Dr. Doug Sikkema

Associate Professor of Core Studies and English


Phone: (905) 648-2139   Ext:4478

Email: dsikkema@redeemer.ca

Office: 127D

Programs: English Writing , English Literature

Education

PhD (2021), English Language and Literature, University of Waterloo.
Dissertation: The Myth of Disenchantment: Religion and the Environment in Contemporary American Literature.

MA (2007), English, University of Ottawa.

B.Ed. (2009), Intermediate/Senior – English/History, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.

BA (Hons) (2006), English/Philosophy, Redeemer University.

Courses

  • Ways of Reading: Fiction (ENG-103)
  • Ways of Reading: Poetry and Drama (ENG-104)
  • Expository Writing I (ENG-201)
  • American Literature Survey (ENG-232)
  • Contemporary American Literature (ENG-332)
  • Western Culture & Tradition I (HUM-110)
  • Understanding Our World Through the Arts (HUM-210)
  • Western Culture & Tradition II (HUM-120)
  • Introduction to Christian Worldview (CTS-110)

About

Doug Sikkema is an Associate Professor of English and the Core Program, teaching courses primarily in humanities, introduction to worldview, the arts, and the occasional English course. His research area is contemporary American literature with a particular focus on the ways in which the material world is imagined by Christian writers in a postsecular culture. The main writers Doug has focused on are the poet Christian Wiman, and the novelists, Marilynne Robinson and Wendell Berry. Doug is currently working on turning his research thesis into a book length study on the postsecular Christian imagination. In addition to his research, Doug is an Associate Editor with Comment Magazine where you will regularly find some of his writing. Doug is currently the Board Chair of Oak Hill Academy, a classical Christian school located in Ancaster that he helped cofound in 2017. He is also a Senior Fellow in Research at Cardus. Together with their four children and two retrievers, Doug and his wife Vanessa live on a small acreage outside of Hamilton where they aspire to be small-scale farmers.

Research Interests

  • Classical Education
  • History of “Great Books” education
  • American literature
  • Ecocriticism
  • Secularism/Postsecularism
  • Aesthetics
  • Technology
  • Calvinist Influences on Humanistics Education

Selected Publications

Dissertation

Sikkema, Doug. “The Myth of Disenchantment: Religion, Literature, and the Environment in Contemporary American Literature.” University of Waterloo, 2021.

Books

Sikkema, Doug. For the World’s Sake: Charlotte Mason’s Enduring Wisdom for the Anthropocene. Charlotte Mason Institute, Pidgen Press, 2023.

Book Chapters and Articles

Sikkema, Doug. “The Path Not Taken: Reconsidering the Way of Winthrop.” In Genealogies of Modernity, November 2023.

Sikkema, Doug. “To Dwell Ecologically: The Practice of Re-Enchantment.” In Christian Environmentalism and Human Responsibility in the 21st Century. ed. Katherine Quinsey. New York: Routledge, 2023.

Sikkema, Doug. “The Atmosphere.” In Breaking Ground. Plough Publishing, 2021.

Sikkema, Doug. “Between the City and the Classroom: The Influence of Wallace Stegner on Wendell Berry.” In Telling the Stories Right. Eds. Jeffrey Bilbro and Jack Baker. Front Porch Republic, Wipf and Stock, 2018.

Sikkema, Doug. “Christianity, Enchantment, and Modern Ecology.” In Eco-Theology and Nonhuman Ethics. Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.

Popular Articles

Sikkema, Doug. “Sex in the Cities: Abundance, Control and the Theater of God’s Glory,” Comment, Summer 2023.

Sikkema, Doug. “Education for an Eternal Kingdom.” Ekstasis. Summer 2021

Sikkema, Doug. “The Enduring Crisis.” Front Porch Republic. Summer 2021.

Sikkema, Doug. “The Atmosphere” Breaking Ground. June 2020.

Sikkema, Doug. “This Body, Broken.” From The Stories We Tell. Comment, May 2020.

Sikkema, Doug. “Happiness is Not a Horizon” Simplify Magazine. November 2019.

Sikkema, Doug. “What is Marilynne Robinson Hawking?” Comment. February 2018.

Sikkema, Doug. “Designed Isolation.” Comment. December 2016.

Sikkema, Doug. “Is Ecology Haunted? An Ecocritic Reads Laudato Si’. Comment. July 2015. (Reprinted in Crux, 2016).

Sikkema, Doug. “Stealing Past the Dragons: Marilynne Robinson’s Fiction” Convivium. 3, no. 17 (winter 2014).

Sikkema, Doug. “Longing for our Lost Home.” Convivium. 3, no. 14 (summer 2014).

Reviews

Sikkema, Doug. “How the Bible Means” Review of Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Scriptures, by Matthew Mullins. Comment. Summer 2021.

Sikkema, Doug. “The Permanent Crisis”. Review of Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age, by Chad Wellmon and Paul Reitter. Front Porch Republic. Summer 2021. University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Sikkema, Doug. “Disenchantment, Actually?” Review of The Myth of Disenchantment, by Jacob Josephson-Storm.  The New Atlantis. Chicago UP, 2017.

Sikkema, Doug. “Befriending Geoffrey Chaucer” Review of Fellowship of the Beatific Vision: Chaucer on Overcoming Tyranny and Becoming Ourselves, by Norm Klassen. First Things.  Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock) 2017.

Sikkema, Doug. “The New Scientism: Still Fighting the Phantom War.” Review of Excellent Beauty: The Naturalness of Religion and the Unnaturalness of the World, by Eric Dietrich. Books & Culture. Columbia UP, 2015. In Books and Culture, 2016.

Sikkema, Doug. “Loving God’s Wildness.” Review of ’s Loving God’s Wildness: The Christian Roots of our Ecological Crisis, by Jeffrey Bilbro (Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama, 2015). ISLE 22, no. 4 (fall 2015).

Sikkema, Doug. “Talking about God in Public” Review of The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language, by Rowan Williams. Comment. December 2014.

Sikkema, Doug. “Getting Back to Place.” Review of Why Place Matters: Geography, Identity, and Civic Life in Modern America,Eds. Wilfred M. McClay and Ted V. McAllister. Comment. April 2014.

Interviews

“Reformed Education on Purpose: What is Classical Education?” League of Canadian Reformed Schools. Podcast. Summer 2021.

A University for the World. A Conversation with Dr. Randy Boyagoda. Comment. Spring 2018.

“The Moral Enterprise of Creation: An Interview with Scott Masson.” Podcast. Cardus Audio. December 2014.

Word FM: The John and Cathy Show. “Will Beauty Save the World?” Pittsburgh, PA. April 10, 2014.

“Participating in Creation: An Interview with Dr. Norman Wirzba and Dr. Ellen Davis.” Podcast.  Cardus Audio. February 2014.

Research Funding

  • Invited Travel Fund, Redeemer University, 2022
  • SSHRC Doctoral Award, 2016-2018
  • Reid Trust recipient, 2017
  • Reid Trust recipient, 2016
  • Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS), 2015-2016
  • Reid Trust recipient, 2014

Related Experience

Visiting Scholar with the University of Cumbria, 2026-2031