Stoeber, Michael

Michael Steober-2021.jpg
College: Regis College
Degrees: PhD (Toronto), STL (Regis)
Email: m.stoeber@utoronto.ca
Phone: 416-364-3677
Personal Website: https://www.michaelstoeber.com/
Teaching Category:
Emeritus
Appointment Status:
Basic Degree
GCTS Full
Research Interests:
Ecumenism / World Christianity / Comparative / Interfaith

Bio

From 1981-1986, I completed undergraduate studies and an MA at the University of Calgary and taught junior and high school social studies. I then moved 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 U of T, I received a SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 1990-92, then worked as assistant and then 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 Inaugural Scarboro Missions Chair in Interreligious Dialogue at the Msgr. John Mary Fraser Centre for Practical Theology, 2018-2021. I was promoted to Professor Emeritus in 2025.

  • Specializations

    • philosophy of religion and comparative spirituality (especially Christianity and Hinduism)
    • religious experience and practices
    • comparative mysticism
    • suffering, evil and theodicy
    • afterlife beliefs
    • theological anthropology
    • current research also explores topics on the intersection of spirituality and art
       

  • Publications

    • "Approaches to Issues of Residential Schools through Interreligious and Interspiritual Dialogue: Some Paradoxes of "All My Relations," Toronto Journal of Theology, 41/1 (2025): 78-95.
    • "Hindu-Christian Dialogue on the Afterlife: Swami Vivekananda, Modern Advaita Vedānta, and Roman Catholic Eschatology,"   International Journal of Hindu Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1 (April 2023): 33-65.
    • "Christianity and Yoga," Oxford Bibliographies in Hinduism, LAST MODIFIED: 25 JULY 2023, DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195399318-0276 (Currently updating for 2027 with Taehoon Kim).
    • "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.
    • "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).
    • "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.