Centre for Religion and Public Life - Seminar Series

Dr Megan Robertson is a scholar specializing in queer and gender studies in religion. She is currently a UKRI (formerly Marie Skłodowska-Curie) Postdoctoral Fellow, based at the Centre for Religion and Public Life and serves as a lecturer in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. She earned her PhD from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, in 2020. She participates in international networks in the field through her role as managing editor of The African Journal of Gender and Religion, and as co-chair of the Religion and Sexuality Unit in the American Academy of Religion.

Dr Megan Robertson is presenting on Thursday 3 October.

Title: Ghosts of the Rainbow Nation: Mourning and haunting in queer South African film

Abstract: In this paper, I draw on my interviews with filmmaker and actor, Enrico Hartzenberg, and analyse his film and theatre work through the concepts of mourning and haunting as developed in queer, feminist and performance studies. I explore how haunting and mourning – states which indicate ‘sitting with’ rather than moving on – allow for queer potentialities of being in the face of homophobic violence and black death. I focus specifically on the short film Sister Dinges, produced and co-written by Hartzenberg who also plays the titular character, and his horror theatre play Die Lig is Blou (‘The sky is blue’) – both of which depict grief, violence, abuse, revenge, and death as central themes. Sister Dinges portrays Marshall who, following a homophobic assault that labels him 'Sister Dinges' (literally translated to ‘Sister Thing’), embarks on a vengeful journey which plays out alongside his grief at the loss of his mother. Die Lig is Blou focuses on Michael, who is haunted throughout the play by his sister's ghost, as well as the trauma of past homophobic abuse. Evident in both the film and play is the presence of the transcendental in impacting the lives of the gay protagonists. This is portrayed through rituals of mourning, divination games, and the ghost who is rarely absent from the stage in Die Lig is Blou. The performances of lingering revenge and grief in Hartzenberg’s work, which never result in ‘completion’ through forgiveness and peace, invite collective mourning and a collective acknowledgement of the ghosts which continue to haunt queer and black lives in South Africa. I argue that Hartzenberg’s invitation to ‘sit with’ queer grief and abuse opens up critique of a post-apartheid nation-state constructed around ideas of reconciliation and forgiveness and enables us to imagine queer black futurity uncoupled from ideas of progress embedded in colonial modernity.

Dr Seán Henry is Senior Lecturer in Education at Edge Hill University, where he co-leads the BA Education joint honours programme. He teaches modules across religious studies and education studies. His research interests span questions of religion, gender, sexuality, and education from queer and critical philosophical perspectives. 

 

Dr Seán Henry is presenting on Thursday 17 October.

Title: Queer Thriving in Religious Schools: Encountering Religious Texts, Values, and Rituals

Abstract: This seminar presentation offers an overview of Seán Henry's recently published monograph Queer Thriving in Religious Schools. Engaging with queer theologies and life narratives across the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, the book situates queer thriving as a viable part of the work of the religious school, and not just as something reserved for progressive education more broadly. Taking three areas that are typically used to justify religious heteronormativity (religious texts, religious values, religious rituals), Queer Thriving in Religious Schools engages queer theologies to showcase how an educational approach committed to queer thriving can be enacted in religious schools in ways that are also theologically sensitive. The book then explores how religious school communities can navigate differences around queerness and religion in ways that are supportive of queer staff and students. It takes desire as an everyday reality in classrooms and applies a queer lens to this to challenge heteronormativity and to imagine alternative modes of relationship between staff, students, and communities that enable queer staff and students to thrive.

Showcasing possibilities for resisting the opposition between religious and queer concerns, Queer Thriving in Religious Schools will appeal to researchers, postgraduates and academics in the fields of religion and education, whilst also benefitting those working across philosophy of education and educational theory, sex education, sociology of education, queer theologies, religious studies, and sociology of religion.

Female Gurus in Vaishnavism

A​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ special seminar with visiting Professor Ruby Sain (Professor of Sociology, Adamas University, Barasat, Kolkata, India). 

Professor Sain is a sociologist of religion and the founder of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Society at her former place of employment (Jadavpur University, India). She continues to be the Centre’s academic advisor. She was part of a collaboration that resulted in the book The Future of Religious Studies in India (Routledge). Her book Contemporary Social Problems in India is in press.

Time: 15:00-16:30
Format: In-person seminar
Venue: Botany House seminar room (1.03)

Dr Rebekah Welton is Lecturer of Hebrew Bible at the University of Exeter. Her early research interests focus on food and alcohol in the Hebrew Bible and on the archaeology and history of food and alcohol in Iron Age Israel and Judah. Since then she has turned to biblical allusions and receptions in popular culture, such as video games, TV and film. 

 

Dr Rebekah Welton is presenting on Thursday 31 October.

Title: Crucifixion and capitalism in the video games Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us

Abstract: This paper focuses on two cinematic video games, Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) and The Last of Us (2013). These games appear to subvert popular notions of sacrifice that have largely been inherited from Christian conceptions of Jesus’ sacrificial work. The paper will argue that these videogames offer provocative and immersive instantiations of biblical sacrifice in the modern, capitalist world.

Dr Seb Rumsby is an interdisciplinary scholar with a wide range of interests including everyday politics, labour exploitation, undocumented migration, ethno-religious politics, grassroots development and non-national histories. Seb unites these diverse themes with an empirical focus on Southeast Asian worlds and people. He is currently based at the University of Birmingham's Institute for Research into International Migration and Superdiversity.

