Steven Joseph Engler is a Canadian scholar of religion. He currently is associate professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, Canada. From 2005-2005 he was a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in Ciêncas da Religião at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Palo (Brazil).

Engler is the (co-) editor of leading journals and book series in the field of Religious Studies

Religious studies

Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.While theology attempts to...

. In his work, he has analyzed major publications of the field and the academic landscape of religious studies in Latin America. His research focuses on science and religion, including creationism and ayurveda, and, more recently, on Brazilian religions such as Kardecism and Umbanda

Umbanda

Umbanda is an Afro-Brazilian religion that blends African religions with Catholicism, Spiritism and Kardecism, and considerable indigenous lore....

, which he analyzes in light of theoretical concepts such as agency, deference, indexicality, hybridity

Hybridity

Hybridity refers in its most basic sense to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Its contemporary uses are scattered across numerous academic disciplines and is salient in popular culture...

 and virtuality. In his work on theories of religion, he proposes to engage semantics

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....

.

Professional activities

• Co-editor (with Michael Stausberg
  Michael Stausberg
  Michael Stausberg is a Professor in Religious Studies He was born in Köln, Germany, April 28, 1966. He studied in Bonn, Tübingen, Bergen and Rome. He is now resident in Bergen, Norway.-Academic career:...
  
  ) of the journal Religion.
• Co-editor (with Kocku von Stuckrad, Richard King and Gerard Wiegers) of the Numen Book Series, Studies in the History of Religions (Brill).
• Editor of the NAASR Book Series Key Thinkers in the Study of Religion (Equinox).
• Member of the editorial board of the Brazilian journals Revista de Estudos da Religião (Rever) and Imaginário.
• Past Co-Chair (2001-2007) of the Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion group of the American Academy of Religion.

Select bibliography

• Engler, S. 2008. “Religious Studies in Latin America.” (Chapter editor; author of introduction and of section on Brazil; with coauthors Anatilde Idoyaga Molina, Renée de la Torre, Pablo Barrera Rivera and Sylvia Marcos) In Gregory D. Alles, Ed. Religious Studies: A Global View. London and New York: Routledge. 269-300.
• --- 2008. “Science Fiction, Religion and Social Change.” In Lee Easton and Randy Schroeder, Eds. The Influence of Imagination: Essays on Science Fiction and Fantasy as Agents of Change. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. 108-117.
• --- 2007. “Tipos de Criacionismos Cristãos” [Types of Christian Creationisms]. Revista de Estudos da Religião (Rever) 6/2. 83-107.
• --- 2005. Historicizing “Tradition” in the Study of Religion. Religion and Society 43. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. (Co-edited with Gregory P. Grieve, University of North Carolina)
• --- 2005. "Two Problems with Constructionism in the Study of Religion". Revista de Estudos da Religião (Rever) 5/4. 28-34.
• --- 2005. “Discourse,” “Tradition,” and “Translation.” In Kocku von Stuckrad, Ed. The Brill Dictionary of Religion. Leiden: Brill. 1: 516-519, 4:1907-1911, 4:1916-1920.
• --- 2004. “Constructionism vs. What?” Religion 34/4. 291-313.
• --- 2004. “Teoria da Religião Norte-americana: Alguns Debates Recentes [Recent Debates in North American Theory of Religion].” Revista de Estudos da Religião (Rever) 4/4. 27-42.
• --- 2003. “Modern Times: Religion, Consecration, and the State in Bourdieu.” Cultural Studies 17/3&4. 445-467.
• --- 2003. “‘Science’ vs. ‘Religion’ in Classical Ayurveda.” Numen 50/4. 416-463.

External links

• Theoretical Issues in the Study of Religion - Special issue of the Brazilian on-line journal Revista de Estudos da Religião (Rever) on theory of religion, edited by S. Engler.
• http://www2.mtroyal.ca/~sengler/