Pamela Klassen

Religion and memory on the land

workshops & lectures

The Value of Stories in an Age of Reconciliation

The work of humanities scholars is to tell stories about people in their dizzying diversity across times and places, at the same time that we clarify the grounds on which such stories are told. Put another way, we tell stories while also reflecting on the stakes of which stories are told and valued, and who does the telling. In this presentation, I reflected on the value of stories at a time when settler-colonial nations, including Australia and Canada, have undertaken processes of apology, truth, and reconciliation for colonial violence and dispossession of Indigenous peoples.

“The Value of Stories in an Age of Reconciliation” Culture & Values Lecture Series, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland, May 10, 2019.

The Medium is the Medicine

At a time when some governments have undertaken processes of apology, truth, and reconciliation for colonial violence and dispossession of Indigenous peoples, how can scholars in the humanities contribute to these imperfect gestures of repair?  To hazard an answer to this question, I reflected on my process of narrating the story of an early-twentieth-century Anglican missionary in the Pacific Northwest who, after years of doing the work of Christian colonial settlement on Indigenous land, came to think that telepathy was the solution to everything from class warfare to religious divisions.

“The Medium is the Medicine: Stories and the Work of Reconciliation in Canada”, Public Lecture, Queen’s College, University of Melbourne, May 3, 2018.

Frequencies for Listening: Telling Stories of Missionary Colonialism

 

An alliance of church and state which forcibly took Indigenous children from their families in order to assimilate them to Christianity, the English language, and acceptance of the sovereignty of the Dominion of Canada, residential schools were, to use the language of the TRC, a form of cultural genocide with ongoing intergenerational effects. In this lecture, I approached the complicated spiritual politics of storytelling in the wake of the TRC by reflecting on the life of an early-twentieth-century missionary in the Pacific Northwest who participated in Christian colonial settlement on Indigenous land, while also condemning residential schools.

“Frequencies for Listening: Telling Stories of Missionary Colonialism in the Wake of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools”, Religion Programme, University of Otago, Dunedin, Aoteoroa/New Zealand, April 18, 2018.

Telepathy, Empire, and Public Memory

In an era of government-sponsored processes of apology, truth, and reconciliation for colonial violence and dispossession, what is the burden of public memory? To hazard an answer to this question, I reflected on my process of narrating the story of an early-twentieth-century Anglican missionary in the Pacific Northwest who thought telepathy was the solution to everything from class warfare to religious divisions.

“Telepathy, Empire, and Public Memory” Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany, February 15, 2018.