Careers, Authors and Awards

Ulrike Bender Vic 7T5 recently wrote and took the photography for the book Balancing Act: Growing Grapes and Making Wine in Prince Edward County. The book follows the life of the wineries over the course of four seasons, highlighting both the beauty of the vineyards and the process involved in winemaking and the tending of the vines. The text educates readers in accessible language about an important industry and tourist draw, while also giving readers a chance to go behind the scenes. Quotes by PEC winery owners, viticulturists and winemakers, which are sprinkled throughout, provide a rich backdrop for the more than 120 photographs. The book, in its final two pages, also provides readers with a statistical overview of PEC wineries, including a chronology of first plantings among the 42 wineries in operation today in the PEC VQA Appellation of Origin.

David Kim-Cragg Vic 9T3, Emm 9T9 has written his first book, Water from Dragon’s Well: The History of a Korean-Canadian Church Relationship (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022). The book explores the connection between the Korean Christian community and the Canadian church and its missionaries from the 1890s to the present. Upon the arrival of Canadian missionaries, Korean Christian churches were already voicing nationalist aspirations; by the midtwentieth century, they were demanding independence from Canadian missionary oversight and were participating in a wider democratic movement within South Korea. Kim-Cragg traces Indigenous churches’ resistance to decades of missionary paternalism and the ways they channelled their religious and political energies. Accepting the criticism of its hosts, the United Church of Canada helped build an independent Korean Christian church and, in 1974, ended its Korean mission. This shift in the Canadian missionaries’ colonial attitudes also contributed to the transformation of the United Church of Canada back home. With the help of Korean leadership in Canada, the church reconstructed its vision of non-Western Christianity and, in a watershed moment, established an ethnic ministry council.

Paul Deepan Vic 8T2 has recently published his fifth biographical collaboration, this time with raconteur extraordinaire Danny Geoffrion. To Hold it High: Four Generations of Hockey’s Most Storied Franchise traces the hockey lineage of Geoffrion’s maternal grandfather Howie Morenz, his father Boom-Boom Geoffrion, himself, and his son Blake, all of whom played for the Montreal Canadiens. To Hold it High is a saga of four generations who played for the same professional sports franchise, a feat not duplicated in any pro sport on the planet. This family story is intertwined with the history of a hockey team, a province and a country. The history of the team cannot be told without mention of this family. The story of the family cannot be told without mention of the team.

Penelope Hui Geng Vic 0T4 studied English at Vic and after graduation, she headed to the U.S. to study Renaissance and Shakespeare studies, first, at the University of Chicago (MA), and after that, at the University of Southern California (PhD in English). After graduating from USC in 2014, she was hired by Macalester College, a top-ranked liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota, to teach Shakespeare and early modern literature. Last year, she was promoted to associate professor of English. She recently published Communal Justice in Shakespeare’s England: Drama, Law, and Emotion.

Paul Gooch, president emeritus of Victoria University, has published Paul and Religion: Unfinished Conversations. The book explores the continuing and contemporary relevance of the most important, and most controversial, figure of early Christianity. Bringing a philosophical approach to this topic, he connects Paul’s ideas to lived experience. In a conversational style, Gooch explores the apostle Paul’s experience of grace and his dismissal of distinctive markers of religious identity in favour of love as binding together a community. Contrary to common expectations, he finds within Paul’s letters material for conversations about issues in our day, such as gender and sexuality. From his close reading of the Letters, Gooch argues that the Pauline religious form of life is not identical with institutional Christianity.

Tanis Helliwell 6T9 celebrates the publishing of her latest book Good Morning Henry: An in-depth journey with the body intelligence. We are at a time of great change, a time when the old normal has disappeared. The great transition that we are undergoing collectively is a dark night of the soul. To come out of the dark night we need a new set of values, which are lifesustaining and based on love and health of all beings. Good Morning Henry is about working with the body intelligence to heal deep-rooted physical, emotional and spiritual suffering that is caused by this dark night of the soul.

Grace Ji-Sun Kim Vic 9T2 has published two books. Invisible examines encounters with racism, sexism and xenophobia as she works toward ending Asian American women’s invisibility. She deploys biblical, sociological and theological narratives to empower the voices of Asian American women. Speaking with the weight of her narrative, she proclaims that the histories, experiences and voices of Asian American women must be rescued from obscurity. Speaking with the weight of a theologian, she powerfully paves the way for a theology of visibility that honours the voice and identity of these women.

Her second book, Spirit Life, centres on the Spirit as an avenue for better understanding God and reconciling with our faith. The Spirit is present in the Old Testament as ruach and in the New Testament as pneuma. When the field of theology was prominently German-led, theologians used the word geist to talk about the Spirit. As an Asian-American theologian existing in the liminality between multiple cultural spheres, Kim finds it necessary to retrieve and disseminate Asian words and religious symbols into the mainstream discourse to revolutionize the accessibility and global understanding of God today.

John McClelland Vic 5T6 has recently published, as co-editor for A Cultural History of Sport (Bloomsbury Academic). The six-volume set examines the entire range of sports as cultural phenomena from the founding of the Olympic Games in the early 8th century BCE to the present day. McClelland was responsible for the first three volumes, covering the period 800 BCE–1650 CE. McClelland joined the Vic (latterly U of T) Department of French in 1964 and taught there and in the Faculty of Physical Education until his final retirement in 2014.

Co-authors Beth (Brewer) Parker Vic 7T8 and Jackie Eldridge (Doctor of Education, 9T6) have written How to be a Great Elephant. This children’s book follows the story of a little elephant named EQ who wants to make a big impact on the world and be great. EQ and his flamingo friend Frankie work together to build a flying suit. The two talk about their goals, share their feelings and resolve their differences cooperatively. In the end, both discover “greatness” isn’t always about who’s the smartest, the fastest or even the strongest. It’s the emotional intelligence qualities of empathy, understanding, and honouring each other that makes a great elephant (and a great flamingo) after all!

D. Paul Schafer Vic 6T1 has published The World as Culture: Cultivation of the Soul to the Cosmic Whole (Rock’s Mills Press). This book traces the evolution of culture as an idea and a reality over the course of human history and makes the case that cultural scholars, historians, and practitioners have provided many ideas, insights, and ideals over the centuries that confirm that culture has a central role to play in the world of the present and the future.