Dr. Bruce Ward
- Ph.D and M.A. in Religious Studies, McMaster University
- B.A. in History and Philosophy, University of Toronto
- Languages: French, Russian
The general area of my research and teaching has been religion and culture, with particular focus on religion and literature, religious iconography, religious ethics, and the philosophy of religion.
Books
Redeeming the Enlightenment: Christianity and the Liberal Virtues. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010, pp. 264.
Remembering the End: Dostoevsky as Prophet to Modernity, with P. Travis Kroeker. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001. pp. 280. Also published in Great Britain by SCM Press, London, 2002.
Dostoevsky’s Critique of the West: The Quest for the Earthly Paradise. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1986. pp. 202.
Chapters in Books
““The Modern Military-Humanitarian Hybrid State: A Response to Paul Dumouchel,” in The European Wars of Religion: An Interdisciplinary Reassessment of Sources, Interpretations, and Myths (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2016).
“Transcendence and Immanence in a Subtler Language: The Presence of Dostoevsky in Charles Taylor’s Account of Secularity,” in Aspiring to Fullness: Essays on Religion and Theology in the Work of Charles Taylor, Eds. Carlos D. Colorado and Justin Klassen (Grand Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014).
“Apocalypse and Modernity,” in Thomas Merton: Monk on the Edge, Eds. Ross Labrie and Angus Stuart (Vancouver BC: Thomas Merton Society of Canada, 2012).
“Transforming Passion into Compassion: Rousseau and the Problem of Envy in Modern Democracy,” in Passions in Economy, Politics, and the Media: In Discussion with Christian Theology, Eds. Wolfgang Palaver and Petra Steinmar-Poesel Muenster (Germany: LIT, 2005).
“The Absent ‘Finger of Providence’ in The Brothers Karamazov: Some Implications for Religious Models,” in And Meaning For A Life Entire: Festschrift For Charles A. Moser, Edited by Peter Rollberg. (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1998).
“Dostoevsky and the Problem of Meaning in History” in Dostoevsky and the Twentieth Century, Edited by Malcolm V. Jones. (Nottingham, England: Astra Press, 1993).
Articles
“Gulag Ethics: Russian and Mennonite Prison Memoirs from Siberia,” in the Journal of Mennonite Studies, Volume 30, 2012, pp. 251-69 (with P. Travis Kroeker).
“Giving Voice to Isaac: The Sacrificial Victim in Kafka’s Trial,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Winter 2004, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 64-84.
“Canadian Reflections on a Russian in Dresden,” Queen’s Quarterly, Fall 1998, Vol. 105, No. 3, pp. 406-421.
“Dostoevsky and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion,” Literature and Theology, Vol. 11 No. 3, September 1997, pp. 270-283.
“Introduction” to the Lonergan Review (Special Theme: “Dostoevsky and the Contemporary World”), No. 4, 1996, pp. i-vii.
“Christianity and the Modern Eclipse of Nature: Two Perspectives,” in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Winter 1995, Vol. LXIII, No. 4, pp. 823-843.
“Dostoevsky, Fedor,” in the Modern Encyclopedia of Religions in Russia and the Soviet Union. Florida: Academic International Press, 1993.
“The Moral Dimension of Atheism,” Toronto Journal of Theology, Vol. VII-2, Fall 1991, pp. 220-225.
“Prometheus or Cain? Albert Camus’s Account of the Western Quest for Justice,” Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 8 No. 2. April 1991, pp. 193-213.
“The Recovery of Helen: Albert Camus’s Attempt to Restore the Greek Idea of Nature,” Dionysius, Vol. XIV, Dec. 1990, pp. 169-194.
“George Grant and the Problem of Theodicy in Western Christianity” in “Two Theological Languages” by George Grant and Other Essays in Honour of His Work. Ed. W. Whillier. Toronto Studies in Theology: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990.
Reviews
Sandor Goodhart, The Prophetic Law: Essays in Judaism, Girardianism, Literary Studies, and the Ethical (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2014), in the Bulletin of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion 45 (October, 2014), pp. 11-14.
Rowan Williams, Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, Fiction (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), in Pro Ecclesia, (Vol. 20.1, January 2011), pp. 108-113.
Per Bjørnar Grande, Mimesis and Desire: An Analysis of the Religious Nature of Mimesis and Desire in the Work of René Girard (Köln, Germany: Lambert, 2009), in the Bulletin of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion 36 (April 2010), pp. 15-16.
Graham Ward, True Religion (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 2003), in Studies in Religion, Volume 33, Number 3-4, pp. 493-495.
Michel Cadot, Dostoïevski d’un siècle à l’autre ou la Russie entre Orient et Occident, in Slavic Review Vol. 2, 2003, p. 412
William Christian, George Grant: a Biography in Studies in Religion, Vol. 24, No. 3, 1995, pp. 376-378.
Stanley Hauerwas, Dispatches From the Front: Theological Engagements With The Secular in Arachne, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1995, pp. 355-358.
Giuseppe Scavizzi, The Controversy on Images from Calvin to Baronius in Studies in Religion, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1994, p. 512.
F.D. Reeve, The White Monk: An Essay on Dostoevsky and Melville in Dostoevsky Studies, vols. 2-6, 1994-1998, pp. 214-216.
Northrop Frye, The Double Vision: Language and Meaning in Religion in Studies in Religion, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1992, p. 246.
Academic Presentations
November 2016, Tribute Colloquium for René Girard, St. Paul University (Ottawa): “Hoping Against Hope: René Girard as Apocalyptic Thinker.”
