Presentations, Limmud

Jewish Studies. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz (Seeing God in the Bible, Going native: An anthropologist at Limmud, A scream in the night: Isaiah and social justice) and Katja Stuerzenhofecker ('The synagogues were closing, what could we do as women?' British ritual adaptation under COVID-19) will be presenting at Limmud Festival 2021, the UK's largest annual Jewish cultural event taking place on Dec 24-28. Further information.

New publication

Biblical Studies. CBS honorary research fellow Mary Mills, 'City as Sustainable Environment' in The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and Ecology edited by Hilary Marlow and Mark Harris (OUP, 2022). Further information.

New publication

Biblical Studies. CBS honorary research fellow Mary Mills, 'Jeremiah's Deathscapes' in The Oxford Handbook of Jeremiah, edited by Louis Stulman and Edward Silver (OUP, 2022). Further information.

Public lectures, online

Jewish and Muslim Studies. CJS Hon. Research Fellow Michael Hilton announces a new course 'Judaism and Islam: A shared history' that he is leading with Dr Harith Ramli of Edge Hill University. The next session is 'Is every Torah scroll/Quran mushaf the same? ', 25 Jan 2022. Email for further information.

New publication

Jewish Studies. CJS honorary research fellow Michael Hilton, "4th July 2020: Parashat Chukkat" in Confronting Covid-19: Liberal and Reform Rabbis in the United Kingdom Respond to the Global Pandemic, edited by Charles Middleburgh (2021), 124-128. Further information.

New publication

Religion and Science.  CJS fellow BL Lancaster, 'Transpersonal psychology: Mysticism and the science of mind' in D. A. MacDonald and M. Almendro (Eds.), Transpersonal Psychology and Science (Cambridge Scholars Publishin, 2021), 33-42. Further information.

Religion in the media, 2021

Review of the year. The Religion Media Centre offers an overview of the top stories from 2021. "Covid-19 transforming worship and communities… faith groups reaching vulnerable people on the front line… moral judgments on refugees… climate change… sex abuse… assisted dying… racism..." 17 Dec 2021. Further information.

Blog entry, Rylands Library

Jewish Studies. Stefania Silvestri has written a blog post 'From Calcutta to Tarcento: Jewish marriage contracts from the collections' for the John Rylands Institute and Library. 17 Dec 2021. Further information.

New publication

Jewish Studies. CJS fellow BL Lancaster, 'The Faces of God: A kabbalistic “myth” and its implications for consciousness' in P. Dennison (Ed.), Perspectives on Consciousness (Nova Science, 2021), 277-317. Further information.

The Jewish Chronicle, article

Jewish Studies. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz, "Limmud: when British Jews enjoy a few days of Utopia" in The Jewish Chronicle, 15 Dec 2021. Further information.

Course unit surveys

Teaching quality. If you've enjoyed your teaching and/or have views on what could be improved, please let us know via these 5 min surveys. It really does make a difference in terms of how we develop what we teach, and helps identify and reward some of our best lecturers. The course unit surveys will be open until 9 Jan, but please fill them out sooner rather than later! Further information.

Conference keynote lecture, USA

Christian Studies. Peter Nockles will give a keynote lecture on '“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God”: Saint John Newman, the Role of Friendship and Personal Influence in the Oxford Movement'. National Institute for Newman Studies, Pittsburgh, US. 7pm, 11 March 2022. Further information.

PhD completion

Jonathan Dunn on Christian theology and Ethics. The Lincoln Theological Institute would like to congratulate Jonathan Dunn on the successful defence of his doctoral thesis ‘A critical appraisal of inaugurated eschatology as a basis for social and political ethics in evangelical theology in the United States of America’. His supervisors were Prof. Peter Scott and Dr Scott Midson, and the external examiner was Prof. Tom Greggs. See the list of current PhD students at LTI.

Public Lecture, University of Sheffield

Islamic Studies. Alan Williams, 'A Night with Rumi: A Celebration of Love'. University of Sheffield, Arts Tower LT04. 8 Dec 2021. Further information.

