Kenneth MacKendrick
Guest on Ologies with Alie Ward
Kenneth MacKendrick is a Canadian religious studies scholar and professor at the University of Manitoba, where he focuses on critical theory, religion, and the cultural concept of evil. He is the author of *Evil: A Critical Primer* and has taught courses on the notion of evil for over two decades.
Products they talk about
Dracula👍 Recommends
…examining how characters in classic literature classify something as evil and decide to obliterate it
“And so a colleague of mine, Darlene Jushka, she, in one of the classes she was teaching, she used the novel Dracula. This is a fantastic novel by Bram Stoker.”
on Ologies with Alie Ward
Others in Mind👍 Recommends
…discussing how fear and anxiety drive people to reject others in political and personal contexts
“There's a book called Others in Mind by Philip Roche. It's a beautiful book. It's a wonderful book. But it talks a lot about that. We push other people away when we're afraid that they're going to push us away.”
on Ologies with Alie Ward
Purity and Danger👍 Recommends
…exploring how dirt and impurity concepts relate to how we define evil
“There's a book by Mary Douglas called Purity and Danger. And for me, it was a bit of a revelation because she basically said, look, when you look out at the world, you classify everything that you see at the borders of your system of classification, at the borders of your language, at the borders of the way you look at the world, there's going to be sort of blurry areas.”
on Ologies with Alie Ward
The Guide for the Study of Religion👍 Recommends
…examining how women have historically been associated with evil and impurity across cultures
“Randy Warren has an excellent chapter on this in a book called The Guide for the Study of Religion, where she talks about all of the different strategies that patriarchs and androcentric thinkers have used in order to either justify, rationalize or force women into these positions and how their voices have been marginalized and completely ignored.”
on Ologies with Alie Ward