The Pluralism Project at Harvard University

Paul Bramadat

University of Winnipeg, Department of Religious Studies

In 2006 Paul Bramadat and sociologist Mathias Koenig of the University of Bamberg in Germany, will begin co-editing a book that will compare the ways various countries have responded in the contemporary era to the challenges and opportunities posed by religious diversity. Contributors will include leading scholars from around the world who will provide detailed analyses of state-level case studies.

In 2006, with a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, he will begin a three-year study entitled "Stories and Histories: Canadian West Indian Christian Narratives in a Multicultural World." This project will utilize life history interviews in five cities to delineate how first generation Canadian West Indian Christians of South Asian origin describe their own and their family's current and ancestral (usually Hindu) religious identities. An analysis of these stories will demonstrate not only how these Canadians come to terms with their pre-colonial family narratives in an increasingly multicultural and postcolonial society, but also the specific consequences of these strategies for existing denominations and the broader Canadian religious landscape.

Paul Bramadat is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Winnipeg, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He received his B.A. from the University of Winnipeg in 1990, his M.A. from McGill University in 1993, and his Ph.D. from McMaster University in 1998. His first book was The Church on the World's Turf: An Evangelical Christian Group at a Secular University, published in 2000 by Oxford University Press (New York). In this book he explores the ways a group of self-described fundamentalists responds to a secular academic and social ethos they perceive to be hostile to their beliefs, values, and lifeways.

He co-edited (with David Seljak) Religion and Ethnicity in Canada (Pearson 2005), the first of three books in the Religion and Ethnicity Project, a project organized under the auspices of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. The first volume explores the intersection of religious and ethnic identities in the six "major minority" traditions in Canada: Sikhism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Chinese religion, and Hinduism. The book also explores three public policy areas or issues that are currently shaping public discourse in contemporary Canada: religion and public health care, religion and education, and religion and federal policy-making.

Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada, the second volume, examines the relationship between ethnicity and the ten major forms of Christianity in Canada, and should be completed by the summer of 2006. Work on the third and final volume - devoted to the complex ways Aboriginal religiosity is expressed in contemporary Canadian public discourse - will begin in the winter of 2006.

He teaches in the broad area of contemporary religion and culture in Canada, offering courses on religion and public policy, religion and ethnicity, fundamentalism, religion in popular culture, religion and identity, the problem of evil, ritual studies, and the modern secular literary pursuit of traditional religious themes.

In addition to pursuing traditional scholarly research (see link below), some of his work has been aimed at policy makers in Canada and elsewhere who are increasingly interested in improving their understanding of the role of religion in the issues they address in their work. In this context, he has provided lectures to policy makers and has produced commissioned studies of the responses to religious diversity by Canada's Multiculturalism policy, as well as the role of "religious social capital" in the events of (and following) September 11th.

Since 1999 he has been involved in the national and international wings of the Metropolis Project, an international forum for research and policy on migration, diversity, and changing cities. There, his primary role has been to stimulate conversation related to religion as an influential and sometimes determinative force in the "push and pull" factors of international migration. As well, he has sought to enrich the discussion around the role of religion and ethnicity in the kinds of self-presentations one finds at ethno-cultural festivals or spectacles. Given the increased interest of policy makers in the so-called post-9/11 security agenda, one of his goals has been to encourage meaningful and honest dialogue between religious leaders, scholars, and policy makers about the significant place of religion in the conflicts that preceded and followed the attacks on the United States.