Keynote Talk

Religion, theology, and climate. Eve Parker gave the keynote talk at the World Communion of Reformed Churches launch of the Decade for Climate Justice. For more details and to watch the speech, click here.

International Society Meeting

Biblical Studies. Philip and Loveday Alexander attended the annual meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas at the University of Vienna. Sarah Parkhouse was among the newly elected members.

Postdoc Appreciation Week

For research staff. Manchester Postdoc Appreciation Week (PAW) is coming! This year’s PAW will start on the 18th of September, and as usual we are putting on an event open to all postdocs and researchers in the University! This year we are appreciating our Postdocs with brunch and pick-n-mix activities! There will be an organised quiz and networking session, as well as tables where you get to find more information on university services (e.g. researcher development, wellbeing team, advocacy and mentorship), and access to coaches; or if you want to just have some fun, try out some board games, VR headsets, and there may (*MAY*) even be puppies! We will also be announcing our Research Staff Excellence Awards Winners at this event! Sign up using this link.

Conference Papers

Biblical Studies. Manchester is well represented this year by staff, students, and HRFs at the British New Testament Society Conference, Exeter, 31 Aug–2 Sept. A whole session is dedicated to the research of Loveday Alexander, and she will give a paper ‘Reading Acts: How has my mind changed (and not changed), over the course of the past four decades?’. Tim Gough will present ‘The Cornelius effect: Re-evaluating Acts 10:2, 22 as prototypical “God-fearer" language’. Anna Budhi-Thornton will present ‘Multiple Masculinities and the Messiah: The Subversive and Complex Manliness of the Johannine Jesus’. Peter Oakes will present ‘A Martyrological Collection of Prison Letters to Philippi? Evaluating Angela Standhartinger, Der Philipperbrief (HNT 11/I; Mohr Siebeck 2021)’. Andrew Boakye will present ‘“All Things in Messiah”: The Ephesian Mystery and the Israel of the End Times’. Sarah Parkhouse & Siobhán Jolley will co-present ‘“What is hidden from you, I will proclaim to you.” Storytelling and the Gospel(s) of Mary (Magdalene?)’. Philip Alexander is on a review panel of Yael Fisch's Written for Us: Paul’s Interpretation of Scripture and the History of Midrash (Brill, 2022). More information.

Conference Paper

Political philosophy and religion. Samuel O'Connor Perks will be giving a presentation at the International Society for Intellectual History Conference in Edinburgh on September 6. The title of the talk will be: 'Crisis, Conversion and Catastrophe: World War I as a Catalyst for Ammon Hennacy's Christian Anarchism'. More information can be found here.

New Publication

Theological studies. Eve Parker has published a chapter titled "Re-distributing Theological Knowledge in Theological Education as an act of Distributive Justice in Contemporary Christian Mission" in Anthony Reddie and Carol Troupe's latest book, "Deconstructing Whiteness, Empire and Mission" (SCM Press, 2023). Further information.

Public Event

Jewish history. Manchester Council of Christians and Jews invites you to a fascinating heritage trail walk through the old Jewish quarter around Cheetham Hill Road on the afternoon of Sunday 10 September. Two knowledgeable Manchester Jewish Museum guides will take you to, and explain about 20 Jewish heritage landmarks in a compelling journey that begins at the newly extended Manchester Jewish Museum and restored Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of 1874, on Cheetham Hill Road. The trail will last from 2-3pm and will be in memory of Mr Merton Paul, local historian and guide, who conducted heritage trails for over 30 years. The Trail will begin at Manchester Jewish Museum. You will be welcome to arrive any time from 12 noon to enjoy a visit around Museum and Synagogue first, and there will be a short introductory talk at 1.30pm. Museum entrance for members of the group taking part in the Trail will be £5 per person, payable to the Museum on the day only. To register, e-mail your email address and phone number to: Francesca Frazer-Davies, Manchester CCJ Secretary, at ccjsecretary@yahoo.co.uk. Only 20 spaces available!

Knowledge Distribution

Public theology. Recent PhD awardee Dominic Budhi won funding to distribute knowledge from his thesis. Over the last three months he participated in a research conference at Liverpool cathedral, which was attended by the bishop of Manchester; gave a lecture at Bristol Cathedral to both congregants and leaders in various sectors; and conducted a training workshop with the leaders of Leicester Cathedral called ‘hospitality in a postmodern age'.

New Publication

World Christianity. Eve Parker has published a chapter entitled "Theologising with Concubines: Trusting in Indecent Bodies in World Christianity", in a critical new book ed. Deanna Womach and Raimundo Barreto, "Alterity and the Evasion of Justice: Explorations of the 'Other' in World Christianity" (Fortress Press, 2023). Further information.

International Conference

World Religions. Tom Woerner-Powell will be speaking as part of a panel of philosophers and third-sector activists on Islam and Nonviolence that he has organised at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in August in Chicago. Further information.

Conference Paper

Biblical Studies. Sarah Parkhouse gave a paper "Nile Rites in Roman and Coptic Egypt" at the conference GODSCAPES: Ritual, Belief and the Natural World in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond, sponsored by the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions and the School of Classics, St. Andrews University (June 27–30).

International Conference

Biblical Studies. Peter Oakes and Loveday Alexander represented Manchester at the Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense at KU Leuven on Christianity in Civic Space (July 18-21). Peter presented a short paper on the use of the term politeuma, which is often incorrectly translated as ‘citzenship’ in Philippians 3:20, where Paul writes, ‘our politeuma is in heaven’. Peter’s paper gathered instances of the term across media (inscriptions, papyri, literary texts) and periods (from earliest uses to Late Antiquity) and suggested a framework for categorising the various uses of the term. The paper is part of Peter’s work in preparing a commentary on Philippians. The colloquium papers will be published in a volume edited by John Kloppenborg, university of Toronto.