Robert H. Dennis

Ph.D. Candidate/Teaching Fellow

E-mail: 7rhd@queensu.ca
Phone: 613-533-6000, ext: 74353 
Fax: 613-533-6298
Office: Watson Hall 201
 

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About

Robert Dennis is a historian of twentieth century Canada with a particular interest in the history of religion. His thesis, "Depression and Wartime Roman Catholicism in Toronto: Confronting Liberal Order, Engaging the Left, and Restructuring the Church," examines the advent of social Catholicism in English Canada and its relationship to Canadian left from the 1930s to the 1960s. Though often depicted as natural adversaries, a closer examination can discern new tendencies on both sides of this traditional chasm: for Depression-era Roman Catholics, a new interest in left-wing prescriptions for social and economic ills, and among 1930s leftists, a new emphasis on radical state planning through parliamentary means. Focused on Toronto, this thesis is about these new religious and political formations, which took root within the interstices of older ways of understanding the relationship among the church, the state, and civil society. It proposes that Catholics, examined institutionally and through lived expressions of faith, and socialists were influenced by the problems and opportunities created by a crisis-ridden liberal order, one whose assumptions about humanity and politics both felt compelled to challenge.

Selected Publications

Articles

Dennis, Robert H. "Beginning to Restructure the Institutional Church: Canadian Social Catholics and the CCF, 1931-1944," Historical Studies, 74 (2008): 51-71.
Book Chapters

-----. "Forever Proud? From Public to Private Space: the Montreal Canadiens Transition from the Forum to the Molson Centre," in Andrew Holman (ed), Canada's Game? Critical Perspectives on Hockey and Identity (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009).
Dennis, Robert H. and Gregory S. Kealey et al., "Knowledge Movement in Response to Coastal BC Oil and Gas Development: Past, Present and Future," in John Lutz and Barbara Neis (eds), Making and Moving Knowledge: Interdisciplinary and Community-based Research in a World on the Edge (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008).
-----. "Social-Ecological Health and the History of Non-Renewable Resources on the East and West Coasts," in Rosemary Ommer (ed), Coasts Under Stress: Restructuring and Social-Ecological Health in Coastal Communities (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008).

Non-Refereed Publications

Franca Iacovetta, Molly Ladd-Taylor with Robert H. Dennis et al., Becoming a Historian: A Canadian Manuel (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 2008 [second edition]). Available online, http://www.cha-shc.ca/becoming%20a%20historian/index.shtml.
Dennis, Robert H. "Findings of the Access to Government Information Task Force," Canadian Historical Association Bulletin, vol. 32, no. 1 (2006): 21.
-----. "Report from the Grad Rep on the CHA," Canadian Historical Association Bulletin vol. 31, no. 1 (2005): 33-34.
-----. "New Grad Student Liaison with CHA," Canadian Historical Association Bulletin vol. 30, no. 3 (2004): 13.

Selected Presentations:

Invited Lectures

Dennis, Robert H. "Social Catholicism as Canadian Leftism: Lived Religion and Living Otherwise in Toronto during the Depression," McGill Institute for the Study of Canada series on "The Left in Canada," 8 October 2008.

Conference Papers

Dennis, Robert H. "Depression-Era Roman Catholicism in Toronto: the Case of Catherine de Hueck and Friendship House," paper presented at the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States Biennial Conference, Toronto, ON, 2007.
-----. "Canadian Social Catholics Begin to Restructure the Institutional Church: Reassessing the Relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the CCF, 1931-1944" paper presented at the Canadian Catholic Historical Association Annual Meetings, Saskatoon, SK, 2007.
-----. "Depression-Era Roman Catholicism in Toronto: the Case of Catherine de Hueck and Friendship House," paper presented at the Canadian Historical Association Annual Meetings, Saskatoon, SK, 2007.
-----. "Canadian Social Catholics Begin to Restructure the Institutional Church: Reassessing the Relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the CCF, 1931-1944" paper presented at the American Society of Church History, Salt Lake City, UT, 2007.
-----. "Amidst Offshore Oil and Gas Development and Disaster: Addressing Jurisdictional and Regulatory Issues on the East and West Coasts of Canada, 1979-1994," Annual Meeting of Canadian Historical Association, London, ON, 2005.
-----. "Forever Proud? From Public to Private Space: the Invention of Tradition during the Montreal Canadiens Transition from the Forum to the Molson Centre," Canada's Game? Critical Perspectives on Hockey & Identity Conference, Plymouth, MA, 2005.
-----. "Lessons from the Meech Lake Accord: Executive Federalism and the Future of Canada's Constitutional Debate," paper presented at "Constitutionalism and Cultural Pluralism: Lessons from Canada Conference," University of Edinburgh, 2004.
-----. "Bi-Coastal Lessons: Offshore Oil and Gas Development in British Columbia and Newfoundland & Labrador," paper presented at the Association for Canadian Studies in United States Biennial Conference, Portland, OR, 2003.
-----. "Remembering Early Connections: the Politics of Public Memory in Saint John, New Brunswick's Tercentennial Celebrations, June 1904" paper presented at "Northern Coasts and Islands: Early Connections" Conference, University of Edinburgh, 2003.

Teaching

HIST 437, Religion in North American Society, 1800-1960