Centre for Religion and Public Life

2025/2026 seminars

9 October – Rabbi Dr. Barbara Thiede (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA)

Centuries of Jewish and Christian exegetes have made strenuous efforts to redeem, justify, and explain away the difficult, even violent god of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles. Biblical scholars have often supported this effort. This is not only true for the cisgender, heterosexual, and male scholars of the global North who have dominated the field. Feminist scholars, Queer Scholars, and scholars of masculinity have also -- often with the best of intentions -- worked to mitigate and ameliorate the deity’s character, nature, and doings. The outcome, however, has been harmful, particularly for children, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and persons of colour. In this presentation, Barbara Thiede asks whether religious leaders and scholars can help change practice, teaching, and real-world conditions for the better if they abandon any attempt to “fix” the biblical god. How would such an approach affect religion, religious practice, and learning in classrooms across the globe? And what God is left to us when we acknowledge the divine character and life we find in biblical texts?

23 October – Zaynab Ango (University of Abuja, Nigeria)

This paper examines the centrality of Islam to queer agency in two Hausa digital novels, Auren Jinsi (“Same-Sex Marriage,” 2022) and Danyen Kasko (“The Unbroken Pot,” 2022). The Hausa culture in Northern Nigeria has for centuries been shaped by Islamic teachings, which regulate sexual relations and orientations. Yet, this paper contends that Islam is amenable to queer agency, as portrayed in the novels. The paper further contends that the emergence of digital publishing, its offerings of anonymity and accessibility, now offers a medium for self-assertion that is deconstructing heteronormative hermeneutics. Drawing insights from the notion of “appropriation” in postcolonial theories, the paper unpacks the authors’ strategies of interpreting Qur’anic injunctions to challenge heteronormative discourses, and of constructing queer identities and moral authority within Islam. This unveils religion as a productive “site for queer agency,” and digital literature as an alternative archive for Hausa queer lived experience.

20 November – Dr Halyna Teslyuk (Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine)

Women and children are disproportionately affected by warfare, as evidenced by the situation in Ukraine. Investigative reports indicate that rape, kidnapping, and torture of women and children have occurred on a large scale and have been systematically employed as weapons by Russian soldiers. Ukrainian women have adopted various strategies to protect themselves and their children. These contemporary accounts offer a contextual framework for interpreting the biblical narratives of Jael (Judges 4-5) and Judith (the Book of Judith), focusing on their methods for safeguarding innocent lives. The actions of these scriptural women involved significant personal risk and often challenged the patriarchal worldview that equated masculinity with courage and violence, and femininity with weakness and victimisation.

Additionally, the experiences of mothers of Ukrainian soldiers, who support their sons and daughters in their pursuit of peace, warrant examination. The narrative of Mary in the Gospels, who fully supported her son in his mission, is particularly relevant. Although only a few passages in the canonical texts depict Mary's interactions with her son, these accounts reveal the complexities of the role as Jesus's mother. Her motherhood, as portrayed in the canonical stories, is characterised by perseverance, courage, and resilience, as well as by moments of complicated relationship with her son. For many Ukrainian women, Mary serves as a symbol of a mother who supported her child to the very end in his efforts to save others. The courage and conviction of Ukrainian mothers inform contemporary interpretations of Mary's stories in the Gospels.

4 December – Professor Kate Adams (Leeds Trinity University)

The spiritual lives of children in general, and their ability to make meaning from religious and/or spiritual experiences in particular, remain largely hidden in western cultures and are relatively under-researched. However, children naturally ask existential questions as they search for meaning and purpose, and their place in the world. Many also report experiences which can be framed as religious and/or spiritual but often do not share them due to fears of ridicule or dismissal. This is a problematic situation for several reasons, not least because it diminishes the importance of this dimension of life.

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this paper offers examples from research to provide an overview of the types of experiences children and young people report, and explores how children’s spiritual voice(s) are often silenced. Adults are encouraged to adopt an attitude of epistemic humility to help facilitate self-awareness and reduce dialogical tension which often arises when children express their spirituality. It is argued that any dialogical tension can be used as a positive force if adults approach situations with curiosity about children’s worlds and perspectives. By doing so, we can foster more conversations with and about young people’s spiritual lives, nurturing an openness they can carry into adulthood. Such actions can contribute to broader efforts to make religion and spirituality more visible in public discourse.

4 December – Dr Olivia Porter (SOAS)

This talk will introduce you to Tai Buddhism as it is practised by Tai communities living in the borderlands of Southeast Asia. The Tai peoples, who are speakers of Kra-Dai languages, live throughout the borders of southeast Asia, southwest China, and northeast India. Despite its long and rich history, Tai Buddhism has been overlooked in academic scholarship on account of the minority ethnic status of the Tai across multiple nation-states and their perceived ‘unorthodox’ approach to Theravada Buddhism. Drawing on my ongoing research on Tai Buddhism in the Myanmar-China borderlands, this talk will explore the origins, development, and contemporary practice of Tai Buddhism. It will highlight how minority status, and the political and social pressures that accompany it, have in fact enabled the Tai to preserve features of Buddhist practice that have been lost in mainstream Theravada Buddhism. Their minority ethnic and religious status also opens up interesting questions about identity maintenance and formation across multiple national-states namely Myanmar, China, and Thailand. By situating Tai Buddhism within with wider Theravada context, this talk aims to highlight how minority practices in the borderland peripheries can enrich our understanding of the diversity of Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia.

