Where do Canadians encounter religious meaning? Not where they used to!
In ten lively and wide-ranging essays, William Closson James examines various derivations of the sacred in contemporary Canadian culture. Most of the essays focus on the religious aspects of modern Canadian English fiction — for example, in essays on the fiction of Hugh MacLennan, Morley Callaghan, Margaret Atwood and Joy Kogawa. But James also explores other, non-literary events and activities in which Canadians have found something transcendant or revelatory.
Each of the chapters in Locations of the Sacred can be read independently as a discrete analysis of its subject. Taken as a whole, the essays make up a powerful argument for a new way of looking at the religious in contemporary Canada — not in the traditional ways of being religious, but in activities and locations previously thought to be “secular.” Thus, the domains and modes of the religious are expanded, not restricted.

William Closson James is a professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, where he has been a member of the Department of Religious Studies for twenty-five years.

William Closson James' profile page

Eschewing grand theories of life or letters, James teases a sense of the sacred out of human stories -- fictional, factual, or some hybrid interlacing of both. A delight to read and a rich source of insights into the sacred's elusive presence in contemporary Canada's secular landscapes.

Jamie S. Scott

This collection of essays is an important contribution to the small but growing body of work on religion....James's knowledge and understanding of popular religion in Canada are impressive and convincing. His close readings of the literary texts are insightful and persuasive. His writing is literate, intelligent, and mercifully jargon-free. Religious or not, the Canadian reader will find here an essential cultural commentary

Barbara Pell, <i>University of Toronto Quarterly</i>

Eschewing grand theories of life or letters, James teases a sense of the sacred out of human stories -- fictional, factual, or some hybrid interlacing of both. A delight to read and a rich source of insights into the sacred's elusive presence in contemporary Canada's secular landscapes

Jamie S. Scott, York University, <i>Religious Studies Review</i>

This collection of essays is an important contribution to the small but growing body of work on religion....James's knowledge and understanding of popular religion in Canada are impressive and convincing. His close readings of the literary texts are insightful and persuasive. His writing is literate, intelligent, and mercifully jargon-free. Religious or not, the Canadian reader will find here an essential cultural commentary.

John Moss, University of Ottawa