Professor Dr. Barry Stephenson

Biography

Barry Stephenson holds a joint appointment in Political Science and Religious Studies. He received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Calgary in 2005, having come from Wilfrid Laurier’s Religion and Culture Department. He is a co-chair of the Ritual Studies Group at the American Academy of Religion and has edited volumes in Oxford University Press’s Ritual Studies Series. He currently co-directs the SSHRC-funded Church Atlas project alongside Dr. Nicholas Lynch in Geography, which studies the dynamics of church closure and transformation. His notable publications include 'Excursions in Ritual Studies' published by Ritual Studies International in 2020, and 'Ritual: A Short Introduction' from Oxford University Press in 2015, with translations forthcoming in Arabic and Czech. He has also contributed to various academic journals including 'Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies' and the 'Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Ritual.'

Research Interests