Rev. Dr. Matthew Anderson
Matthew feels that keeping a number of part-time jobs on the go results in an impressive collection of MS Outlook email addresses.
He teaches part-time at both St Francis Xavier University (Antigonish, NS/Mi’kma’ki) and Concordia University (Montréal/Tio’tiá:ke). He’s also the part-time Director of Camino Nova Scotia, housed at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax. Matthew was born on Treaty 4 territory, in south-west SK. He was ordained in 1985 after graduating from LTS Saskatoon. His PhD, in Biblical Studies, is from McGill (1999).
Matthew has four books out or soon to be out, and you can tell a lot about his interests from their titles: Prophets of Love: The Unlikely Kinship of Leonard Cohen and the Apostle Paul (McGill-Queens University Press, 2023); Our Home and Treaty Land (with Dr. Ray Aldred, 2022); Pairings: The Bible and Booze (Novalis, 2021; in French as Apocalypse et gin tonic), and, coming out next spring: The Good Walk: Creating New Paths on Traditional Prairie Trails (University of Regina Press, 2024). He is still writing journal articles, opinion pieces, and encyclopaedia and textbook articles even though he doesn’t have to but just likes writing.
Matthew also likes walking: he helped instituted historic trail pilgrimages in Western Canada and the Montreal urban area and has walked and led walks for thousands of kilometres on pilgrimage paths in Europe and North America.
A passion of Matthew’s is to translate academic research into fun and user-friendly public “outputs.” He has a pilgrimage podcast called “Pilgrimage Stories from Up and Down the Staircase,” Biblical Studies channels on YouTube and Soundcloud, and has written, shot, and produced two full-length documentaries about pilgrimage.
Many interesting things Matt has done can be found on his websites, https://SomethingGrand.ca and https://UnsettledWords.com.
Matthew first spoke at ROOO (on the topic of Pilgrimage) in 2016. We are delighted to welcome him back.
