Education
PhD (1990), English, University of Ottawa.
Dissertation: Mimesis, Magic, Manipulation: A Study of the Photograph in Contemporary British and Canadian Novels.
MA (1974), English Language and Literature, Oxford University, UK.
Cert. (1971), Education – English, Cambridge University, UK.
BA (Hons) (1970), English Language and Literature, Oxford University, UK.
Courses
- Ways of Reading: Fiction (ENG-103)
- Environmental Literature (ENG-241)
- British Literature, 1900-1950 (ENG-347)
- British Literature, 1950-Present (ENG-357)
- Postcolonial Literature (ENG-376)
- Modern Canadian Poetry (ENG-427)
- Studies in Postcolonial Literature (ENG-476)
About
Bowen’s monograph Stories of the Middle Space: Reading the Ethics of Postmodern Realisms (McGill-Queen’s U P, 2010) and her edited collection of essays The Strategic Smorgasbord of Postmodernity: Literature and the Christian Critic (Cambridge Scholars P, 2007) demonstrate her concern with reading contemporary literature from a Christian perspective, and her belief that God is at work in literature even where the divine is not named there. She regularly publishes articles on contemporary British and Canadian fiction and poetry in books and scholarly journals, and has also contributed a number of papers on pedagogy and on the importance of the humanities. She has presented over eighty papers at both Christian and non-confessional academic conferences in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere. In the winter semester of 2013, she was the ARCU (Association of Reformed Colleges and Universities) lecturer for the year, and gave lectures at Tyndale U.C., Trinity Christian College in Chicago, Geneva College in Pennsylvania, The King’s University in Edmonton, and the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. Though Bowen retired from full-time work in June of 2017, she is still teaching part time, and hopes to do so for as long as her family situation allows. Dr. Bowen also retired in 2018 as co-director, with Dr. Katherine Quinsey at the University of Windsor, of the national Christianity and Literature Study Group. Her work with a SSHRC Insight Development Grant on The Poetry and Ecology Project resulted in the leaflets posted at https://www.redeemer.ca/wp-content/uploads/Poetry-and-Ecology-Project.pdf. Subsequent work with a SSHRC Insight Grant has now produced a curated anthology entitled Poetry in Place: Poetry and Environmental Hope in a Southern Ontario Bioregion (Guernica Editions, 2025); the assistant editor and all the research assistants are Redeemer alumni.
Research Interests
- Poetry and ecology
- The spiritual and the mythical in contemporary English fiction and poetry
Current Research
- Canadian poetry and environmental concern
- The voice of Creation in contemporary literature
Recent Publications
See Google Scholar for a full list of publications.
Books
Poetry in Place: Poetry and Environmental Hope in a Southern Ontario Bioregion, ed. Deborah C. Bowen, assistant ed. Noah Van Brenk. Guernica Editions, 2025.
Bowen, Deborah C. Stories of the Middle Space: Reading the Ethics of Postmodern Realisms. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010.
The Strategic Smorgasbord of Postmodernity: Literature and the Christian Critic, ed. Deborah C. Bowen. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007.
Selected Book Chapters
Bowen, Deborah C. “Creation Still Speaking: The Everyday Voice of the Divine in Contemporary Canadian Poetry.” In Secularism and the Pursuit of Transcendence, Volume II. McMaster Divinity College/Wipf & Stock, 2025. https://wipfandstock.com/9798385230754/secularism-and-the-pursuit-of-transcendence-volume-ii/
Bowen, Deborah C. “‘Nature is Never Spent’? The Prophetic Voice in Contemporary Canadian Ecological Poetry.” In The Prophetic Word: Poetry, Philosophy and Theology in Conversation. Mark Burrows, ed., 233-241. Routledge, 2021.
Bowen, Deborah C. “Places that Shape Us.” Revised for inclusion in A Sort of Homecoming: Essays Honoring the Academic and Community Work of Brian Walsh. Marcia Boniferro, Amanda Jagt, and Andrew Stephens-Rennie, ed.s., 14-22 Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock, 2020.
Bowen, Deborah C. “Reading the Devil in the Landscape.” In The Hermeneutics of Hell: Devilish Visions and Visions of the Devil in World Literature. Dan Russ and Gregor Thuswaldner, eds., 291-304. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, July 2017.
Selected Articles
Bowen, Deborah C. “Reading deep time: contemporary Canadian geopoetry.” Green Letters winter 2025. https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2024.2437742
Bowen, Deborah C. “Preface: Constructing the Past, Reviewing the Present.” In “’Due Influence’: Anita Brookner’s Legacy.” Special issue of Ėtudes Anglaises, guest edited by Laurence Petit. ĖA 74, no. 2 (2021): 131-134.
Bowen, Deborah C. “‘Let heaven and nature sing’ in poems by Malcolm Guite, Wendell Berry, and John Terpstra.” The Glass no. 34 (Spring 2021): 22-28.
Bowen, Deborah C. “Listening to the Voice of Creation: How Contemporary Ontarian Creative Writers Hear the Natural World.” Christianity and Literature, 69, no. 2 (June 2020): 219-236.
Bowen, Deborah C. “The Trees of the Forest Shall Clap Their Hands.” Hamilton Arts and Letters, 12th Anniversary Climate Action Issue, ed. Matthew Zantingh and Alec Follett, 31, no. 1 (June 2020).
Bowen, Deborah C. “Ecological Endings and Eschatology: Margaret Atwood’s Post-Apocalyptic Fiction.” Christianity and Literature, 66, no. 4 (Sept. 2017): 691-705.
Selected Book Reviews
Bowen, Deborah C. “Hunting, Hearing Loss, and Environmental Ethics: A review of A Catechism of Nature: Meditations on Creation’s Primary Realities,” by George Willcox Brown III (Wipf and Stock, 2021). Front Porch Republic, July 27, 2022.
Bowen, Deborah C. Review of When Poets Pray, by Marilyn McEntyre (Eerdmans, 2019). The Glass No. 34 (Spring 2021): 48-50.
Bowen, Deborah C. Review of Scripture and the English Poetic Imagination, by David Lyle Jeffrey (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019). Christian Scholars Review Vol XLIX, No. 4 (Summer 2020).
Bowen, Deborah C. Review of A Grain of Faith: Religion in Mid-Century British Literature, by Allan Hepburn (Oxford U P, 2018). The Glass: Towards a Christian Understanding of Literature 32 (Spring 2020): 60-62.
Bowen, Deborah C. Review of The Larger Conversation: Contemplation and Place, by Tim Lilburn (Edmonton, AB: U of Alberta P, 2017). Journal of Canadian Poetry 34 (2017).
Bowen, Deborah C. Review of The Once and Future Great Lakes Country: An Ecological History, by John L. Riley (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2013). The Goose 16, no. 1 (2017), Article 12.
Research Funding
Awarded a SSHRC Insight Grant to work on Poetry in Place: Poetry and Environmental Hope in a Southern Ontario Bioregion, April 2020-March 2025
Awarded a SSHRC Insight Development Grant to work on “The Voice of Environmental Hope in Contemporary Ontarian Poetry,” June 2016-May 2018
Awarded a Zylstra grant to work on “EcoAtwood meets EcoChristianity,” April 2015
Stories of the Middle Space: Reading the Ethics of Postmodern Realisms (McGill-Queen’s UP) was awarded an Aid to Scholarly Publications grant by SSHRC
Relevant Links
Poetry in Place: Poetry and Environmental Hope in a Southern Ontario Bioregion
The Strategic Smorgasbord of Postmodernity
Christianity and Literature Study Group (a national organization allied with ACCUTE)