Exhibition, 50 Jewish Object project

Jewish studies. Four objects from the 50 Jewish Objects are currently on display in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library gallery. See Stefania Silvestri's blog on the exhibition. Nov 2021 - April 2022. Further information.

Seminar on Moses Gaster

Jewish Studies. This academic year (2021-22) the John Rylands Research Institute will complete the online cataloguing of the codices in Hebrew script in the Rylands Library Manchester. To mark the occasion the John Rylands Research Institute and the Manchester University Centre for Jewish Studies are hosting a series of seminars in autumn 2021 and spring 2022 which will explore aspects of the Rylands Gaster collection, and related collections. The next seminar in the series is by Dr Stefania Silvestri, “Not Only Books: Understanding Artefacts in the Rylands Gaster Collection”. 7 Dec 2021, 2.00-3.30pm, online. Further information.

Early Career Research training, India

South Asian Studies. John Zavos has just spent two weeks (virtually) in India, first in Kerala in the week commencing 6/12, then in Nagaland in the week commencing 13/12, facilitating week long workshops funded by the British Academy on Effective Academic Writing. The workshops are designed to build capacity amongst Early Career Researchers in parts of India where research infrastructure is less readily available. We brought together a team of scholars from India, Norway, and the United Kingdom, all of whom work in different disciplines within the field of South Asian Studies, to facilitate workshops on applying for grants, publishing in peer-reviewed journals, impact and knowledge exchange and other aspects of building your academic profile. We also established a mentoring programme for the session participants, sustained over the next year and culminating in a further workshop, this one hopefully face to face, in India in December 2022. Further information.

Blog entry, 50 Jewish Objects Project

Jewish art. As part of the activities of the 50 Jewish Objects project, creative pieces are commissioned for contemporary artists in response to selected artefacts from the John Rylands Library and the research produced by Dr Stefania Silvestri. In the first blogpost by artist Daniel Gouly he discusses the creative processes behind his new commission. Further information.

Jewish Telegraph Agency

Jewish Studies. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz features in "The rabbi working to get more women in leadership roles in Great Britain’s Orthodox community". The Jewish Telegraph Agency, 17 Sept 2021. Further information.

BBC Radio 4, Sunday Programme

Religion and Technology. Scott Midson was on the Sunday Programme to discuss AI and the Humanities. 5 Dec 2021. Listen again (starts 30 mins in).

Conference paper, Romania

Biblical and Jewish Studies. Maria Cioată, 'Traditional Reactions to Modern Higher-Criticism: the Case of Dr. Moses Gaster' at the Second International Symposium on Biblical Exegesis in Timișoara, 11-13 November, 2021. Further information.

New publication

Christian Studies. Peter Nockles, "Newman and the Oxford Movement: A Pre-History of Ecumenism (1833-1870)", in A History of the Desire for Christian Unity. Ecumenism in the Churches (XIXth-XXIst Century), directed by A. Melloni, coordinated and edited by Luca Ferracci, Vol I: "Dawn of Ecumenism”, pp. 132-163, Brill, Leiden, 2021. Further information.

New publication

Islamic Studies. Kamran Karimullah, 'Islamic Law Medicine and Public Health 800-1800' in Quaderni di Diritto e Politica Ecclesiastica (2021). Further information.

New publication

Biblical Studies. Maria Cioată, 'The Collection of Dr. Gaster at the Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest', in M. Cioată, A. Miltenova, E. Timotin (eds.), Biblical Apocrypha in South-Eastern Europe and Related Areas, Proceedings of the Session held at the 12th International Congress of South-East European Studies (Bucharest, 2-6 September 2019), [Bibliothèque de l’Institut d’Études Sud-Est Européennes 16] (Brăila, Editura Istros, 2021), 277-312.

Podcast, Humanities at Manchester

Christian theology. "Why I am now a Climate Researcher" by Professor Peter Scott, Religions and Theology. Watch YouTube.

Preview of Masterclass

Religion and technology. During lockdown lasy year our Department pulled out all the stops and, in addition to offering our usual suite of courses, we produced for our students a new non-credit course on a variety of topics that currently interest our researchers. Here is just one example session: Scott Midson's Masterclass on 'Communication and Chatbots: How AI is Changing the World with Words'. Further information.