Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Angel, Leonard
Parallel form(s) of name
- Yehudah Angel
- Yehudah ben Kalam v’Esther
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1945-2022
History
Leonard Jay Angel was born in Montreal in September 1945, and received his Bachelor of Arts from McGill University in 1966. Angel then moved to Vancouver to study at the University of British Columbia where he completed an MA in Philosophy in 1968, an MA in Creative Writing and Theatre in 1970, and a PhD in Philosophy in 1974. He was an associate fellow in UBC’s Department of Philosophy in 1992, and taught philosophy at Douglas College from fall 1993 through 2012. Angel maintained a close relationship with UBC throughout his career, working on and off as a sessional lecturer for philosophy and creative writing courses, and participating in student study groups and departmental colloquia. He also produced at least two plays (“The Ballad of Etienne Brule” and “Eleanor Marx”) through UBC’s theatre department.
Angel was a poet, playwright, philosopher, and author, with 17 plays produced and 7 published books. He was an active figure in the Vancouver theatre scene from the 1970s through the 1990s, with plays produced and performed by Vancouver’s Street Theatre, Terrific Theatre, and the New Play Centre. Angel also had several of his plays produced in theatres in Toronto and Seattle. Outside of his academic writing on philosophy, he practiced and wrote at length about Jewish theology as well as Zen practices. He was connected to Vancouver’s Jewish community through his involvement in Or Shalom Synagogue and founded the Integral Studies Institute in 1987 to provide instruction on meditation and spirituality. Angel was also an advocate for World Federalism and was president of the Vancouver branch of World Federalist Movement Canada from 1996 through 2013. Leonard Angel passed away in August 2022.