Theological Educators’ Conference

Theological education. Eve Parker took part at the Annual Theological Educators’ Conference on the subject of Theological Education and Mental Health. 10 – 12 July, Durham University. Further information.

New Publication

Biblical studies. Sarah Parkhouse has published "“Therefore I Say, Mary”: P.Oxy. 5577 and the Gospel of Mary" in Novum Testamentum 66.3, 382–401. The paper explores whether a newly published papyrus fragment may be part of the Gospel of Mary. Further information.

Conference Paper

Biblical studies. PhD student Rachel Miller gave a paper at the Bible, Critical Theory, and Reception Seminar, hosted at the University of Manchester, 18-19 June, entitled ‘Jezebel’s Tale? A Biblical Reception in The Handmaid’s Tale’. Rachel used Barthes’s idea of mythologisation to explore Atwood’s Jezebels as a reception of the Hebrew Bible Jezebel. Further information.

Graduate Outcomes

For students. Did you graduate from UoM between February and April 2023? You’ve been sent the #GraduateOutcomes survey via email! It aims to understand your perspectives & your current status. Find out more here.

Conference Papers

Religion and Environment. Finlay Malcolm has recently given two conference papers. The first was at the University of Manchester Alternative Futures and Popular Protest conference (18th June) and the second was at the British Sociological Association annual conference at the University of Northumbria (8th July). Both papers presented findings from the 'Religion, Theology and Climate Change’ (AHRC) project, exploring theological creativity emerging from Christian climate activist groups in the UK.

Course unit selection fair for 2024-25

Browse now! Students have started exploring their course unit options for the coming academic year by watching short video introductions. Further information.

Staffing update

Religions & Theology and Liberal Arts. Congratulations to Dr Eve Parker who has been appointed Lecturer in Liberal Arts, to Dr Scott Midson who has been promoted to Senior Lecturer in Liberal Arts and Digital Theology, and to Dr Siobhan Jolley who will be joining us in Sept for a year as Lecturer in Christian Studies.

Student Prizes, 2023-24

Undergraduate excellence in Religions & Theology. Congratulations to Edie McGregor for the Philip Alexander Prize in Jewish Studies for the highest undergraduate grade in Jewish studies (dissertation title: ‘Revelations of Marginalised Matriarchs: An Intersectional Rereading of Sexual Violence in the Hebrew Bible’); to Athur Chughtai for The Brandon Memorial Prize (Undergraduate) for the best work in Comparative Religious Studies (dissertation title: ‘Educating Islam: An Investigation into the Nurturing of Secure Social Identity within Secular and Islamic Secondary Schools in Britain and its Effect on the Academic  Performance of British Muslim Students, Using Islamic Secondary Schools in Bradford as a Comparative Example’); to Maya Okorodudu for the Undergraduate Dissertation Prize for Religious Studies (dissertation title: ‘Divine Femininity: Empowering Discourse or Insidiously Sexist Content’); to Luke Hankins for the Dastur Kutar Prize for best undergraduate dissertation in Non-Western religious studies (dissertation title: ‘Terms of Marxist and Economic Anthropology, why has Hezbollah emerged as a political and economic anti-imperialist organisation?’); to Zachary Allen for the Religion and Social Responsibility Dissertation Prize for the best undergraduate dissertation that explores a social or ethical challenge at the intersection of religion and social responsibility (dissertation title: ‘"The Light Shining in the Dark": Youth Groups, Structural Violence and Meaning’); to Kira Sharaz for the Bishop Lee Junior Greek Testament Prize for the best examination result in New Testament Greek; and to Matthew Mace for the award of the Wellington scholarship for Hellenistic Greek or Greek Testament studies.

End of year report for Centre for Jewish Studies, 2024

Jewish Studies at Manchester. The Centre draws together staff related to Jewish Studies from across the University of Manchester and was formally established in 1996, although Jewish studies of one sort or another has been taught at Manchester since 1866. The co-directors are Alex Samely (Jewish Thought), Jean-Marc Dreyfus (Holocaust Studies), and Daniel Langton (Jewish History), and it is administered by PhD student Kerry McCall.
    Over the last year, the Centre’s candidate Rabbi Aaron Lipsey was successful in winning an AHRC PhD studentship for a project entitled 'The Responses of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to the Holocaust: A Study of His Letters, Talks and Teachings’. Two Rothschild Foundation postdoc fellowships were awarded, starting in 2024 and 2025 respectively, namely, Nina Valbousquet on ‘Jewish-Catholic Odysseys: “Non-Aryan” Refugees, the Holocaust, and Pius XII’s Vatican (1938-1950)’, and Hannah Wilson on ‘"These things are part of us, almost like limbs of our body”: The Material Memory of the Holocaust in Domestic Spaces, Private Memories and Public Spheres’.
    In additional to many individual staff publications, there were two major collaborative achievements. The first was the completion of the Hebrew Manuscripts catalogue of holdings at the Rylands Library of the University of Manchester; this project began in 1992 and includes over 400 manuscripts dating back to the 14th century. The second was a ten-part podcast series entitled 'What Would Jesus the Jew Do?', which explored the Jewish background to the New Testament.
    The Centre’s event programme over the last year included the Bogdanow Lectures in Holocaust Studies 2024, which featured Prof. Omer Bartov (Brown University) on 'The Return of the Repressed: Ukraine's Unresolved Pasts’, and the Sherman Community Lecture 2024 which was presented by Prof. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Arizona State University) on 'Judaism and Climate Change: Religious Responses to the Eco-Crisis.’  The Sherman Conversation day-conference was entitled ‘Encountering Others, Encountering Ourselves: Reflexivity and the Jewish Studies Researcher’ and organised by Dr Katja Stuerzenhofecker and Rabba Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz. There was the normal programme of the Biblical Hebrew Reading group and the Scriptural Encounters seminar series for discussion of difficult scriptural texts. In addition to papers given by various staff members, there were, among our other events and activities, public lectures (eg to the Muslim-Jewish forum) and workshops (eg at the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum).

Business engagement, BBC Radio 4

Online education. Departmental representatives Daniel Langton, Holly Morse and Scott Midson met at Broadcasting House in London with executives at the BBC to discuss the future development of the joint project 'Going Beyond Belief'. 27 June 2024.