This past year was nothing short of a momentous one for the research programme that I use this site to catalogue. Thanks very much to those of you who follow this space and check in on my scholarly work from time to time. I hope the year has been kind to you as well!

2023 saw the publication of my second book, Ontologies of Violence, and a symposium on my first, Postsecular History, in Political Theology 24.3 – as well as generous reviews of both books (one in Reading Religion and one in Marx & Philosophy). A few interviews have come out on my second book and other activities, as well as a piece called “Metaphysics of the Book” that I have been working on for some time (with deepest thanks to Micah Enns-Dyck at Macrina Magazine).

But by far the most important breakthrough of the year came in January when we heard that the SSHRC Partnership grant application we submitted in October was approved – meaning that the CREATE project (that I led the majority of the writing for) was confirmed along with my position at the Arcand Centre for Health Equity, for the next six years. After many precarious years in graduate school, and following my own SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at the DSR at UofT (2021-2023), I now have some semblance of stability working on a project that I believe in.

I was fortunate enough to attend the International Congress on Academic Medicine conference in Quebec City in April, as well as two health conferences here in Thunder Bay – each of which have helped me enter a new conversation on medical education at the Arcand Centre and NOSM University. Late in the year I presented twice at the American Academy of Religion meetings in San Antonio, Texas – first on a panel on Miriam Toews’ Women Talking (pictured below), and second in the bioethics unit, on Social Accountability – the main theme of my work at the Arcand Centre.

This year has also seen some exciting developments with Pandora Press. As director of the company, this year I relaunched the Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies series as an independent scholarly book series. I’m very proud to say that the first five volumes of the series were published in 2023, with at least five more on the way. They include: Gary Waite’s study of Anti-Anabaptist polemics in England, an edition of the only sustained study of Dutch Anabaptist Hans de Ries by C.J. Dyck, a serious historical study of the Anabaptist refusal of oath-swearing by Edmund Pries, and just this past week, second/revised editions of Linda Huebert Hecht’s book on women in early Austrian Anabaptism, and J. Lawrence Burkholder’s magnum opus Mennonite Ethics.

Forthcoming books with Pandora Press will include an historical novel on the Flemish Mennonites, an essay collection on theatre and justice, a book of reflections on hymnody, a special edition of German Mennonite hymns translated as poems, a re-issued pamphlet on extremism, and 3-5 volumes in the aforementioned series (one on Quakers, one on Dutch Mennonite art, an essay collection by a senior scholar in the field, and two translations of canonical Anabaptist history texts).

This coming year my own work will focus on the CREATE Project, as well as two book manuscripts – one monograph that will complete my postdoctoral work called Critique of Conspiracism (Routledge, under contract), and one essay collection that will consolidate my Mennonite work called Mennonite Metaphysics (Cascade, under contract). The lead essay in the latter project will be out soon in the Conrad Grebel Review, as part of a special issue that collects the first two contributions to the Anabaptists and Philosophy Roundtable lecture series (which will continue with an event in April on Judith Butler and nonviolence).

I’m looking forward to a year that is a bit more focused and a bit less scattered. The CREATE Project will give me occasion to dig deeply into the concept and practice of social accountability in and beyond medical education, and to focus on the social bonds of public trust that I also theorize in my work on conspiracy theories. Keep an eye out here for details about an upcoming lecture on the topic in the next few weeks!

Max Kennel
Thunder Bay, Ontario
January 4th 2023