The study of religions of the Americas and Turtle Island considers the multiple intersecting histories, politics, and cosmologies of Indigenous and settler colonial nations. The field focuses especially on the significance of religion and spirituality for the formation and narration of nations and communities, the politics of land and the body, and the framing of public memory. Faculty and students in this field study both historical and contemporary issues drawing on a variety of methods and theories, including those of Indigenous studies, anthropology, historical studies, media studies, visual and material culture studies, critical legal studies, and gender and sexuality studies. Current faculty strengths include Christianity, colonialism, and public memory in Canada and the US; Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg cosmologies, histories, and political theory; the reception of Biblical texts among Black communities of interpretation; and contemporary Christianity in Latin America.
Our program in Religions of the Americas and Turtle Island benefits from its close collaboration with U of T’s Centre for Indigenous Studies and Centre for the Study of the United States.
With research interests in the Religions of the Americas & Turtle Island