“The graduate student project administrators are an essential part of the Centre’s functioning in a mutually enhancing manner: we benefit from their complementary skills and vital energy, while they are mentored into the community outreach dimension of their promising academic careers.”
Dr. Chris Hrynkow, Co-Director Irene and Doug Schmeiser Centre for Faith, Reason, Peace, and Justice.
Brette Kristoff is a graduate Student with the Department of Religion and Culture, researching critical discourse, social media, and the dynamics of religion and politics in the U.S. and Canada. In 2018, Brette received her Bachelor of Arts degree with High Honours in Religion and Culture with a minor area of focus in Critical Perspectives on Social Justice and the Common Good. As an undergraduate, Brette was drawn in by the welcoming and cozy campus at St. Thomas More College, and quickly settled in as a STM student. For Brette, religion and culture studies as an academic discipline ‘takes seriously’ the role religion and spirituality have in the personal and political lives of people, and she is deeply passionate about exploring these intersections. Other research interests include critical and intersectional perspectives in women and gender studies, environmental justice, peace studies, and mental health and wellness education and advocacy.
James Powell is a graduate student with the Department of Religion and Culture, researching the historical relationship between the theology and politics of the Catholic Church throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While completing his undergraduate degree in Philosophy, he was inspired by STM’s mission, which emphasizes uniting the intellectual, spiritual, and ethical dimensions of Catholic culture in service of offering hospitality to the Other. After completing his degree in 2017, Powell spent a year putting what he learned into practice at Romero House, an intentional community that offers transitional housing to recently arrived refugee claimants in Toronto. These two institutions—STM and Romero House—taught James that there can and should be a diversity of identities, beliefs, and practices within Catholic traditions. This has informed his research, which seeks to uncover how and why people with divergent identities or dissenting voices have been excluded from the Catholic Church. He therefore makes use of his background in postmodern philosophy to address these issues, as this intellectual approach is attentive to how power emerges and functions within cultures and institutions. Powell would eventually like to expand on these topics within a Ph.D.
Mykan Zlipko is a graduate student with the Department of Religion and Culture researching nonviolent peacebuilding and intervention, critical discourses, diplomacy, and the dynamics of religion, politics, and peace in Ukraine. In 2020, Mykan received her Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in Anthropology, minoring in Ukrainian Studies and a certificate in Horticulture Studies in 2013. Initially, the Ukrainian courses drew Mykan to St. Thomas More College, but the welcoming and cozy atmosphere was the reason for becoming an STM student. For Zlipko, religion and culture studies as a discipline provide spaces for delving into the role of religion and spirituality in people’s lives and the inclusion of religion and spirituality in creating cultures of peace. While her initial topic attempted to delve into religion, politics, and peacebuilding during the Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2013-14, the current resurgence of Russian aggression in Ukraine became the deciding factor in researching the active role of religion as a partner of peace locally, nationally, and internationally. Other research interests include peace studies, oral history, memory politics, cultural competency, Ukrainian studies, Eastern European studies, nonviolent activism, and religious peacebuilding. In the future, Mykan hopes to continue her studies after her Master of Arts degree with a PhD.
Article Source: St. Thomas More News Fall-Winter 2022-2023
