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Queens of the World | Discourse! October 2022

Podcast
This month's Discourse! welcomes back Founding Editor Chris Cotter to the host's chair, along with guests Ting Guo and Carmen Celestini. They first discuss Queen Elizabeth II and “mourning” in Hong Kong, and then more broadly. This segues neatly into a conversation about the Filipino conspiracist who has dubbed herself the “Queen of Canada”. They talk about the Iranian protests, and "compulsory hijabs". Finally, they have a wee rant about how religion and spirituality is presented in mental health surveys.

Space for Race: Decoding Issues of Race, Belonging and Multi- Culturalism in Canada and Beyond

Response
Many Canadians see themselves as a nation that champions human rights and diversity, alongside and entwined with ideals of secularism and religious neutrality. This often leads to disputes around what constitutes “diversity.”

Religion and Multiculturalism in Canada and Beyond

Podcast
Through personal stories and historical accounts not always included in the telling of multiculturalism in Canada, Fletcher explores the merits of belonging. Defining the term "belonging" we learn the reality of Canadian multiculturalism and re-conceive how Canada can move forward to truly be an inclusive society. Fletcher explains the importance of her work in this book, and how is can be use by religious studies scholars in the current political landscape.

Public School Islamic Religious Education as Safe Space for Identity Development and Bottom-Up Negotiation of Citizenship

Response
Muslim students experience the Islamic Religious Education classroom as an in-between space where they can ask questions that they feel are too delicate to be discussed in religious communities or even with their parents but need to be discussed with an adult who is an insider of their tradition but also understand their everyday life at school.

D. Mitra Barua on Immigrant Buddhism in the West

Podcast
"...Rebranding the Buddhist concept of Harmony to be a more politically comparable term to the Canadian mosaic..." Dr. D. Mitra Barua is an instructor of Religious Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, and has a Masters in Buddhist Philosophy undertaken in Sri Lanka.

Religion and Globalization

Podcast
What do we mean by globalization? What does this concept have to say to the study of religion? How have religions been agents in the globalization process? What theoretical and methodological issues arise when trying to answer such questions? All of these questions and more are tackled in an interview which touches on post-colonialism, secularization theory, theodicy, ...

Nuancing the Qual-Quan Divide: The Vitality of Research Methods in the Academic Study of Religion

Response
By using “vitality” in the title above, I mean to point to two aspects of the same urgent call. First, I simply mean that research methods are vital to the academic study of religion. As Stausberg and Engler suggest, “it is through methods that data and theory speak to each other and become part of a shared horizon” (2011: 11), and indeed it is still not a platitude to recall that theory, method and data can be considered three sides of that triangle we conjure, whether implicitly or explicitly,
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