Religion in... the LARB

Religious studies and UFOs. Riveting review of D.W. Pasulka’s American Cosmic, a “profound and original exploration of how UFO culture can usefully be thought of as religion”. UFO sightings show “patterns similar to miracle reports throughout history”. The UFO becomes, for believers, a sort of Holy Grail — a physical object which, when found, will confirm their hope and faith. It may yet happen. “At the risk of spoiling some of the story, you should know that Pasulka witnesses the discovery of an apparently extraterrestrial artifact”. Further information.

Summer School, Manchester.

Jews and Others in Manchester. Philip Alexander gave a course entitled "Manchester: Melting Pot of Faiths" for the Manchester International Summer School, July 7-26 2019. Students learned about the social history of religions that shaped Manchester, how the distinctive beliefs and practices of each religion are made visible, and the challenges that religions face in Manchester. Further information. 

Screen & Talk

Jewish Studies. The Centre for Jewish Studies' occasional film club hosted a screening of 'The Women's Balcony' (Emil Ben-Shimon, Israel 2016) on June 26 2019 as part of the Northern British Isles Jewish Studies Partnership's Early Career and Postgraduate Research Training Event and Research Meeting. They were joined by Ma'ayan Nechama Atlas for a discussion. Further information. 

Conference Paper, Cardiff

Jewish Studies. Katja Stuerzenhofecker has contributed a paper entitled "Communicating the exotic? Anti-Judaism and affect in cross-cultural learning about religious Jews" to a panel on 'Religion and Racialisation' at the Sociology of Religion Study Group Annual Conference 'Communicating Religion' in Cardiff, July 9-11 2019. Further information. 

Conference Paper, Bucharest

Religion and European Studies. Maria Cioată will contribute a paper entitled “The Reception of Apocrypha as ‘Popular Books’ in Romania” to a panel on “Biblical Apocrypha in South-East Europe: Variation and Transmission from Antiquity to Modern Times” at the 12th Congress of the Association of South East European Studies in Bucharest, 6 Sept 2019. Further information.

Religion in... The Herald Magazine

Islamic Studies. Blasphemy and death. Scores of people have been lynched for alleged acts of blasphemy in Pakistan since the Islamisation of the legal system in the 1980s. Many more have been imprisoned. No blasphemer has yet been executed, though the penal code makes capital punishment mandatory for insults aimed directly against the Prophet Muhammed. The absence of executions seems to reflect government fears of provoking new sectarian conflict, given that most blasphemy cases are brought by Muslims against other Muslims. Further information.

Training workshop, Jewish Studies

Doctoral and Early Career research training in Jewish Studies. The fourth postgraduate research-training event took place on 25-27 June 2019 at the University of Manchester. 19 PhD students and post-doctoral researchers from the Jewish Studies Northern Partnership institutions and other universities in the wider UK attended the event. This year we also had attendees travelling from as far afield as USA, Japan and Israel. A range of training and information sessions were offered, including advice on turning a PhD thesis into a monograph and open access publication practices, research impact, how to cope with negative responses to your work, and academic engagement with online audiences, as well as a series of sessions on 'Current Trends' in fields of Jewish Studies including Biblical Studies, Jewish Literary Studies and Palestine/Israel Studies. This year there was a special focus on writing large grants and on the job application and interview experience from the perspectives of both the applicant and selection panel. There was also the opportunity for one-to-one discussions with mentors. A screening of the film ‘The Women’s Balcony’ was followed by expert panel discussion. Further information.

Student Prizes 2018-19

Undergraduate excellence in Religions & Theology. Congratulations to James Okoli for the Bishop Lee Junior Greek Testament Prize for the best examination result in New Testament Greek; Molly Horncastle for the Brandon Memorial Prize (Undergraduate) for the best work in Comparative Religion; Eleanor Munro for the Dastur Kutar Prize for best undergraduate dissertation in Non-Western religious studies; Abigail Elderfield for the Philip Alexander Prize in Jewish Studies for the highest grade in a Jewish studies related module; John Little for the Wellington Scholarship for Hellenistic Greek or Greek Testament; Isobel Robins for the Undergraduate Dissertation Prize for Religious Studies and Social Responsibility.

YouTube, Public Lecture

Biblical Studies. The inaugural lecture for the Bible Gender and Church Research Centre took place during Cliff Festival on Monday the 27 May 2019. Rev. Dr. Susan Shooter delivered a lecture entitled ‘Yet in my Flesh Shall I See God: Researching Faith With Survivors of Abuse’. This was followed by responses from Dr. Holly Morse and Dr. Kirsi Cobb. Further information.

Network meeting, Oxford

Biblical Studies. Holly Morse will take part in the newly formed Biblical Reception Network meeting in Oxford, 25 July.

Moving on...

Digital Humanities. Congratulations to Marton Ribary, who has been awarded a three-year Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship for a project entitled "Computational modelling of law - Sustainable legal AI from Roman legal sources" tenable from 1 November 2019. The project will be hosted by the School of Law at the University of Surrey in co-operation with the Alan Turing Institute and Surrey's Department of Computer Science. The research is primarily based on legal texts compiled by the order of Emperor Justinian (553 CE) with control text samples drawn from Rabbinic (Jewish) law of the same period.