School of Theology, Philosophy, and History
- Centres in the School
Centre for Religion and History
The Centre for Religion and History of the School of Theology, Philosophy and History at St Mary's University College was set up in 2006. The Centre emerged from, and built on the work carried out by, St Mary’s Centre for Religious History which provided, until 2006, a focus for historical research in the School.
The School has active researchers in the areas of history, theology, religion and politics, philosophy, religious history, international comparative and cultural history, memory and historiography, history and culture of the Middle East, Palestinian and Israeli historiography, Ottoman history, Jewish history, biblical studies, the history of liberation and eco-feminist theologies, modern American history, modern British history and both early modern and modern European history.
Mission, Aims and Objectives
Increasing the range and quality of scholarship in history (especially in religion and history) is one of the prime objectives of the Centre. Other aims included:
- Expanding history-based projects in the School and promoting interdisciplinary research
- Promoting research and scholarship on religion and history and encouraging historical research that is objective and based on a range of sound methodologies
- Applying for external funding to support historical research within the School and College
- Attracting research students to the School
- Supporting current and future Masters' programmes in the School
- Strengthening collaborative research with other British educational and research institutions
- Organizing guest lectures, workshops, conferences, symposia, exchanges, film showings, arts exhibitions and other events
- Encouraging inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches to research and publications on religion and history
- Serving as a forum for cross-religious meetings to exchange ideas and to promote interfaith dialogue
The School also has its own programme of regular research seminars which, among other things, covers various areas of religion and history, and at which both staff and postgraduate members of the School present their work. The existence of the Tablet Archives in the School benefits hugely scholars and postgraduate students working on modern Catholic history, both in Britain and internationally.
The Centre benefits from the fact that the published historical output of the School is considerable, with a large number of monographs, textbooks, edited collections and journal articles published in recent years. Furthermore the Research Assessment Exercise RAE results for 2008 have rated 75% of the submissions made by the School to be either 'World Leading' or of 'International Standing'. 95% of the works published by over a dozen staff of the school met the exacting standards of the subject panel with the result that St Mary's is now a sector leader among Church Colleges in theological research.
Furthermore much of the current research in the School is focused on history-based projects such as the Holy Land Research Project (HLRP), which was set up in 2001. The work now done in the Holy Land Research Project has attracted funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Counci (formerly AHRB) in recent years and a number of further applications for external grants are proceeding.
In 2006 the HLRP also attracted funding from the British Academy for co-organisng (in 2007) two workshops, one in London and the other at Birzeit University, Palestine, on ‘The Politics of Elections and the Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East: Perspectives from Within and Below'. The workshops are part of a collaborative project with the history division at the University of Northampton, UK, and the graduate programme on democracy at Birzeit University, Palestine.
Also in 2006 one of the research students in the School working on the Holy Land received a major grant from the Palestinian American Research Centre (PARC) based in Bethesda, MD, US.
The Centre benefits from the expertise of leading historians in the School.
Members include:
Dr Richardson (a Reader in Early Modern History) is Academic Director and Programme Director of History and Acting Programme Director of the MA in History, Culture and Beliefs. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has published extensively on Tudor England's political and cultural relations with continental Europe and on European renaissance monarchy. His books include: 'The Contending Kingdoms': France and England 1420-1700 (2008). Dr Richardson is writing a new book on the Field of Cloth of Gold, the meeting between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France held near Calais in 1520. In the spring of 2010 Dr Richardson received a Scoulodi Foundation Historical Award of the Institute for Historical Research (University of London) to conduct research in archives in northern France and survey the site of the famous meeting.
Dr Donnelly's publications focus on contemporary culture, politics, memory and historiography. His recent books include Sixties Britain: Culture, Society and Politics (2005) and Doing History (2011) (co-authored with Dr Claire Norton). His article on Peter Whitehead's 1965 documentary film Wholly Communion will be published in a themed edition of the US journal Framework in 2011. His study of British historiography, the Holocaust and the 'good war' narrative is also due to be published in an edited collection by the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust Studies.
Dr Claire Norton mainly works on early modern Ottoman history, particularly focusing on instances of cultural transfer and interaction among communities living in border areas and other liminal spaces; she is interested in the processes and complexities of identity formation, motivations for conversion. In April 2006 Dr Norton organised an international conference on "The Renaissance and the Ottoman World" in conjunction with the Warburg Institute, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the School. Her books include: Nationalism, Historiography and the (Re)Construction of the Past (2007). Her new book, Doing History (2011) is co-authored with Dr Donnelly.
