Education
Ph.D. (2021), English Language and Literature
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON.
M.A. (2007), English
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON.
B.Ed., (2009), Intermediate/Senior – English/History
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
B.A. Hons., (2006), English/Philosophy
Redeemer University College, Ancaster, ON.
Courses
- Ways of Reading: Poetry and Drama (ENG-104)
- Ways of Reading: Fiction (ENG-103)
- Expository Writing I (ENG-201)
- Western Culture & Tradition I (HUM-110)
- Western Culture & Tradition II (HUM-120)
- Contemporary American Literature (ENG-332)
- Understanding Our World Through the Arts (HUM-210)
About
Doug Sikkema is an assistant 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 editor with Front Porch Republic 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
Research Funding
2017 – SSHRC Doctoral Award
2016 – Reid Trust recipient
2015/16 – Reid Trust recipient
2014 – Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS)
Selected Publications
Dissertation
“The Myth of Disenchantment: Religion, Literature, and the Environment in Contemporary American Literature.” University of Waterloo.
Book Chapters and Articles
“Ecologically Man Dwells,” Essay collection in honour of Dr. Deborah Bowen. Ed. Katherine Quinsey. [Expected Publication Date 2022]
“The Atmosphere” in Breaking Ground. Plough Publishing, 2021.
Telling the Stories Right. Eds. Jeffrey Bilbro and Jack Baker. “Between the City and the Classroom: The Influence of Wallace Stegner on Wendell Berry.” Front Porch Republic, Wipf and Stock. 2018.
“Christianity, Enchantment, and Modern Ecology.” Eco-Theology and Nonhuman Ethics. Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
Popular Articles
“Education for an Eternal Kingdom.” Ekstasis. Summer 2021
“The Enduring Crisis.” Front Porch Republic. Summer 2021.
“The Atmosphere” Breaking Ground. June 2020.
“This Body, Broken.” From The Stories We Tell. Comment May, 2020.
“Happiness is Not a Horizon” Simplify Magazine. November, 2019.
“What is Marilynne Robinson Hawking?” Comment. February 2018.
“Designed Isolation.” Comment. December 2016.
“Is Ecology Haunted? An Ecocritic Reads Laudato Si’. Comment. July 2015. (Reprtinted in Crux, 2016).
“Stealing Past the Dragons: Marilynne Robinson’s Fiction” Convivium. 3(17): Winter 2014.
“Longing for our Lost Home.” Convivium. 3(14): Summer 2014.
Reviews
“How the Bible Means” Comment. Summer 2021. A review of Matthew Mullins. Enjoying the Bible: Literary Approaches to Loving the Scriptures. Baker Academic, 2021.
“The Permanent Crisis”. Front Porch Republic. Summer 2021. A Review of Chad Wellmon and Paul Reitter. Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age. University of Chicago Press, 2021.
“Disenchantment, Actually?” The New Atlantis. A review of Jacob Josephson-Storm’s The Myth of Disenchantment. Chicago UP, 2017.
“Befriending Geoffrey Chaucer” First Things. A review of Norm Klassen’s Fellowship of the Beatific Vision: Chaucer on Overcoming Tyranny and Becoming Ourselves” Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock) 2017.
“The New Scientism: Still Fighting the Phantom War.” Books & Culture. A Review of Eric Dietrich’s Excellent Beauty: The Naturalness of Religion and the Unnaturalness of the World. Columbia UP, 2015. In Books and Culture, 2016.
“Loving God’s Wildness.” ISLE. A Review of Jeffrey Bilbro’s Loving God’s Wildness: The Christian Roots of our Ecological Crisis. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama, 2015). ISLE. 22.4. Fall 2015.
“Talking about God in Public” Comment. Review of Williams, Rowan. The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language. Bloomsbury. Comment. December 2014.
“Getting Back to Place.” Comment. 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.
