PhD (Toronto)

m.stoeber@utoronto.ca | 416-922-5474 ext 255 | Personal Website

Bio

I grew up in Calgary, Alberta, completing undergraduate studies and an MA, and teaching junior and high school social studies, before moving east with my family to McMaster University and the University of Toronto for doctoral studies. After receiving a PhD in philosophy of religion in 1990 through the Centre for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto, I received a SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 1990-92, then worked as assistant and then as associate professor in the Department of Religion at The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. (1992-2000). I was also a visiting professor at the Department for the Study of Religion, Erindale College, University of Toronto, 1996-97.

In 2000 we moved back to Canada, to work at Regis College and TST, cross-appointed to the Departments of Pastoral Theology and Theology. I was nominated as member of Alpha Sigma Nu, the Jesuit Honor Society in 2005, promoted to ordinary professor in 2007, and cross-appointed to the Department for the Study of Religion in 2011 (status only). I also served as Scarboro Missions Chair in Interreligious Dialogue at the Msgr. John Mary Fraser Centre for Practical Theology, 2018-2021. My research areas are comparative spirituality and philosophy of religion, with current interests especially in meditation, prayer, and yoga, as well as topics on the intersection of spirituality and art.

Specializations

• Philosophy of religion and comparative spirituality (especially Christianity and Hinduism)
• Religious experience
• Comparative mysticism
• Suffering, evil and theodicy
• Afterlife beliefs
• Theological anthropology 
• Current research explores comparative issues in meditation, prayer, and yoga as well as topics on the intersection of spirituality and art.

Recent Publications

• “Christianity: classical, modern and postmodern forms of contemplation,” with JaeGil Lee, in Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies, Karen O-Brien-Kop and Suzanne Newcombe, eds. (New York: Routledge, 2021): 241-254.
• “Indigenous and Roman Catholic Canonizations of Nicholas Black Elk: Postcolonial Issues and Implications of Black Elk Speaks,” Theological Studies, Vol. 81(3) (2020): 605-630.
• “Kuṇḍalinī Yoga in the Spirituality of Swami Vivekananda and in Modern Yoga Typologies,” Chapter 3, in Vivekanada: His Life, Legacy, and Liberative Ethics, Rita Sharma, ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield’s Lexington Press, forthcoming 2020): 29-44.
• “Theopoetics as Response to Suffering: The Visual Art of Käthe Kollwitz in the Reformation of Practical Theodicy,” International Journal of Practical Theology, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2019): 24-38.
• “The Comparative Study of Mysticism,” The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015 [updated 2017]) 43pp. Also translated and published in the Russian periodical, Philosophy of Religion: Analytic Researches (Философия религии: аналитические исследования) (2018: 15-42).
• “Issues in Christian Encounters with Yoga: Exploring 3HO/Kundalini Yoga,” Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 30, Art. 3 (Fall 2017): 4-20.
• “Mystical Concepts, Artistic Contexts,” in the catalogue for the art exhibit Mystical Landscapes: Vincent van Gogh to Emily Carr, Katharine Lochnan, ed. (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario and DelMonico Books, Prestel, 2016): 45-58.  Also translated into French: “Concepts mystiques, contextes artistiques,” in Au-delà des étoiles: Le Paysage Mystique, De Monet À Kandinsky, Guy Corgeval, Katharine Lochnan, Beatrice Avanzi, Isabelle Morin Loutrel, eds., (Paris: Musee d’Orsay, 2017): 44-63.  
• “Mysticism in The Brothers Karamazov,” Toronto Journal of Theology Vol. 31., No. 2 (Fall 2015): 249-271.