Faculty

 Full Time Faculty   Emeritus Faculty   Adjunct Faculty   Summer Faculty 
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Full Time Faculty

 Nik Ansell   Doug Blomberg   Shannon Hoff   Ron Kuipers   Rebekah Smick   Robert Sweetman   Lambert Zuidervaart 
 

Nicholas Ansell, PhD (Free University, Amsterdam), MPhilF (Institute for Christian Studies), is the professor of theology at ICS. From 2001-2003 Ansell was assistant professor in theology at The King'sUniversity College in Edmonton, Alberta. He is interested in exploring the shape of a reformational theology sensitive to the spirituality of existence and to the eschatologically open nature of creation. He is also interested in examining the relationship between faith and belief in critical dialogue with proponents and critics of contemporary feminism, postmodernism and religious pluralism. Nik is the author of The Woman Will Overcome The Warrior: A Dialogue with the Christian/Feminist Theology of Rosemary Radford Ruether (University Press of America, 1994) and is currently working on a book on Jürgen Moltmann's view of Hell. Academic essays include "The Call of Wisdom/The Voice of the Serpent: A Canonical Approach to the Tree of Knowledge" (Christian Scholar's Review, Fall, 2001). He has been a regular contributor to the British magazine Third Way having edited its (biblical) "Commentary" section for seven years.   Telephone: 416-979-2331 ext. 251 | Website |

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Doug Blomberg, PhD (Sydney), EdD (Monash), FACE, is professor of education. Blomberg has been involved at all levels of Christian schooling for thirty years, as an administrator, classroom teacher, curriculum consultant, board member and teacher educator. He served as founding Principal of the Institute for Christian Education in Australia from 1979. In 1991, he was appointed a Fellow of the Australian College of Education for his contribution to the theory and practice of Christian schooling. In 1991-1992, Blomberg was a member of the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship team that produced A Vision With A Task, and Educating Christian Teachers for Responsive Discipleship. As well as editing the former book, he edited and contributed to Reminding: Renewing The Mind in Learning, and Humans Being:Essays Dedicated to Stuart Fowler. He has also published many articles in professional and academic journals and other volumes. After serving part-time as professor of education at ICS from 1997-2000, he took up a full-time appointment in 2003, with the added responsibility of coordinating the Institute's distance education program. Blomberg's current research centres on the implications of a biblical perspective on wisdom for schooling; he recently completed the manuscript of a book entitled Wisdom and Curriculum: Christian Schooling After Postmodernity and plans to follow this with volumes on teaching, learning and worldview.   Telephone: 416-979-2331 ext. 237 | Website |

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Shannon Hoff, PhD (Stony Brook University), is assistant professor of social and political philosophy. She is primarily interested in contemporary political, legal, and feminist philosophy in the continental tradition, as well as in Hegel and his relevance to these discussions. She is the author of several articles, including "Restoring Antigone to Ethical Life: Nature and Sexual Difference in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit." She is presently working on a book manuscript on Hegel's theory of justice, as well as assembling an edited collection on Hegel and critical theories of race, gender, class, and post-coloniality. Before joining the ICS faculty in 2007, Shannon taught philosophy at Muskingum College in Ohio.   Telephone: 416-979-2331 ext. 232 | Website |

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Ronald A. Kuipers, PhD (Free University), MPhil (Institute for Christian Studies) is assistant professor of the philosophy of religion. His research and teaching concentrate on the continuing social relevance of religious life patterns in pluralistic Western societies. He pursues that discussion by working with such intellectual traditions as pragmatism and critical theory, among others. Kuipers is the author of Critical Faith: Toward a Renewed Understanding of Religious Life and its Public Accountability and Solidarity and the Stranger: Themes in the Social Philosophy of Richard Rorty. He has co-edited two books: Walking the Tightrope of Faith: Philosophical Conversations about Reason and Religion and Philosophy as Responsibility: A Celebration of Hendrik Hart's Contribution to the Discipline.   Telephone: 416-979-2331 ext. 227 | Website |

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Robert Sweetman, PhD (University of Toronto), MSL (Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies) holds the H. Evan Runner Chair in the history of philosophy at ICS and is an Associate Member of the Centre for Medieval Studies and the Centre for the Study of Religion of the University of Toronto. Sweetman joined the ICS faculty in 1991, after teaching several years at Calvin College in Michigan. Sweetman's published articles include “Thomas of Cantimpré, Performative Reading and Pastoral Care,” “Plotting the Margins: The Management of Social Plurality in the Later Middle Ages,” “Of Tall Tales and Small Stories: Postmodern ‘Fragmatics’ and the Christian Historian,” “Love, Understanding and the Mystical Knowledge of God” and “Haunting Conceptual Boundaries: Miracle in the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas,"   “Univocity, Analogy, and the Mystery of Being According to John Duns Scotus.” He has just published the book In the Phrygian Mode: Neo-Calvinism, Antiquity and the Lamentations of Reformational Philosophy, and finished a second book manuscript entitled Delineations: Re-Imagining the Adventure of Christian Scholarship.   He is currently working on a third book manuscript: Exemplary Care: Stoic Therapy, Dominican Pastoral Literature, and the Transformation of Human Identity, 1225-1275.   Telephone: 416-979-2331 ext. 231 | Website |

