Royden Loewen

Royden Loewen (2013)

Royden Loewen (born 26 October 1954 in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada) is a Canadian History Professor and Chair in Mennonite Studies at the University of Winnipeg. His book about the Mennonite Communities in the Old and the New Worlds, 1850-1930, is the leading publication about the emigration waves from south Russia to Canada.

Education and career

Royden Loewen was born in the town of Steinbach in southern Manitoba as the son of Dave and Gertie Loewen. Dave was a poultry producer and wheat farmer and for many years chairman of the Steinbach Credit Union. Gertie was a homemaker and mother to six children. Royden attended elementary school in nearby Blumenort, highschool at Steinbach Christian High School, and college at Mennonite Brethren Bible College where he earned his university degrees and fulbright at the University of Chicago. He taught Junior and High School at Fisher River First Nation in Manitoba's interlake district and Canadian history at the University of Manitoba. Since 1996 he holds the Chair in Mennonite Studies.

Loewen visited the Mennonite population in Bolivia several times for a book on anti-modernity in Canada and Latin America. He currently is involved in the two year project Seven Points on Earth, funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, where he visits seven Mennonite farm villages around the world with graduate students from around the world. The project paints an environmental history of the villages in Java, Siberia, Friesland, Bulawayo, Santa Cruz departmento (Bolivia), Kansas and Manitoba.

Royden Loewen lives in Steinbach with his wife Marianne.

Bibliography

• Village Among Nations: 'Canadian' Mennonites in a Transnational World, 1916-2006. University of Toronto Press, 2013
• Seeking Places of Peace: North America; A Global Mennonite History. Good Books, 2012, co-authored by Steven Nolt
• Immigrants in Prairie Cities: A History. University of Toronto Press, 2009, co-authored with Gerald Friesen (winner of the 2010 CHA Clio Prize for Prairie Canada)
• Diaspora in the Countryside: Two Mennonite Communities in Mid-20th Century North America. University of Illinois Press and University of Toronto Press, 2006
• Hidden Worlds: Revisiting the Mennonite Migrants of the 1870s. University of Manitoba Press and Newton, Bethel College, 2001 (finalist for the Margaret McWilliams book prize)
• From the Inside Out: The Rural Worlds of Mennonite Diarists, 1863-1929. University of Manitoba Press, 1999
• Family, Church and Market: A Mennonite Community in the Old and the New Worlds, 1850-1930. University Illinois Press and University Toronto Press, 1993 (winner of the 1995 AHA/CHA Albert Corey Prize)
• Blumenort: A Mennonite Community in Transition, 1874-1983. Blumenort Mennonite Historical Society, 1983 (finalist for the Margaret McWilliams Book Prize)

External Links

• Royden Loewen's vita at University of Winnipeg