Robert Menzies
BA (Hons) (Manitoba), MA (Manitoba), PhD (Iowa)
Dr. Robert Menzies earned his PhD in 2004 from The University of Iowa’s School of Religious Studies. As part of his program he spent an academic year in Varanasi, India, where he discovered the glories of paan. After graduating he taught as Visiting Assistant Professor at Albion College in Albion, Michigan, and followed that with a one-year term in Hinduism at Concordia University in Montreal. He has taught a variety of Asian religions and history courses at University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba. He also taught one summer at Chonnam National University in Gwangju, South Korea (where he discovered the glories of various types of kimchi).
Having been interested in Asia and mythology since a child, it seemed natural to Dr. Menzies that he examine Hindu mythology professionally. In graduate school he came across the stories which are told within Hindu women’s domestic rituals (vrats) and he has been studying these fascinating short stories ever since. He has published several articles and book chapters on these stories and continues to examine them as they are used by Hindu women in North America. Since coming to KPU Dr. Menzies has happily taught within History and Asian Studies and is delighted to be developing alternative delivery methods to better serve KPU’s student population. When not teaching and researching, Dr. Menzies can be found exploring the roads of the Lower Mainland on the glorious form of transportation known as a motorcycle.
Courses taught
- ARTS 1100: Experiencing the Arts
- ARTS 3993 Undergraduate Research and Scholarship
- HIST 1100: Reel History Hist through Film
- HIST1160: A Passage to South Asia: Introduction to South Asian History
- HIST 2335: War in the Modern World
- HIST 2365: Cultural History of Buddhism
- HIST 3145: Intro to EcoActivist Movements
- HIST 3360: British India, 1857-1947
- HIST 3361: The Indian Subcontinent since 1947
- HIST 4400 Applications of History
- HIST 4460: Gandhi in History
- HIST 4499 (Selected Topics in History): Yoga in History
- ASIA 1100 Introducing Asia
- ASIA 1111 The Religions of India
- ASIA 1311: Religions of East Asia
- ASIA 3255 Gender in South Asia
Areas of Interest
Asian religions and history; Hindu mythology; Hindu women's domestic rituals; South Asian diaspora
Scholarly Work
- “The Celluloid Temple: Viewing the Televised Ramayan as a Hindu Ritual Act.” In David Gay and Stephen R. Reimer, eds. Locating the Past/Discovering the Present. 175-193. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 2010.
- “Forest Paradigms in Vrat Kathas.” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, volume 4, issue 2, June 2010.
- “Ritual Precision in Vrat Kathas.” In Reeta Chowdhari Tremblay, ed. Asia: Local and Global Perspectives: Selected articles from the Conference of the Canadian Association of South Asian Studies, 2006. Montreal: Canadian South Asian Society, 2008, 171-183.
- “Of Myth and Mantra: The Slippery Taxonomy of Printed and Oral Vrat Kathas.” Studies in Religion, Volume 36 Number 1 (2007), 3-21.
- “Lucky You; Lucky Me: Revival based on women’s ritual power in vrat kathas,” in Chakra- tidskrift föör indiska religioner (tema: medicin och terapi), 58-69. Fööreningen Chakra, Lund, 2004.