Centre for Religion and Public Life

• Mikel Burley, Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy
• Caroline Fielder, Lecturer in Chinese Studies
• Alistair McFadyen, Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology
• Seán McLoughlin, Professor of the Anthropology of Islam (Muslim Diasporas)
• Philip Mellor, Professor of Religion and Social Theory
• Mel Prideaux, Professor of Religious Studies (Teaching and Scholarship)
• Tasia Scrutton, Associate Professor in Philosophy and Religion
• Mustapha Sheikh, Lecturer in Islamic Studies; Co-Director of the Iqbal Centre for the Study of Contemporary Islam
• Jasjit Singh,  Associate Professor of Religion
• Stefan Skrimshire, Associate Professor in Theology and Religious Studies
• Caroline Starkey,  Associate Professor of Religion and Society
• Johanna Stiebert, Professor of Hebrew Bible
• Aled Thomas, Teaching Fellow
• Emma Tomalin, Professor of Religion and Public Life
• Adriaan van Klinken, Professor of Religion and African Studies
• Robert Vanderbeck, Professor of Human Geography and Head of School

Risaw Walis belongs to the Sediq people, one of the Indigenous communities in Taiwan. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds. His main research interests include indigenous land movements, indigenous land theologies, mother tongue biblical reading, and indigenous ecological biblical reading.

 

Risaw Walis is presenting on Thursday 13 February in Chemistry SR 1.53. Please note the different venue. The seminar will take place from 11.30-13.00.

Title: "Way su rmngaw manu? Ini ku kla mbahang (What are you saying? Why Can't I Understand?): When Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Began Wrestling with the Mother Tongue Bibles"

Abstract: Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples (TIP) have confronted and engaged with Christianity for at least 400 years, beginning with Dutch and Spanish colonization in the 17th century.  The relationship between the TIP and Christianity is one of rivalry and friendship, and it is also inextricably linked to the colonial experiences they faced.  Standing in such a triangular relationship, in this presentation, I will explain how the publication of mother tongue bibles has helped the TIP to wrestle with the biblical texts (I call this wrestling process 'decolonial'). I will also share how the process of reading the mother-tongue bibles helps the TIP sustain their continued decolonial movements in Taiwan's particular postcolonial context.

Edward Graham-Hyde is a Senior Researcher with Church Army, an Anglican charity focusing on church growth and evangelism. He is also the treasurer of the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements, an organisation which seeks to provide evidence-based information about religiosity in the UK. His doctoral research focused on religious recruitment and conversion. His research highlights the role of empowerment in recruitment and conversion into marginalised groups, often labelled as deviant. Currently, Edward is working on additional case studies and testing his conversion theory. Equally, he is also heavily involved with mapping ‘cult’ discourse and the impact this has on minority religious identity. 

 

Dr Graham-Hyde is presenting on Thursday 6 March in the Botany House seminar room (1.03). The seminar will take place from 11.30-13.00.

Title: “‘How to make followers and empower people’: A sociological theory of conversion into contemporary minority religions”

Abstract: In contemporary society, popular discourse surrounding minority religions is negatively impacted by usage of the word “cult” or “brainwashing,” words which carry pejorative connotations. Many minority religions, and adherents thereof, are “othered”; these include Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Baha’i, Paganisms and Scientologies. In this seminar I will reflect on my doctoral research which sought to ascertain the hidden social mechanisms which lead to a participant’s conversion. The research has begun to uncover an emergent sociological theory of conversion into seemingly deviant or marginalised groups, with empowerment as the underlying social mechanism. While reflecting on my methodological approach, I will contextualise much of the discussion within the context of “cult” rhetoric, exploring the impact this has on society and the implications this might have for the study of religion in public life. In essence, this lecture will be a summary of my research into marginalised minority religions thus far and will invite comment on the conclusions I have drawn as well as what other factors might be interesting to explore.

Dr Keith Kahn-Harris is a Senior Lecturer at Leo Baeck College and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. His latest book is Everyday Jews: Why the Jewish People Are Not Who You Think They Are.

 

Dr. Keith Kahn-Harris (Leo Baeck College, London) will speak on Tuesday 18 March 2025 at 12 noon to 13.30. The venue is 11-14 Blenheim Tce SR G.06. 

