Uploaded April 2024 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
An established and long-tenured member of the Grebel community, Dr. Hildi Froese Tiessen, now Professor Emerita, began teaching courses part-time at Grebel in 1984 and was appointed Assistant Professor of English and Peace and Conflict Studies in 1987. She was Academic Dean for 12 years and served as Interim President in 1995. A champion of Mennonite literature, Froese Tiessen has nurtured a field of study and community of Mennonite writers and scholars both inside and outside the classroom.
Over the past fifty years, she has authored over eighty contributions to the field of Mennonite writing, including over sixty essays and book chapters, more than a dozen edited collections of special issues of journals, and a host of scholarly introductions, reviews, and encyclopedia articles. Froese Tiessen's book, On Mennonite/s Writing, is her first collection of work, consisting of eighteen essays that detail her encounters of Mennonite literature across Canada and the United States, nuanced close readings of major literary figures, and late career reflections on the changing nature of the field itself.
The April 4, 2024 event at Conrad Grebel University College celebrated the publication of Hildi Froese Tiessen’s new book On Mennonite/s Writing: Selected Essays, edited and with an extended introduction by Robert Zacharias. This new book from Winnipeg’s CMU Press is the definitive collection of work by a scholar widely recognized as the primary critical figure in contemporary Mennonite literary studies.
An established and long-tenured member of the Grebel community, Dr. Hildi Froese Tiessen, now Professor Emerita, began teaching courses part-time at Grebel in 1984 and was appointed Assistant Professor of English and Peace and Conflict Studies in 1987. She was Academic Dean for 12 years and served as Interim President in 1995. A champion of Mennonite literature, Froese Tiessen has nurtured a field of study and community of Mennonite writers and scholars both inside and outside the classroom.
Over the past fifty years, she has authored over eighty contributions to the field of Mennonite writing, including over sixty essays and book chapters, more than a dozen edited collections of special issues of journals, and a host of scholarly introductions, reviews, and encyclopedia articles. Froese Tiessen's book, On Mennonite/s Writing, is her first collection of work, consisting of eighteen essays that detail her encounters of Mennonite literature across Canada and the United States, nuanced close readings of major literary figures, and late career reflections on the changing nature of the field itself.
The April 4, 2024 event at Conrad Grebel University College celebrated the publication of Hildi Froese Tiessen’s new book On Mennonite/s Writing: Selected Essays, edited and with an extended introduction by Robert Zacharias. This new book from Winnipeg’s CMU Press is the definitive collection of work by a scholar widely recognized as the primary critical figure in contemporary Mennonite literary studies.
