Subjects A-Z: Theology and Religious Studies

Research areas and initatives

We contribute to a wide range of research areas in our respective subdisciplines: Biblical Studies, Catholic Moral Theology, Church History, Islam, Jewish Studies, Practical Theology, South Asian Religions (or Philosophies) and Systematic Theology. See individual staff pages for details.

Our main collective research topics are:

  • Religion and Politics: e.g. sectarianism; religion and violence; religion and revolution (from Luther and Calvin as ‘Religious Revolutionaries’ to the Iranian Revolution to revolution and Jewish thought); the theological/political (from Augustine to Carl Schmitt and beyond); theology between China and ‘the West’; theology and Scottish nationalism; theology and economics
  • The construction of ‘religion’ as a modern category: eg. the construction of religion as the condition for the emergence of the ‘secular’; histories of the invention of the ‘secular’; the invention of ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Buddhism’ as ‘World Religions’; the invention of ‘Biblical Studies’; the debate over whether there is such a thing as ‘religion’ or whether religion is always an alibi for something else
  • Religion and technology: e.g. ‘religion’ through media (religion and the invention of the book; religion and ‘literature’; religion and film; religion and art); the challenge of new technologies to ethics; religion as ‘special effects’
  • Futures and Mysticism: e.g. Histories of the Future (apocalyptic); love and eschatology; Sufism; hope; capitalism and the invention of ‘spirituality’ (wagering on ‘futures’).
  • Religion and Identity: Tolerance; Representation; Feminism and Gender Studies; colonialism/postcolonialism; contemporary spiritual practice; the public place of religion in modern democracies
  • Scripts, scriptures, and textual analysis: While we critically discuss, and represent, a range of theories and methods, we are particularly well known for our various textual skills—from hermeneutics to ‘exegesis’ of ancient scriptures (including Greek, Hebrew and Arabic) to the work of the centre of Literature, Theology and the Arts. Collectively we are, on the whole, readers-- though the object of our reading ranges from scriptures, to clandestine ‘fake’ scriptures, to the writings of Ayatyollah Khomeini, Enochic literature and Karl Marx.