December 5, 2025
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Presenters: Christine Jamieson and Reid Locklin

This seminar will draw together two legacies that are frequently kept apart: namely, the legacy of the Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard JF Lonergan (1904-1984) and the legacy of settler colonialism in Canada. Panelists will report on a two-year SSHRC Insight Development Grant on this topic, entitled, “Transcendental Method, Spiritual Violence and Genocide” (2023-2025). On the one hand, Lonergan’s public life corresponded nearly perfectly with the worst chapters of the Indian Residential School System—including Jesuit sponsored schools in Spanish, Ontario, 1913-1965, and on several sites in the United States—and specific features of his thought are coherent with policies of cultural assimilation and genocide. On the other hand, his fundamental commitment to intellectual self-transcendence and his heuristic approach to the human good offer rich possibilities for engagement with Indigenous philosophies. Jamieson and Locklin will discuss both sides of the grant project and suggest avenues for further research.

Christine Jamieson is Associate Professor of Theological Studies at Concordia University. Her research ranges across Indigenous Spirituality, Ethical deliberation, Frameworks for ethical deliberation, Bioethics, Medical ethics, Christian ethics, and Lonergan. Prof. Jamieson is a member of the Boothroyd First Nation (Nlaka'pamux Nation) in the Fraser Canyon, British Columbia.

Reid B. Locklin is Professor of Christianity and the Intellectual Tradition at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on a range of issues in Comparative Theology and Hindu-Christian Studies. Since completing his Certificate in Indigenous Cultural Awareness at the First Nations Technical Institute in 2018, Professor Locklin has founded a Truth and Reconciliation Reading Circle at St. Mike’s and has been collaborating with a team of student researchers on the resource site, “Teaching and Learning as Treaty Peoples” (https://treatylearning.ca/).

Registration required: https://utoronto.zoom.us/meeting/register/dGaLS9ArTUGYwq3bxispoA

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