call for papers deadline is April 6, 2018. For more information, click on the following links:
In Critical Faith, ICS's new podcast, we will hear from researchers, activists, educators, students, and more as we try to think through what makes faith such a crucial component of so many of our lives. Along the way, we will also let ourselves be troubled by some hard questions about our own traditions, spiritualities, and communities.
In our inaugural episode, Neal DeRoo presents his paper, "Toward a Material Spirituality: Religion and Phenomenological Expression." The recording is the first of three parts, all from a Scripture, Faith, and Scholarship Seminar hosted at ICS last September. Neal DeRoo is Canada Research Chair in Phenomenology and Philosophy of Religion and Associate Professor of Philosophy at The King's University in Edmonton, Alberta, and the author of Futurity in Phenomenology: Promise and Method in Husserl, Levinas, and Derrida (Fordham: 2013).
It is my great pleasure to announce the appointment of Hector Acero-Ferrer to the position of Associate Director of the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at ICS. Hector will be working for the CPRSE two days per week (.4 FTE) starting September 1, 2017, on a 10-month contract that will last until the end of the current fiscal year (June 30, 2017). This appointment, based on the recommendation of ICS' Leadership Team, has also been approved by ICS' Board of Directors.
This appointment is necessary in order to maintain ongoing CPRSE projects and also to pursue new ones, while at the same time allowing me to focus on my new duties as Provost of ICS. Among other benefits, this appointment will allow the CPRSE to revamp and resubmit an application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for a 2-year Partnership Development Grant project that proposes to explore social justice concerns about current modes of mental healthcare delivery in Canada (in partnership with Shalem Mental Health Network and the Centre for Community Based Research, among others). Maintaining a robust track record with SSHRC is important for many reasons, not the least of which is the extra funds we receive, based on that track record, from SSHRC's Research Support Fund. (Over the last three years, ICS has received more than $140,000 from this fund, an amount over and above the grant monies received).
The Leadership Team is very excited to have Hector take on this role, as he has ably and enthusiastically served the CPRSE as a Research Assistant for the last 4 years. Hector is intimately familiar with all CPRSE research projects, and also has close professional relationships with many of the project partners. This past year, especially, Hector has gone above and beyond the call of duty in order to ensure that the CPRSE meets its partnership commitment to the Faith and Settlement Partnerships research project (a two-year SSHRC-funded partnership project led by the CCBR). Hector has also been a valuable contributor to ICS' advancement efforts, including helping with the production of Perspective. In his role as Associate Director, Hector will help ensure that the work of the CPRSE continues to contribute to ICS' advancement agenda by maintaining the momentum the CPRSE has gained over the last several years, thus helping it continue to raise ICS' profile amidst our support community and the wider public.
So please join me in welcoming Hector into this role, and in offering your prayers and support, so that the many gifts he brings to the work of the CPRSE may bless and sustain ICS as it pursues its historic mission in Christian higher education, and continues to strive toward a vibrant, thriving future.
Junior Member Mark Novak will be very busy presenting papers this spring!
On April 20 he will be presenting a paper titled "Metaxologizing Our God-Talk: Desmond, Kearney, and the Divine Between" at the Symposium on work of William Desmond at KU Leuven (Belgium).
On May 13 he will present a paper titled "Eschatological Erotic Enfleshment: Incarnation as Nuptial Nexus of Human and Divine"at the Graduate Conference on "Unravelling Religion" at Queens University (Kingston).
On May 30, he will present a paper titled: “‘Yes, yes’ with/out ‘No, no’: Understanding (apparent) Equivocation in Derrida” at the Canadian Theological Society annual meeting at Ryerson University (Toronto).
Senior Member Bob Sweetman will be presenting his paper "The Pastoral Uses and Limits of Mimesis: The Case of the Vita Lutgardis of Thomas of Cantimpré" on April 6 at The Medieval Academy of America's Annual Conference held this year at the University of Toronto.
Junior Member Joshua Lee Harris will be presenting his paper “Transcendentals in Medieval Philosophy: Worthless or Crucial?” at this conference on April 8.
The Institute for Christian Studies in cooperation with Scarboro Missions is currently soliciting proposals for a four-day undergraduate workshop on the theme of Creation.
Questions we hope to consider include but are not limited to the following:
What is creation? What is implied in a relationship between creation and its creator?
How is creativity related to rationality or intelligence? In what sense, if any, is creativity a distinctively human phenomenon?
Do great works of art owe themselves to something like the “creative genius” of their creator? What is a properly artistic creation, if there is such a thing?
In what ways can traditional and/or contemporary creative enterprises serve as “common ground” for constructive dialogue and mutual recognition amongst diverse people groups?
Do human beings have an ethical obligation to be creative? Are there moral dangers associated with creativity?
Selected participants will have the opportunity to present their own work before peers and receive feedback from ICS Junior and Senior Members, making connections and “learning the ropes” of the scholarly enterprise at the graduate or professional level. The workshop is a great opportunity for outstanding undergraduate students who might be interested in deepening existing lines of research and pursuing new ones with guidance from budding and established scholars in disciplines such as philosophy, theology, religious studies, etc.
The workshop will be held May 16-19 and the call for papers deadline is February 1, 2017. Please follow the link below for further details.
