Making Promises

Pamela E. Klassen is a professor of the study of religion at the University of Toronto, and the author of The Story of Radio Mind: A Missionary’s Journey on Indigenous Land (University of Chicago Press, 2018).Benjamin L. Berger is an associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Monique Scheer is a professor of historical and cultural anthropology at the University of Tübingen, and the author of Enthusiasm: Emotional Practices of Conviction in Modern Germany (Oxford University Press, 2020).

• Promising Practices: A PrefacePamela E. Klassen, Monique Scheer, and Benjamin L. BergerIntroduction: Fragmented Promises, Pentimento & the Salvage Paradigm Jeffery Hewitt Part I: Promises in Place: A Great Lakes Pentimento Pamela E. Klassen1. Remembering, Forgetting and the Telling of Stories: Land and Commemoration in the Aftermath of the American Revolution Elizabeth Elbourne2. “The Culture of the Soil”: Agriculture, Improvement, and Settler Colonial Landscapes of Nineteenth-Century Manitoulin IslandKate Stoehr3. Between Gratitude and Guilt: The Promise of a Better Life in a Settler Colony for Racialized Refugees Sujith XavierPart II: The Weight of the Promise: Material–Immaterial Practices Monique Scheer4. Making Promises to the Shogun: Spinoza on the Dutch United East Indian Company in JapanPooyan Tamimi Arab5. Longing and Belonging in France and Algeria: The Promise of Amel’s Chedda Jennifer Selby6. Quid pro Quo? Egyptian Papyri Distributions and the Bureaucracy of a Promise Gregory Fewster7. Covenant, Torah, and the Failed Promise of Jewish Museums Yaniv FellerPart III: The Oath, the Law, and the “Sense of Religion” Benjamin L. Berger8. “However Honestly Meant”: Chinese Australians and Truth-Telling in Colonial Victorian Courts Catherine Evans9. An Oath on the Big Book: Oaths and Examinations in American Codes of Procedure Kellen Funk10. Ceremonial Promises: Oath, Treaties, and the Transformation of Christian Privilege in Canada Pamela E. Klassen and Isabel Klassen-MarshallConclusion: Promises That Make Us Who We Are Jeremy Webber