Stephen Kent

Biography

I have lived in Canada since 1977, and for decades considered myself Canadian (although I do hold dual citizenship, mostly for professional and familial reasons). My second MA and then PhD are from McMaster University in Ontario, and (with the exception of one year when I was in the Sociology department at the University of Waterloo) I have been at the University of Alberta since January 1984. I received two Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grants to study sects, cults, and new religions in Canada and the United States, and because of this research I have amassed one of North America's largest collections on alternative and sectarian religions (currently owned as a restricted collection by the University Library). Graduate and undergraduate students use the collection (under my supervision) on a regular basis. Because of this research and my work with students, I received my department's undergraduate teaching award (the Bill Meloff Award for Undergraduate Teaching) in 2010, and one of three campus-wide Graduate Supervisor Awards from the Graduate Students' Association in 2009. For advancing the understanding of coercive persuasion and undue influence through my publications on the harmful aspects of some religious and other ideological sects, the International Cultic Studies Association awarded me the Margaret Thaler Singer Award in 2012

Research Interest

Research With degrees in both religious studies and sociology, my research and teaching interests focus on a wide variety of religious organizations and practices. Most of my research, and at least one course that I teach, is on controversial sects, cults, and alternative religions.I am working, for example on a large project involving mental health issues related to sectarian leaders, and I have ongoing research and writing interests in the disturbing area of child sexual abuse in alternative religions. Students under my supervision have published on a wide variety of topics. These topics include:: Evangelical youth and sexuality, medical doctors' concerns around vaccinations, Jim Jones's use of language, apocalypticism and white racism; anti-racist skinheads; sects and family violence; internal sectarian dissent; Scientology's business management programs; terrorism; Edmonton spiritual teacher John De Ruiter; Max Weber on charisma; sociology of knowledge issues surrounding the study of alternative religions; religion and child sexual abuse; psychohistory of sectarian leaders; fundamenatalist Pakistani madrassahs, medical and psuedo-medical issues invovling some sects; pseudo-science; Scientology; dietary issues in some sects; social movements; the Children of God/The Family; sectarian surveillance issues; Heaven's Gate; rational choice theory; Marxism and sectarianism; and jurisprudence violations involving many sects.