Barry Stephenson

Associate Professor

SN5005
Department of Political Science, Science Building
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's, NL A1B 3X9 Canada

Telephone: (709) 864-8113
Email: bstephenson[at]mun[dot]ca

Academics

BA (U Waterloo); MA (Wilfrid Laurier); PhD (U Calgary)

 Areas for Student Research Supervision

  • Politics & Religion
  • Performance, Protest, & Public Spheres
  • Myth, Ritual & Ideology
  • Religion & Secular Modernity
  • Religion, Conflict & Violence

 Bio

Barry Stephenson holds a joint appointment in Political Science and Religious Studies. He received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Calgary, in 2005, coming to Memorial after many years in Wilfrid Laurier’s Religion and Culture Department. He is a former co-chair of the Ritual Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion and edited several volumes Oxford University Press’s Ritual Studies Series. He currently co-directs the SSHRC-funded After Church Atlas project, with colleague Dr. Nicholas Lynch Geography), studying the dynamics of church closure and transformation.

Publications

 
Books

Excursions in Ritual Studies. Waterloo: Ritual Studies International, 2020. (218pp.)

Ritual, A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. (126 pp.). Arabic and Czech translations, forthcoming, 2022.

Performing the Reformation: Public Ritual in the City of Luther. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. (238 pp. + 2.5hrs DVD).

Veneration and Revolt: Herman Hesse and Swabian Pietism. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008. (282 pp.).

 

Select Articles and Chapters 

“Ritual.” In Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion and the Arts in the West: Renaissance to the Present, edited by Zohar Hadromi-Allouche, 2022.

“Liminality, Structures and ‘The Problem of the Lie.’” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies. (2021), 17.1-2. online publication.

“The Limits of Liminality: A Critique of Transformationism.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies(2020) 16.4. online publication.

“Ritual as Action, Performance, and Practice.” The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual, edited by Uro Risto, et.al., 18-37. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

“Ritualization and Ritual Invention.” The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual, edited by Uro Risto, et.al., 38-54. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

“On Being ‘Close to Nature’: Poetics, Politics, Place.” Time and Mind: A Journal of Archeology, Consciousness, and Culture, (2012) 5.1: 19-32.

“Ritual Negotiations in Lutherland.” In Negotiating Rites, edited by Ute Hüsken and Frank Norbert, pp. 81-98. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

“What’s at Stake in Torture” (with Thomas Driver and Werner Binder). In Ritual, Media, and Conflict, edited by Ronald Grimes, Ute Hüsken, and Eric Venbrux, pp. 223-254. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

“Swaggering Savagery and the New Frontier.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, (2007) vol. 16. online publication.