 

Dr Seb Rumsby is presenting on Thursday 14 November.

Title: Alternative Routes to Development? Religious Transformation and Everyday Politics in Vietnam’s Highlands

Abstract: How do marginalized communities engage with markets and the state through everyday economic and religious practices? As state economic policies promote integration under a single logic of modernist development, many impoverished groups remain on the margins. This presentation explores the practices employed by recently converted Christian communities on the fringes of such nation-building projects in Vietnam's borderlands. Using an everyday political economy lens, I demonstrate how seemingly powerless actors actively engage with larger socio-economic transformations, shaping their experience of development in ways that are underexamined but have far-reaching consequences.

Dr Emmanuel Chiwetalu Ossai is a lecturer in religion and politics at Lancaster University. His doctoral research at Edinburgh University examined the contribution of religion to peacebuilding in Nigeria. He is interested in the relationship between religion and conflict, peace, politics, migration, health and digital technology, especially in Africa. His research has been published in African Security, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Religion Compass, and Studies in World Christianity.  

Dr Emmanuel Chiwetalu Ossai is presenting on Tuesday 26 November in Baines Wing 1.13. The seminar will take place from 11.30-13.00.

Title: Religious Identity, Intergroup Threats, and Biafra Separatism in Post-War Nigeria 

Abstract: The Republic of Biafra was created out of Nigeria on 30 May 1967. Consisting mainly of Igbo Christians, Biafra officially ceased to exist on 15 January 1970, after Biafran forces surrendered to the Nigerian military government following a 30-month war. There has been a demand among some Igbo people for Biafra’s restoration. Most studies that examine the religious dimension of this renewed call focus on a pro-Biafra organisation known as the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), or on its leader, Nnamdi Kanu. Kanu identifies as Jewish and has associated IPOB, the Igbo and Biafra with Jewish history and identity.

However, Judaism is a minority religion in Igboland and the broader Eastern region of Nigeria. Studies which examine IPOB and Nnamdi Kanu have not given Christian identity in Igboland the attention it deserves. The major religion in the region, Christianity has been an essential component of Igbo identity for decades. When the Biafra War broke out in 1967, Christianity was already the major religion in Eastern Nigeria. This research considers the influence of Igbo Christian identity on public Igbo support for the restoration of Biafra, that is, the partition of Nigeria.

This study finds that a population of the Igbo who demand Biafra’s restoration do so because they believe a mainly Igbo and majorly Christian Biafran state will protect the Igbo people from “perceived realistic and symbolic threats” emerging from Islam and the Muslim population in (northern) Nigeria. For Nigerian authorities to address Biafra separatism, they should not ignore the religious concerns making some citizens desire the division of Nigeria into religiously homogeneous states.

Professor Emma Wild-Wood is Professor of African Religions and World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh. Previously she has taught in DR Congo, Uganda and Cambridge, UK. She is author of The Mission of Apolo Kivebulaya: Religious Encounter and Social Change in the Great Lakes, 1860s-1930s (2020). Her new, collaborative project brings history and religious studies into dialogue with public health in East Central Africa.

Professor Emma Wild-Wood is presenting on Thursday 12 December.

Title: Intersections of Faiths and Health in East-Central Africa

Abstract: In East-Central Africa religious affiliation is widespread, religious discourse is public and populations are familiar with outbreaks of disease. Biomedical, herbal, spiritual healing are intertwined with religious traditions. Religious leaders have been central in responses to recent health challenges. The chances of achieving ‘good health and well-being of all (United Nations’ third Sustainable Development Goal) are improved by decolonising knowledge about faith and health and contextualising health choices. Yet the operation of religious belief and practice on health is often ignored or instrumentalised in developmental interventions. 

In my presentation I’ll be discussing this faith-health landscape and outlining the work of some collaborative projects with which I’m involved. I’ll be asking what role scholars of religion may have in public health. 

Abiodun Alao is Professor of African Studies at King’s College London. He has published extensively on African Studies. His two most recently published books are Religion, Public Health and Human Security in Nigeria (Routledge, 2023) and Rage and Carnage in the Name of God: Religious Violence in Nigeria (Duke University Press, 2022). He has previously held teaching and research appointments at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria and at the University of Zimbabwe.

 

Professor Abiodun Alao is presenting on Thursday 6 February in Botany House seminar room 1.03. The seminar will take place from 11.30-13.00.

Title: “Fighting Pandemic in the Spirit: Religion and Covid-19 in Nigeria” 

Abstract: More than any other health crisis in recent times, the COVID-19 pandemic created global panic that necessitated universal responses. While the World Health Organisation introduced “social distancing” to avoid its spread, different societies came up with local initiatives that explain perceptions and reactions to the pandemic. For developing societies, especially in Africa, religion became a factor that underlined attitudes to the crisis - both in explaining the circumstances of its occurrence and the efforts to contain its consequences. This presentation looks at how religion comes into the variety of reactions to COVID-19 in Nigeria, including how religious groups address the social disruption COVID created and the attitudes towards vaccines meant to contain its spread. In its conclusion, the presentation argues that there were areas of convergence and divergence in the responses of Nigeria’s three main religions: the basis for agreement is rooted to the religions overarching beliefs in God’s overall control over all health matters, while the grounds for disagreement are explained by the religious leaders’ alleged desire to manipulate their followers.