Virtual Public Lecture

Speaker: Dr. Ken Draper

Title: Alliance History & Thought

Speaker Bio: After 34 years as part of the Ambrose community, Dr. Ken Draper is retiring. Ken leaves behind a legacy that spans multiple chapters of Ambrose's history and impacting countless lives. Before he steps into retirement, there is one final opportunity to hear him lecture.

Dr. Ken Draper's writing and research has focused on understanding the place of religion in late 19th- and early 20th-century Canada. This is a period which has been characterized as both a period of religious doubt and decline and a period of religious revival and growth. What seems to be happening is a reorientation of the place of religion from a vector of public identity to that of individual and private self-identity. Thus, in public, religious discourse becomes muted, while lay-led movements and practices develop wide followings that move outside of historic denominational boundaries. This leads to a more individualized, privatized experience of religion. Recently, teaching Public History has inspired an interest in the role of memory, particularly when it challenges dominant or national histories.