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Rebekah Smick,   PhD (University of Toronto), MA (Columbia University), BA (Brandeis University) is associate professor of philosophy of the arts and culture. Her research and teaching focus on the critical literature of the arts in the early modern and modern periods and the relation between art and religion. She is co-editor of the book Antiquity and Its Interpreters (Cambridge UP, 2000). Her published articles and chapters in books include “Grazia in the Lives of Giorgio Vasari: Rhetorical Flourish or the Power of God?” “Touch in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Sensual Ethics of Architecture,” “Vivid Thinking: Word and Image in Descriptive Techniques of the Renaissance,” “Evoking Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà: Transformations in the Topos of Living Stone” and “Michelangelo e il concetto di pietà nel tema rinascimentale dell'amore e della morte.” She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Michelangelo=s Vatican Pietà as Image in the Theology and Aesthetics of Compassion. Before joining the ICS faculty in July 2008, she taught at the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo and Queen’s University.   Telephone: 416-979-2331 ext. 231 | Website |

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Lambert Zuidervaart, PhD (Free University, Amsterdam), MPhil (Institute for Christian Studies) is Professor of Philosophy at ICS, and a member of the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He holds ICS’s Herman Dooyeweerd Chair in Social and Political Philosophy. Zuidervaart’s primary interests lie in continental philosophy, social philosophy, and philosophy of discourse, with an emphasis on Kant, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, feminism, and Critical Theory. He is the author of Social Philosophy after Adorno (Cambridge UP, 2007), Artistic Truth: Aesthetics, Discourse, and Imaginative Disclosure (Cambridge UP, 2004), and Adorno's Aesthetic Theory (MIT Press, 1991); co-author of Dancing in the Dark: Youth, Popular Culture, and the Electronic Media (Eerdmans, 1991); and senior co-editor of The Arts, Community and Cultural Democracy (St. Martin’s Press, 2000), The Semblance of Subjectivity: Essays in Adorno's Aesthetic Theory (MIT Press, 1997), Pledges of Jubilee: Essays on the Arts and Culture (Eerdmans, 1995).He is currently conducting new research into theories of truth and theories of globalization. Zuidervaart has received numerous grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Before joining ICS’s faculty in 2002, he taught philosophy at The King's University College in Edmonton (1981-1985) and at Calvin College (1985-2002), where he was Philosophy Department Chair.   Telephone: 416-979-2331 ext. 248 | Website |

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Librarian

Isabella Guthrie-McNaughton joined ICS in August 2004. She holds a Masters of Library Science Degree from the University of Toronto and a BA (Honours-History) from the University of Guelph. She was a librarian at the Royal Ontario Museum for 24 years — serving in various capacities as Acting Director of Library Services, Head of Technical Services and Project Manager for the ROM’s website. She also worked at Redeemer University College in the Pascal Centre, where she was involved in the development and indexing of two databases — Religion and Science; and Spirituality and Health. She has presented papers at the Museums and the Web Conferences, as well as at the RLG (Research Libraries Group) Forums. She has consulted various ministries of the Cambodian government — leading training seminars on information literacy and marketing, with specific emphasis on business and tourism. Her current research interests are in the fields of: information literacy, institutional repositories, open access for scholarly publishing, and new frameworks for resource discovery and delivery. Isabella is also an active volunteer and previous Board member for the Canadian-based NGO Tabitha-Cambodia.   Telephone: 416-979-2331 ext. 250 |

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Emeritus Faculty

Calvin Seerveld, PhD (Free University), Professor of aesthetics 1972-1995

Hendrik Hart, PhD (Free University), Professor of systematic philosophy 1967-2001

Jim Olthuis, PhD (Free University), Professor of philosophical theology 1968-2004

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Adjunct Faculty

M. Elaine Botha, PhD, Redeemer University College (emerita), Ancaster, Ontario

Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin, PhD, Independent Scholar, Cambridge, UK

Jonathan Chaplin, PhD, Director of the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, Cambridge, UK

Jeffrey Dudiak, PhD, The King's University College, Edmonton

Lee Hollaar, PhD, Trinity Western University, Langley, British Columbia

D. Vaden House, PhD

Sylvia Keesmaat, DPhil, Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Ontario

Mary Kooy, PhD, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

William V. Rowe, PhD, University of Scranton, Pennsylvania

Danie F.M. Strauss, PhD, Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Ontario

Gideon Strauss, PhD, Senior Fellow, Work Research Foundation, Hamilton, Ontario

Distinguished Associates

Bob Goudzwaard, PhD, Free University (emeritus), The Netherlands

Sander Griffoen, PhD, Free University, The Netherlands

Peter Schouls, PhD, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia

M.D. Stafleu, PhD, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands

Johan van der Hoeven, PhD Free University, The Netherlands

Dale Van Kley, PhD, Ohio State University, USA

Nicholas Wolterstorff, PhD Yale University, USA

N.T. Wright, DPhil, Bishop of Durham, UK

In Memory

George Vandervelde, ThD (Vrije Universiteit), ICS Senior Member (Emeritus) of systematic theology, 1977-2004