Organising committee
Naomi Billingsley's research examines the figure of Christ in the visual works of the painter-poet William Blake (1757-1827).
Her interests in environments include the intersection between Blake's Christology (theology of Christ) and cosmology, and his famous vision to build a new Jerusalem.
She is also interested in how Blake's reputation has been mediated in popular culture.
Her interests in environments include the intersection between Blake's Christology (theology of Christ) and cosmology, and his famous vision to build a new Jerusalem.
She is also interested in how Blake's reputation has been mediated in popular culture.
Edmund Chapman is writing about literature and translation, in particular the idea of literature's 'afterlife' and how literature survives in different contexts. Place, location and environment are thus an important part of this understanding of translation.
He also has an interest in the intersection between religion, particularly mysticism, and literature.
He also has an interest in the intersection between religion, particularly mysticism, and literature.
Rosie Edgley works on Sanskrit-English translation and researches the work of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, a 16th century Indian philosopher who belongs to the school of Advaita Vedānta (non-dualism). Her thesis examines Madhusūdana's philosophy of personhood and self.
Rosie is also interested in the treatment of environment and nature in Hindu culture.
David Firth's research examines the writing of Nadine Gordimer from a Marxist perspective, considering her work's dramatisation of class, capital, and socio-economic relations in South Africa (in contrast to persistent criticism of her work emphasising race, apartheid, and identity politics), concluding in discussion of her work's cosmopolitan potential when understood in relation to Marxist thinking.
Wider research interests centre upon Marxist postcolonial writing, global citizenship, and interrogations of identity politics.
Scott Midson explores the intersection between posthumanism and theology, primarily via the works of Donna Haraway.
Much of his research entails an exploration of 'hybridity', which impacts how we regard our relationships and involvements with environments and various (popular) cultures.
Can the human be distinguished from its nature or environment, for example? And how threatening or apocalyptic are we to interpret the posthuman, in any of its forms?
Much of his research entails an exploration of 'hybridity', which impacts how we regard our relationships and involvements with environments and various (popular) cultures.
Can the human be distinguished from its nature or environment, for example? And how threatening or apocalyptic are we to interpret the posthuman, in any of its forms?
Charlie Pemberton is interested in the crossing of theology and civil society.
More specifically, he is currently researching Christian charities that work with homeless people - a piece of work that draws on social theory, philosophy, politics and theology.
This work requires an account of a variety of environments (urban, rural and domestic), and poses the question: what is it to be at home and what is implicit in the negation of the home? And, secondly, how are places like the home culturally experienced and transmitted?
Jonathan Rodgers' research focuses on contemporary fiction and New Atheism.
His work considers what fictional texts might contribute to “the God Debate” in the popular sphere and how literary theory might account for a renewed interest in Jesus and Christianity without resorting to a reinstatement of the metaphysical.
He is also interested in the ecological and environmental demands that might be encouraged by a sense of radical contingency, which (among other things) abandons the underpinnings of the divine.