College: | Regis College |
Degrees: | PhD (Toronto) |
Email: | m.stoeber@utoronto.ca |
Phone: | 416-922-5474 ext 255 |
Personal Website: | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5748-7185 |
Teaching Category: |
Regular Tenure Stream
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Appointment Status: |
Basic Degree
GCTS Full
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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.
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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.
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Publications
- “Sacred Groves or Profitable Commodities? Exploring Dispositions Toward Our Environment in Interreligious Dialogue," in Connecting Ecologies: Integrating Responses to the Global Challenge, Patrick Riordan and Gavin Flood, eds. (Routledge: 2024).
- "Christianity and Yoga," Oxford Bibliographies in Hinduism, LAST MODIFIED: 25 JULY 2023, DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195399318-0276.
- "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.
- “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.
- “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.
- “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).
- “Mysticism in The Brothers Karamazov,” Toronto Journal of Theology Vol. 31., No. 2 (Fall 2015): 249-271.