July 2014, COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion), Freising, Germany: “The Hero, the Saint, and the Just War: Charles Péguy and the ‘War to End All Wars.’”
June 2012, Symposium on the European “Wars of Religion: An Interdisciplinary Reassessment of Sources, Myths, and Interpretations,” organized by the Research Group “Religion – Politics—Violence” of the Austrian Research Association, University of Innsbruck: “The Contemporary Hybrid Humanitarian-Military State: A Response to Paul Dumouchel.”
January 2012, MLA (Modern Languages Association), Seattle: “The Rewards and Challenges of Teaching the Works of Dostoevsky to North American University Students,” for a special panel on teaching Russian literature.
June 2011, COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion), University of Messina (Sicily): “Thinking the Apocalypse: Thomas Merton and René Girard.”
June 2010, International Conference on Siberia: History and Culture, Omsk, Russia: “Gulag Ethics: Russian and Mennonite Prison Memoirs in Siberia” (with P. Travis Kroeker).
November 2009, AAR (American Academy of Religion), Montreal: “Transcendence and Immanence in a Subtler Language: Charles Taylor’s Philosophy of the Secular.”
July 2009, COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion), University of London: “Neutral Space or Christian Mutation? Charles Taylor and René Girard on the Meaning of the Secular.”
June 2008, COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion), University of California (Riverside): “Which Apocalypse? Whose Peace? René Girard and Hegel on the End of History.”
July 2007, COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion), Free University of the Netherlands, Amsterdam: “Tolerance and the Persecution-Resentment Dynamic: René Girard and Dostoevsky.”
January 2007, SCE (Society of Christian Ethics), Dallas, TX: “The Ethical and the Aesthetic in Dostoevsky.”
June 2006, COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion), University of Ottawa: “The Liberal Concept of Tolerance and Christianity: Locke and Rousseau.”
July 2005, COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion), Koblenz, Germany: “Authenticity and/or Imitation of the Divine: The Case of Tolstoy.”
June 2003, COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion), University of Innsbruck, Austria: “Rousseau and the Problem of Envy in Modern Democracy.”
June 2002, COV&R (Colloquium on Violence and Religion), Purdue University: “The Sacrificial Victim in Kafka and Dostoevsky.”
May 2001, CSSR (Canadian Society for the Study of Religion), Laval University, Quebec City: “The Literary Artist as Prophet: The Case of Dostoevsky” for a panel on “Prophecy, Ethics and Literature.”
July 1998, IDS (International Dostoevsky Symposium), Columbia University, NYC: “Living Life and Immortality: Nietzsche Contra Dostoevsky.”
May 1996, CSSR (Canadian Society for the Study of Religion), Brock University (St. Catherines, Ont.): “The Poetics of Good and Evil: Heidegger and T.S. Eliot.”
August 1995, IDS (International Dostoevsky Symposium), Gaming, Austria: “Dostoevsky and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion.”
December 1993, MLA (Modern Languages Association), Toronto: “The Absent ‘Finger of Providence’ in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: Some Implications for Religious Models.”
June 1992, CSSR (Canadian Society for the Study of Religion), University of Prince Edward Island: “Camus and Dostoevsky on the Sanctity of Nature.”
November 1990, Symposium on “Prometheus and Atheism,” University of Toronto: “Comments on Joseph C. McLelland’s Prometheus Rebound: The Irony of Atheism.”
July 1989, IDS (International Dostoevsky Symposium), Ljubljana, Yugoslavia: “Dostoevsky and the Problem of Meaning in History.”
June 1987, CSSR (Canadian Society for the Study of Religion), McMaster University: “George Grant as Philosopher of Religion.”
June 1985, CSSR (Canadian Society for the Study of Religion), Université de Montréal: “Albert Camus’s Critique of the Christian Idea of Hope.”
Public Lectures and Workshops
“Eastern Christian Icons and Spiritual Practice,” workshop presented to the Anglican Deanery of Sault Ste. Marie (December 2014)
“Thoughts on the ‘Return’ of Religion,” as a member of a panel organized by the University of Sudbury (“World Views in the Humanities: Whose Worldview?”) (November 2012)
“Generating Discussion in the Classroom,” to the Deanof Arts Workshop for Laurentian Faculty on Effective Teaching (November 2012)
“A Modern Meeting of Russian and Western Spirituality: The Thomas Merton – Boris Pasternak Correspondence,” sponsored by the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies, Moscow State University, April 2011.
“Canadian Identity and the Challenge of American Culture: George Grant (the Uncle) versus Michael Ignatieff (the Nephew),” sponsored by the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies, Moscow State University, April 2011.
“Kafka and the ‘Kafkaesque,’” presented in conjunction with the performance of Gyorgy Kurtag’s Kafka-Fragments, St. Peter’s United Church, Sudbury, March 2006.
“La modernité et la tentation de l’idolâtrie,” sponsored by the Faculty of Theology, Université de Montpellier (France), January 2003.
“Modern Science and Divine Providence in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov,” sponsored by the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, University of Victoria, March 1996.
“Nietzsche’s Reading of Dostoevsky,” sponsored by the Dept. of Religious Studies, McMaster University, November 1995.
“Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion,” sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Literature and Theology, the University of Glasgow, October 1995.
“Dostoevsky as Prophet of the Modern Age,” sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Seminar of Lonergan College, Concordia University (Montreal), September 1992.