19 February 2026: Reconstructing Cheraman: Communal Harmony as Politics of Belonging in Contemporary Kerala, South India – Dr Dayal Paleri

This talk will explore how the Muslims of Kodungallur, a historically significant town in Kerala, South India, engage in a renewed articulation of religious coexistence, primarily through the language of communal harmony (mathasouhardam, a term broadly referring to inter-religious coexistence and peaceful social relations). They do so faced with the rise of Hindu nationalist politics that increasingly problematize Muslim belonging in shared sacred and public spaces. The articulation of communal harmony by the Muslims of Kodungallur is centered around the physical and discursive space of the Cheraman Juma Masjid, believed to be the first mosque in India, named after the legendary king Cheraman Perumal, and associated with the accounts of the origin of Islam in India. Based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Kodungallur since 2021, the paper closely follows the process of the Cheraman mosque’s reconstruction and situates it within both the local political dynamics of Kodungallur and the broader context of national politics in India. 

Moving away from scholarship that has largely highlighted the instrumentalist nature of communal harmony as a discourse produced by dominant or state actors, the paper shifts the focus to minority articulations. It asks two interrelated questions: Can communal harmony be conceptualized as an active political process that involves actors, agential networks, and conscious articulations of a political community? And what political work does such a discourse perform when articulated by Muslim actors in the context of Hindu nationalism? 

The talk will argue that communal harmony is mobilized in Kodungallur as a strategic response to the contemporary challenge of Hindu nationalism and is used to affirm Muslim belonging across three interconnected sites: everyday life, historical memory, and the legal–constitutional realm. These are not peripheral but constitutive dimensions of national membership. The talk conceptualizes this articulation as a politics of belonging that combines aspects of different trajectories of Muslim politics in postcolonial India-minority rights, claims of social backwardness, civic participation, and a redefined language of self-protection-without reifying or effacing Muslim religious identity. The talk suggests that such articulations of communal harmony offer an incipient possibility for reimagining Muslim citizenship in India today, especially in the face of an increasingly constricted experience of citizenship under Hindutva politics.

26 February 2026: Habituating Purity: Negotiating Sexual Ethics, Gender, and Christian Identity in Evangelical Purity Culture in Britain – Dr Chrissie Thwaites

This talk presents findings from my doctoral research on evangelical Christian purity culture and its impact on young women in Great Britain. While purity culture has been studied in the United States, much less attention has been paid to its presence and influence in British contexts. Drawing on survey data and qualitative interviews, I argue that purity culture has been present in Britain in a less overt form, characterised by a strong emphasis on sexual abstinence until marriage as a marker of Christian identity and faithful Christian living.

Using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, in this talk I introduce the concept of the habitus of purity culture to explain why a more implicit, British iteration of purity culture is still impactful: because the values and expectations of purity culture are gradually incorporated into the body as long-lasting dispositions, known as habitus. Community and relationships are centrally important in this habitus, but ‘sexual sin’ risks damaging them. The impacts of purity culture can thus be profound - even outside of America - as living with this habitus means living with the tension of both valorised and jeopardised relationships.

12 March 2026: Lineage, heritage and brand: untangling the genealogies of modern yoga – Dr Theo Wildcroft

Research into the development of modern yoga has involved a number of speculative typologies and genealogies for the practice. Nonetheless, the institutional evolution of modern yoga has rarely been the subject of research, and the relationship between the content of yoga practice and the container of yoga institutions continues to be a subject more of speculation than research.

To begin that task, this talk will describe research into the pedagogy of modern yoga so far, together with insights from my own ongoing research and professional practice. From local networks of religious initiation, to systems of therapeutic intervention; and from folk remedies to gymnastics training, the pedagogical roots of modern yoga are revealed as a vital missing piece in understanding the future, as well as the history of yoga.

But the working patterns of modern yoga teachers are far from unique, and closely resemble those of many other communities of practice. What this research describes is a case study into the ways that human beings evolve cultures of practice outside of formal hierarchies and state provision.

Along the way, we will define three terms that often lack precision when used in both the academic and popular discourses of modern yoga: lineage, heritage and brand. What do we mean when we accuse modern yoga as being either ‘traditional’ or ‘commercial’? Who is it that actually profits in the ‘billion-dollar’ industry of modern yoga? And to compliment the excellent work done so far to understand the roots of modern yoga practice, what might be gained by submitting the roots of modern yoga pedagogy to similar scrutiny?

26 March 2026: Hunting for the Devil: online conspiracy theories and the return of Satanic moral panic – Dr Bethan Oake

The Satanic cult conspiracy theory (otherwise known as ‘the Satanic myth’ or ‘the Satanic legend’) alleges that secret, evil, Satanic cults exist who seek to morally subvert and control society – often through targeting and harming children. The origins of the legend are traceable to the early Middle Ages, where it has since periodically resurfaced in the form of ‘Satanism Scares’: moral panics concerned with the alleged threat of Satan-worship. The concerns of these moral panics are disproportionate to any reality, and instead they act a mirror to the wider fears and prejudices of their societies. Through these events, false allegations of ‘Satanic’ crimes lead to the unjust demonisation and persecution of innocent individuals and communities. Today, there has been increasing speculation that we may now already be experiencing the next wave of Satanic moral panic. This seminar will address this question – first exploring the history of these scares, before discussing the contemporary revival of this rhetoric from over the last decade. It will draw on a variety of case studies, alongside a detailed analysis of contemporary social media conspiracy theory rhetoric, demonstrating its ongoing, and potentially very harmful, impact in recent years.