Dr. Gayle Thrift portrait

Dr. Gayle Thrift

Assistant Professor, History & Interdisciplinary Studies

Phone: (403) 254-3714

Email:Gayle.Thrift@stmu.ca

Office: A325

PhD History, University of Calgary
MA History, University of Calgary
BA History, University of Calgary
BA Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa

Specialization/research interests:Cold War Canada; Protestantism; social movements, disarmament, pacifism, protest; Western Canada

Monograph – Provisional Acceptance

Christ or Communism? Canadian Protestant Churches Confront the Cold War, 1945-1968. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Journal Articles (refereed unless otherwise noted)

“‘To Celebrate the Passing of a Great Era.’ Historical Pageantry and Commemoration in the 1925 Calgary Exhibition, Jubilee and Stampede.”Alberta History, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Summer 2012), 53-61.

“‘This is our war, too.’ Mary Dover, Commandant, Canadian Women’s Army Corps.” Alberta History, Vol. 59, No. 3, (Summer 2011), 2-12.

“‘By the West, for the West’: Frederick Haultain and the Struggle for Provincial Rights in Alberta.” Alberta History, Vol. 59, No. 1, (Winter 2011), 2-12.

“‘Women of Prayer are Women of Power’: Woman’s Missionary Societies of the Presbyterian, Methodist and United Churches in Alberta, 1918-1939.” Alberta History, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Spring, 1999), 10-17.

“Woman’s Missionary Society in Alberta, 1918-1939: ‘Spiritual Enthusiasm and Missionary Zeal.’” Historic Sites & Archives Journal, Alberta & Northwest Conference (United Church of Canada) Historical Society, Vol. XII, No. 1 (May 1999), 1-2, 20-21.

“Proscribed Piety: Protestant Women in Alberta During the Interwar Years.” Historic Sites and Archives Journal, Alberta & Northwest Conference (United Church of Canada) Historical Society, Vol. XI, No. 1 (May 1998), 12-15.

“Proscribed Piety: Alberta Women, Faith and Religion, 1918-1939.”Proceedings of Gender Research Symposium, University of Calgary, 94-98.

Book Reviews

Anglicans in Canada: Controversies and Identity in Historical Perspective. By Alan Hayes. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 86, No. 1: 176-178.

The Methodist Church on the Prairies, 1896-1914. By George Emery. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001. The Historian, Vol. 65, No. 6, 1417-1418.

Writing in Progress

“Rethinking Berton’s The Comfortable Pew: Religion, Radicalism, and the Disarmament Debate in 1960s Canada,” article manuscript.

Textbook Review

Reader. Defining Canada: A Narrative History. McGraw-Hill Ryerson Press, December 2009.

Journal Reviewer

Alberta History

H-Canada

“Reflections on ‘Reading the Landscape” Exploring a Southern Albertan ‘Sense of Place’ through Literature, Ecology, and History.” Under Western Skies 2: Environment, Community, and Culture in North America. Calgary Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment in North America. Mount Royal University, Calgary, October 10-13. Joint presentation with Mary Ann McLean & Luke Bresky.

“The Russians Are Coming: Cold War Détente and the United Church of Canada.” Ottawa: A Capital City. ACSUS 40th Anniversary Biennial Conference [Association for Canadian Studies in the United States]. November 16-20, 2011.

“The Russians Are Coming: Cold War Détente and the United Church of Canada.” Transformation: State, Nation, and Citizenship in a New Environment. Conference sponsored by the Avie Bennett Historica Chair in Canadian History, Dept. of History, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University. October 13-15, 2011.

“Deliverance or Doom’: Church-State Relations in Cold War Canada.”People and Politics: Interactions Between Citizens and the Canadian State, Centre for Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University, March 3-5, 2011.

“Rethinking Berton’s The Comfortable Pew: Religion, Radicalism and the Disarmament Debate in 1960s Canada.” The Sixties, Canadian-Style. Two Days of Canada Conference, Brock University, November 4 & 5, 2010.

Panel Member,“Reading Wilderness in the Landscape of Southern Alberta.” The Association of Bibliotherapy and Applied Literature. Carleton University, May 25, 2009.

“Mavericks, Myths, and Museums: ‘Walking the Talk’ in Public History.”The West and Beyond: Historians, Past, Present and Future. A Western Canadian Studies Conference. University of Alberta, Edmonton, June 20, 2008.

Chair, Panelist and Organizer, “Making Knowledge Public in Museum Exhibits.” Round Table Session included Aritha Van Herk, University of Calgary and Michale Lang, Vice President, Glenbow Museum. Canadian Historical Association, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, May 31, 2007.

“‘Has God A Lobby in Ottawa?’ The ‘Christian Left’ in the United Church of Canada During the Vietnam War, 1966-68.” Canadian Historical Association, University of Western Ontario, London, May 31, 2005.

“‘Living in an Apocalyptic Age’: Canadian Protestant Churches and Atomic Anxiety During the Cold War Years.” Canadian Historical Association, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, June 3-5, 2004.

“‘Concerning the Evil State of the World Out of Which Strife Comes’: Church-State Relations in Early Cold War Canada, 1945-1955.” Canadian Historical Association, Laval University, Laval, May 25-27, 2001.

“Proscribed Piety: Alberta Women, Faith and Religion, 1918-1939.” Gender Research Symposium, University of Calgary, 1998.