Kenneth MacKendrick – The Center for Critical Research on Religion

Kenneth G. MacKendrick

Kenneth MacKendrick

Mackendrick Discourse Desire

Kenneth G. MacKendrick teaches in the Department of Religion, University of Manitoba. His doctoral thesis on the early writings of Jürgen Habermas was completed at the Centre for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto and has been published by Routledge as Discourse, Desire, and Fantasy in Jürgen Habermas’ Critical Theory (2008). He has also published articles on critical theory and religion, myth and mythmaking, and religion and the imagination. MacKendrick’s teaching interests include contemporary Christianity, evil and world religions, method and theory in the study of religion, myth and mythmaking, and religion in popular culture. His current research focuses on theorizing the scope and function of the imagination in culture.

Books

Evil: A Critical Primer (forthcoming, Equinox Press)

Discourse, Desire, and Fantasy in Jürgen Habermas’ Critical Theory. Routledge (2008)

Refereed Journal Articles

2018. “Does Past Religion have a Past? Habermas, Religion, and the Sacred Complex. Critical Research on Religion 6(3):309-330.

2016. “Postmetaphysical Thinking and the Philosophy of Religion.” Critical Review of Kevin Schilbrack’s Philosophy and the Study of Religion. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 28 (1): 84-97.

2015. “What is a Superhero? How Myth can be a Metacode.” Bulletin for the Study of Religion 44 (1): 19-26.

2015 (with Matt Sheedy). “The Future of Religious History in Habermas’s Critical Theory of Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 27 (2): 151-174.

2015. The Public Nature of Critical Discourses on “Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 27(2): 122-130.

2012. “We Have an Imaginary Friend in Jesus: What Imaginary Companions and Tell Us about Religion.” Implicit Religion 15(1): 61-79.

2010. “The Challenge of Postmetaphysical Thinking and the Nature of Religious Thought.” Islamic Perspective 3: 28-49.

2009. “Evil in World Religions at the University of Manitoba (2002-2008): An Introduction and Provocation.” Golem Journal of Religion and Monsters 3(1): 38-55.

2005. “Intersubjectivity and the ‘Revival of Death’: Toward a Critique of Sovereign Individualism.” Critical Sociology 31(1-2): 169-185.

2000. “The Moral Imaginary of Discourse Ethics.” Critical Horizons 1(2): 247-269.

1999. “The Aporetics of a Tennis Playing Brontosaurus, or, A Critical Theory of Religion: A Rejoinder to Russell McCutcheon and William Arnal.” Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses 28(1): 77-83.

Book Chapters

2018. “The Ion Canon Will Fire Several Shots to Make Sure Any Enemy Ships Will be Out of Your Flight Path: Canonization, Tribal Theologians, and Imaginary World Building.” In The Myth Awakens: Canon, Conservatism, and Fan Reception of Star Wars, 147-162. Edited by John Lyden and Ken Derry. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books.

2009. “Chuck Palahniuk and the New Journalism Revolution.” In Sacred and Immoral: On the Writings of Chuck Palahniuk. Edited by Jeffrey Sartain, 1-21. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

2009. With Nicole Goulet. “Selected Bibliography.” In Reading Chuck Palahniuk: American Monsters and Literary Mayhem. Edited by Cynthia Kuhn and Lance Rubin, 225-236. New York: Routledge.

2006. “Intersubjectivity and Religious Language: Toward a Critique of Regressive Trends in Thanatology.” In Marx, Critical Theory, and Religion. Edited by Warren S. Goldstein, 179-201. Leiden and Boston: Brill. 2009. Chicago: Haymarket Books (paperback).

2004. with Christopher C. Brittain. “Max Horkheimer.” In Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 296: Twentieth-Century European Cultural Theorists, Second Series. Edited by Paul Hansom, 209-220. New York: Gale.

2004. “The Moral Imaginary of Discourse Ethics.” In Critical Theory After Habermas: Encounters and Departures. Edited by Wayne Hudson, Dieter Freundlieb, and John Rundell, 280-306. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers.

2003. “The Theatre of Western Capitalism: Competing for Reality.” In Image-Makers and Image-Breakers. Edited by Jennifer A. Harris, 221-232. Toronto: Legas.

Book Reviews, Roundtable Discussions, Encyclopedia Articles

2011. Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada, edited by Paul Bramadat and David Seljak. Canadian Ethnic Studies 40(3): 215-216.

2010. Living in the End Times, by Slavoj Zizek. Winnipeg Free Press. 3 July 2010.

2010. God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape, by Peggy Levitt. International Sociology 25(2): 5-8.

2009. Dracula: The Un-Dead, by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. Winnipeg Free Press. 18 October 2009

2008. Snuff, by Chuck Palahniuk. Winnipeg Free Press. 1 June 2008.

2003. with Christopher C. Brittain. “A Messiah for Marxism?” Review of The Fragile Absolute; or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?, by Slavoj Žižek. Radical Philosophy Review 6(1): 51-58.

2001. The Other Freud: Religion, Culture and Psychoanalysis, by James J. DiCenso. Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses 30:98-99.

2001. “Renata Salecl.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Postmodernism. Edited by C. Winquist and V. Taylor, 353-354. New York: Routledge.

2001. “The Slovenian Lacanian School.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Postmodernism. Edited by C. Winquist and V. Taylor, 371-372. New York: Routledge.

1999. Religion, eds. J. Derrida and G. Vattimo. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 11:197-203.

Non-refereed Publications

2014. With Jason Redden and Kathy Block. “Targeted Learning Session.” Path to Pedagogy 23 (1): 24.

2014. “Facilitated Writing Groups in a High-Enrolment Undergraduate Course.” Path to Pedagogy 23 (1): 25-28.

“Critical Questions Series 2.” Religion Bulletin. Posted 22 February 2013.

“Critical Questions Series 1: Summary.” Religion Bulletin. Posted 28 January 2013.

“Critical Questions Series.” Religion Bulletin. Posted 9 January 2013.

“Guide for the Erudite Student: Asking for Letters of Reference.” Religion Bulletin. Posted 12 November 2012.

“Secularization and the Invention of Religion.” Religion Bulletin. Posted 27 August 2012.

“From Cognitive Theory of Religion to Religious Cognition.” Religion Bulletin. Posted 12 June 2012.

Recent Conference Presentations

“Classification: It’s about Time!” Medieval and Modern III: Creation and Destruction. University of Manitoba, March 2017.

“Interstitial Entities and Affect: Living with the Dead.” The Affect Conference: Memory, Aesthetics, and Ethics. Winnipeg, Manitoba. September 2015.

“Interstitial Entities: A Topology of the Imagination.” Religious Studies Colloquium. Department of Religion, University of Regina. April 2015.