The Caribbean Religions Project is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research project designed to identify, describe and analyze Caribbean religious phenomena from a Caribbean perspective.   The world’s religions have come into dynamic contact with each other in the Caribbean in ways that have generated unique and creative approaches to spirituality interweaving Aboriginal, African, Indian, European and other religious traditions.  Taking as its starting point the Caribbean experience in its geographical, historical and cultural breadth, the Caribbean Religions Project will address the plurality of religious discourses and practices in the region and their transformations in relation to each other.  The Project will be attentive to the ways in which Caribbean religious experiences have taken shape in relation to the processes of colonialism and the challenges of the post-colonial world.  Though contributors to the Project include international experts in the field, contributions from researchers and practitioners who are based in the Caribbean region constitute one of the most significant components of the Project.

• to contribute to the development of a theoretical framework for the study of comparative religion in the Caribbean
• to advance knowledge of the variety, complexity and interrelatedness of religious phenomena in the Caribbean
• to fill a gap in the comparative study of world religions where the Caribbean, in particular, and the colonial and postcolonial experiences, in general, are neglected

The Project is committed to providing training and research opportunities for graduate students and researchers, including those working within the Caribbean region.

“Dialogues in the Spirit: Caribbean Religions in Comparative Perspective,” York University, November 12-15, 1998.

“Caribbean Religion Panels,” Annual Congress of the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, York University, November 1-2, 1996.

“African, Indian and Indigenous Religions of the Caribbean,” Institute of Caribbean Studies, St. Augustine, University of the West Indies, August 16-18, 1996.

“Afro-Cuban Religions in a Caribbean Context,” Casa del Caribe and Universidad de Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, July 3-6, 1995.

The Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions is under contract to be published by the University of Illinois Press.

Related Project publication: Nation Dance: Religion, Identity and Cultural Difference in the Caribbean, Ed. Patrick Taylor (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2001).

Editors
Frederick I. Case, Ph.D., Caribbean Studies / French, University of Toronto
Patrick Taylor, Ph.D., CERLAC / Humanities, York University

Editorial Coordinator
Joyce Leung, Ph.D., CERLAC / Founders College, York University

The editors work closely with an Advisory Board and a team of Consulting Editors drawn largely from the Caribbean region.
 

The Caribbean Religions Project gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Ford Foundation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.  The project is also grateful for the ongoing support of York University, the University of Toronto, and numerous institutions in the Caribbean region and elsewhere.
 

Please address inquiries to:

The Editors, Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions
CERLAC, York University, North York, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada

Email: taylorp@yorku.ca
Tel.: 416-736-2100 ext. 40481
Fax: 416-736-5737