Kenneth MacKendrick

• RLGN 1440 -  Evil in world religions
• RLGN 2032 - Introduction to the study of religion
• RLGN 2116 - Cognitive science and religion
• RLGN 3112 - Religion and the imagination

Dr. Kenneth MacKendrick is Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at the University of Manitoba. He teaches and researches on the history of the study of religion, critical theory and religion, the study of religion in culture, and religion and the imagination (including the creation of imaginary companions, imaginary world building, as well as fantasy gaming such as LARPing and Dungeons & Dragons). He is author of Evil: A Critical Primer published by Equinox Press (2023).

• PhD (Critical Theory, Ethics, Hermeneutics, Psychoanalysis), University of Toronto, Centre for the Study of Religion, 2005
• MA (Critical Theory and Religion, Feminist Ethics), University of Toronto, Centre for the Study of Religion, 1996
• BA (Religious Studies), University of Windsor, 1994

Research interests

• Critical social theory and religion
• Evil and the study of religion
• History of the study of religion
• Imagination and imaginary world building
• Method and theory in the study of religion
   

Research summary

My current research focuses on imaginary companions, imaginary world building, and religion. Underlying my research is the question: how is it that we live in the world not as it is but as we imagine it to be?
 

Books

• Evil: A Critical Primer. Sheffield: Equinox Press, 2023.
• Discourse, Desire, and Fantasy in Jürgen Habermas’ Critical Theory. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Chapters and articles

• “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, 2018. Revised second edition forthcoming 2024.
• “Does Past Religion have a Past? Habermas, Religion, and the Sacred Complex” Critical Research on Religion 6, no. 3 (2018): 309-330.
• “What is a Superhero? How Myth can be a Metacode.” Bulletin for the Study of Religion 44, no. 1 (2015): 19-26.
• With Matt Sheedy. “The Future of Religious History in Habermas’s Critical Theory of Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. 27, no. 2 (2015): 151-174.
• “We Have an Imaginary Friend in Jesus: What Imaginary Companions Tell Us about Religion.” Implicit Religion 15, no. 1 (2012): 61-79.
• “The Challenge of Postmetaphysical Thinking and the Nature of Religious Thought.” Islamic Perspective 3 (2010): 28-49.
• “Chuck Palahniuk and the New Journalism Revolution.” In Sacred and Immoral: On the Writings of Chuck Palahniuk, 1-21. Edited by Jeffrey Sartain. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.
• “Evil in World Religions at the University of Manitoba (2002-2008): An Introduction and Provocation.” Golem: A Journal of Religion and Monsters 3, no. 1 (2009): 38-55.