Title: Re-imagining Judaism as purposeless insignificance

Abstract: There is an unacknowledged consensus that pervades across Jewish denominational boundaries that Judaism either is, or ideally should be, of world-historical significance as a means of changing the world for the better. Such visions of Judaism coincide with both philosemitic and antisemitic perceptions of the significance of Jews in the world. This consensus may not always be "good for the Jews". What would it be like then, to experiment with a vision of Judaism as a site of deliberate, purposeless insignificance?

Details to follow.

Join Professor Nir Arielli in conversation with Dr John Gallagher to launch his new book, The Dead Sea: A 10,000 Year History (Yale University Press, 2025).

The Dead Sea is in trouble. Currently dropping at a rate of approximately a metre per year, the lake's water level is about 40 metres lower than it was in the mid-1970s. I hope to show readers that it is a unique place which should be saved.

Professor Nir Arielli

Find out more about the book in an interview with Professor Arielli.

Please purchase your ticket on the Waterstones website.

This event will be held at Waterstones, 93-97 Albion Street, Leeds. LS1 5AP.

The Centre for Religion and Public Life is pleased to announce a special seminar by Professor Kristin Aune of Coventry University. 

The seminar is part of a special series on singles studies organised by British Academy Global Professor Tendai Mangena. It will take place on 11 March 2025, 16.00-17.30 (UK time). The format is hybrid (in person and online). Venue: 17 Blenheim Terrace Boardroom

Title: "Singleness as standpoint epistemology, methodology and method: Unmarried positionality and the politics of research" 

Abstract: This paper makes the case for regarding singleness as a new lens for research epistemology, methodology and method. Being single, I will argue, makes a difference to what a researcher can know, especially in contexts where there are clear divisions between marriage and singleness – for example, societies where marriage is the social or religious norm. Singleness enables a particular perspective on a subject of study, a particular standpoint. Scholars have made a convincing case for feminist standpoint epistemology, and for other forms of standpoint epistemology including Black, queer, working-class and others. Yet that work has, curiously, ignored being single as a resource for understanding the social world. Perhaps this is because much scholarship, and much theorising about research methodology, has been undertaken by secular scholars, in contexts where marriage is decreasing in social importance. This paper contends that singleness is both a form of positionality and a new methodological tool for revealing and challenging power relations. Singleness also shapes methodology (theory on how research should proceed), and method (how data is gathered). 

What does this look like in practice? The paper will outline how my ethnographic study on gender in a British evangelical Christian church movement was carried out using a single, Christian, feminist epistemology, methodology and method, and discuss how participants’ constructions of my marital status shaped the knowledge I produced about them. This paper reclaims being unmarried or unpartnered as a form of positionality that can be transformative for knowledge production, alongside gender, ‘race’ or ethnicity, religion, sexuality and other intersections.  

Kristin Aune is Professor of Sociology of Religion at the Centre for Peace and Security, Coventry University. Her research is on religion and higher education, and religion and gender, and she has published widely on these topics, most recently in the Journal of College and Character, the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education and Sociology of Religion. Her research has been funded by, among others, the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the Economic & Social Research Council and the Office for Students. She has just completed the study "Building positive relationships among university students across religion and worldview difference" (collaborating with Durham, North Carolina State and The Ohio State universities), funded by Porticus and the Spalding Trust. She is editor of the journal Religion and Gender. 

Helen Paynter is Director of the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence, as well as an academic and educator in the areas of biblical and theological education at Bristol Baptist College. She has researched and published extensively on topics of religion and violence, as well as on spiritual abuse. Together with Maria Power, Helen Paynter edited the book, The Church, the Far Right, and the Claim to Christianity (SCM, 2024). 

The event aims to explore a timely and difficult topic and we very much hope to engage in free, frank and constructive dialogue on the Far Right (what it is and how its influence manifests) and the roles of complicity and resistance of Church and Christianity.

The event will take place at the Emmanuel Centre, University of Leeds from 16.30-18.30 on Friday 14 March.

11.00-13.00.

More details to follow.

10.00-16.30, Baines Wing 2.10.

More details to follow