Professor Nur Masalha has been serving for many years on review panels of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and is currently a member of the AHRC Peer Review College; he has been Director of the Holy Land Research Project since 2001 and Centre for Religion and History since 2007; he edits Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal (published by Edinburgh University Press); his work focuses on religion and politics in the Middle East, Islamic revivalism, new Palestinian and Israeli historiography and religious fundamentalism in comparative perspective. His recent books include: The Bible and Zionism: Invented Tradition, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Israel-Palestine (2007) and La Biblia leída con los ojos de los Cananeos (2011). His forthcoming books include: The Palestine Makba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory (2011); and The Politics of Reading the Bible in Israel (2012).
Professor Mary Grey is Visiting Professor at St Mary's University Colleges; a theologian who has published extensively on the history of liberation and eco-feminist theologies. Her recent books include: To Rwanda and Back: Spirituality, Justice and Liberation (2008); The Advent of Peace: Gospel journey to Christmas (2010); A Cry for Dignity: Religion and Violence and the Struggle of Dalit Women in India (2010).
Professor Dan Cohn-Sherbok is Visiting Professor at St Mary's University Colleges and a member of the AHRC Peer Review College; he is Professor Emeritus of Judaism at the University of Wales Trinity St David, Honorary Professor at the University of Aberystwyth; he is a prolific author on Judaism and Jewish history, religion and politics; his books include Israel: The History of an Idea (1992); Atlas of Jewish History (1994); The Politics of Apocalypse: The History and Influence of Christian Zionism (2006); Dictionary of Kabbalah and Kabbalists (2009); Judaism Today (2010)
Dr Sinead McEneaney, Lecturer in modern American history. Research interests include: gender, welfare and religion, American radicals, history of American poverty, international comparative and cultural history. Dr McEneaney is on the editorial board of the Irish Journal for American Studies, and is a contributor to the Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory; she is currently working on a book which examines the experiences of women in French and American student movements in the 1960s.
Tarcisius Mukuka, Research Fellow and doctoral student (biblical interpretation and post-colonial theory in Southern Africa).
Until 2008 the Centre housed the Joan Henderson Memorial Lecture in religious history. Joan Henderson was a historian and a fellow of St Mary’s from 1999 until her death in 2002. Set up by Dr Maria Dowling, the fifth and final Henderson lecture was delivered by Dr Glenn Richardson in June 2008, entitled: “England, France and the European Reformation”. It looked at the close relationship between Henry VIII and his French counterpart Francois I at the time of the English King’s break with Rome.
The Centre currrently houses a number of history-based projects, such as the Holy Land Research Project and the Michael Prior Memorial Lecture. Professor Michael Prior (1942-2004) was a liberation theologian and Professor of Theology and the Bible at St Mary’s. The Michael Prior Memorial Lecture is sponsored by the Living Stones of the Holy Land Trust, an ecumenical trust seeking to promote contacts between Christian communities in Britain and those in the Holy land and Middle East.
The Holy Land Research Project has also co-organised several conferences on Palestine-Israel with both Living Stones and Sabeel, an ecumenical centre in Jerusalem for Palestinian Liberation Theology.
Life-Long Learning in Palestine
Starting date for the project is 15 October 2011 - Completion 15 October 2013
The Holy Land Research Project has been part of a successful international collaborative bid to the European Commission: Tempus, entitled: “Life-Long Learning in Palestine.” Totalling 669.355 Euros by the European Commission, the Tempus bid is one of the most prestigious schemes in the European funding system.
This international collaborative project involves Glasgow University, a member of the Russell Group of leading UK research universities, as the lead applicant, two other European Universities: the National University of Ireland Maynooth; University of Malta, four Palestinian universities: Bethlehem University, University of Birzeit, Al-Quds University (in Jerusalem), and Islamic University of Gaza and two Palestinian Non-Governmental Organisations.
The project is embedded in international networks that realise Life-long Learning as a globally informed practice. The project involves study visits, seminars/workshops and meetings for academics, students, employers, university policy makers and NGOs in Palestine.
The Holy Land Research Project will support other partners in developing and delivering training that involves NGO workers, organisations of Palestinian civil society, academic institutions and community centres in collaboration with all the Palestinian and European partners on community and cultural issues. It will play a particular role in dissemination through its Holy Land Studies: A Multidiscipline Journal, published by Edinburgh University Press; papers derived from the project will be made broadly available in English, and translated into Arabic.
For further information, contact Professor Nur Masalha, Director of the Centre, School of Theology, Philosophy and History.
Email: masalhan@smuc.ac.uk Tel: 020 8240 4193.
