Faculty Spotlight

The Religion and Culture Department is pleased to highlight the exciting work being done by our two newest faculty members, who have been active this past year in pursuing their fascinating research and offering innovative new courses at the University of Winnipeg.

Professor He's research focuses on Chinese Buddhism, especially Buddhist material culture. Her doctoral dissertation explores how the introduction of Buddhist statues in early medieval China generated new affective experiences, and how those experiences were translated and integrated into the Chinese repertoire of emotional concepts. She is also interested in the intersection of religion and the economy.  Recently she presented a paper "Compassionate Buddha, Compassionate Ruler: How Image-making Reworked State-Subjects Relationship in Early Medieval China" at the 2023 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. Professor He has taught courses on Buddhism in East Asia, Chinese language, and most recently, an innovative seminar on Art and Meditation in Buddhism. This past year she collaborated with Gallery 1C03, in co-supervising  (with Dr. Lenore Szekely) an East Asian Language and Culture student, Irene Chan, through a Directed Reading course entitled “Exhibiting East Asia," in relation to her curation of the exhibition “Within and Beyond Tradition: Works by East Asian Artists from The University of Winnipeg Collection," a fantastic achievement for an undergraduate student. Also, in joint efforts with Gallery 1C03, as part of the Asian Heritage Month events, Professor He gave a talk on “Learning Chinese Characters” in May 2023. 

Professor Khamisa's research focuses on lived experiences of Sikhs in Canada. Her doctoral dissertation is a digital ethnography that examines the rise of an elite constellation of millennial Sikh entrepreneurial activists and the innovative ways they express their shared Sikh values and moral positions for global social change via the social, economic, and political domains of Canadian society.  At the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association and the Canadian Anthropological Society in Toronto this past November, Professor Khamisa co-organized a roundtable on "Organizing Objects Through the Stories We Tell," and presented on the printed floral turbans designed and sold by digital Sikh fashion social enterprise, TrendySingh, based in Calgary. She has taught courses on the Religions of India, a Multifaith Society, and, for the first time at the University of Winnipeg, a seminar on Sikhs in Canada. Professor Khamisa's recent course on a Multifaith Society included an assignment that challenged students to consider how different Canadian university institutions address and manage the growing religious diversity on their campuses. Students first conducted research on two major Canadian universities and their multifaith policies and/or practices; and then wrote a comparative essay analyzing the similarities and differences of the multifaith policies and practices of each university incorporating critical discussion of course materials.