Research

Religion, Challenge & Change

This cluster brings together experts on the social contexts of religious traditions and the history of religions in change.

Staff

Publications

2026

Gamliel, O. (2026) Conversion and Translation in the Kēraḷōlpatti. Higher Education for the Future, (doi: 10.1177/23476311261449318)

Millie, J., Tee, C. (2026) Minorities and the challenges of Muslim pluralism: an Alevi/Ahmadiyya comparison. Politics, Religion and Ideology,

Mayhew, N. (2026) История русского православия говорит: ЛГБТ-люди не прокляты = Russian Orthodox history says: LGBT folk aren't damned.

Gamliel, O., Davies, J. R. (2026) Decolonial pedagogies and South Asian studies: knowledge production, erasure and recovery in higher education. Higher Education for the Future, (doi: 10.1177/23476311261438563)

Gamliel, O. (2026) Matrilineal Jews or slave descendants? Halakhic laws and trade alliances in medieval Malabar. Routledge

Mayhew, N. (2026) Hanna Filipova. Male Same-Sex Relations and the Court of Peter I: Turning Muscovite. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. 134 pp., $44.99 (cloth), $34.99 (e-book) Slavic and East European Journal,

2025

Gamliel, O. (2025) Arttham. Tulika Books

Mayhew, N. (2025) Queerness in the Early Modern Russian Orthodox Church. Palgrave Macmillan

Fotiade, R. (2025) Kierkegaard’s either-or in Shestov’s dialogue with Husserl. Brill

Johnstone, A., Gamliel, O. (2025) "No amount of water can wash away genocide" w/ Ophira Gamliel.

Fotiade, R. (2025) Fudo and Geopoetics: Towards an Archipelagic Ethics of the Environment.

Tee, C. (2025) Monastic avoidance: piety and ambivalence in pre-2016 Turkey. Contemporary Islam, (doi: 10.1007/s11562-025-00589-w)

Gamliel, O. (2025) Land fetishism and genocidal iconoclasm. Palestine/Israel Review,

Gamliel, O., Reicher, S., Mahon, M. (2025) We're Jewish academics in Scotland. Universities are complicit in genocide. National, 2025,

Tee, C., Vicini, F., Dorroll, P. (2025) 100 years of religion in Turkey: voices from the center and the margins. Oxford University Press

Fotiade, R. (2025) Religious Consciousness and the Existential Self: Nishida's Reading of Kierkegaard.

Shively, K., Tee, C. (2025) Fethullah Gülen and the Hizmet movement: power, controversy, and the “good Muslim” paradigm. Oxford University Press

Yazaki, S. (2025) Hatsudai 5: Igirisu de nihon no shukyokan to isuramu o oshieru keiken kara.

Yazaki, S. (2025) 'The dance is the (s)way of life': The open approach of the Jewish Sufi-Zen teacher Samuel Lewis and his Dances of Universal Peace. I. B. Tauris

(2025) Sufism and Zen in the West: The Transformation of Modern Religious Life and Practice.

Mayhew, N. (2025) European ideas about homosexuality in Muscovy and the Russian Empire, sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. Slavica Publishers

2024

Gamliel, O., Eliyahu, M., Eliyahu, Y. (2024) The lost Jew town of Kochi. ARC Humanities Press

Gamliel, O. (2024) Jūtamalayāḷavuṃ arabimalayāḷavuṃ tāratammya kāḻcappāṭil. Book Plus

Mayhew, N. (2024) Ukraine’s LGBTQ+ soldiers call for more rights – as Russia forces minorities into active service. Conversation,

Yazaki, S. (2024) To discipline or to forget: a Sufi–Zen comparative analysis of the self in the writings of al-Ghazālī and Dōgen. Religions, 15, (doi: 10.3390/rel15080929)

Gamliel, O., Davies, J., Eliyahu, M., Sateesh, R., Aravind, S., Bhaskar, A., Sasidharan, S. U., E.V., F. (2024) Kappalile (In the Boat)

Gamliel, O. (2024) Zeugen zum Schweigen bringen: Der Fall Ghassan Abu-Sittah.

Gamliel, O. (2024) Ophira Gamliel on Malabar Jews.

Mayhew, N. (2024) Vladimir Putin’s history war where truth is the first casualty. Conversation,

Fotiade, R. (2024) Exil, nomadologie et pensée du dehors: en cheminant avec Kenneth White et Léon Chestov. Journal of Scottish Thought, 13, pp. 150-165. (doi: 10.57132/jst.139)

Garcia, A., Breheny, M., Yazaki, S. (2024) A Workshop on Food Consciousness and Traditional Japanese Culinary Practice Increases Awareness of Sensory Food Properties, Mindful Eating, and Food Waste Reduction Actions. (doi: 10.3390/proceedings2023091282)

(2024) The Oxford Handbook of Religion in Turkey. (doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197624883.001.0001)

Gamliel, O., Kalluvalappil, S. A. (2024) Arabi-Malayalam disaster ballads: performative poetry and community resilience. Nidān, 8, pp. 93-110. (doi: 10.58125/nidan.2023.2.24337)

Gamliel, O. (2024) Sabeel, This Is Where We Stand: A Sabeel Reflection on Antisemitism. Scottish Episcopal Institute Journal, 8, pp. 47-50.

2023

Gamliel, O. (2023) Judaism in South India, 849–1489: Relocating Malabar Jewry. Arc Humanities Press

(2023) Kenneth White and Geopoetics. Journal of Scottish Thought, 13,

(2023) Chestov au Japon. Lev Shestov Journal = Cahiers Léon Chestov,

Fotiade, R. (2023) Considérations inactuelles: la transmission dans la pensée existentielle et dans la philosophie Zen. Lev Shestov Journal = Cahiers Léon Chestov, pp. 55-70.

Fotiade, R. (2023) Kuki Schuzo et Leon Chestov: de la phénoménologie à la pensée existentielle dans les années 1920 et 1930. Lev Shestov Journal = Cahiers Léon Chestov, pp. 17-30.

Gamliel, O., Weinrich, I. (2023) Reconnecting the Split Moon.

Gamliel, O. (2023) Self-praise hymns and mystical experiences. Brill

Fotiade, R., Shestov, L. (2023) Athènes et Jérusalem. Un essai de philosophie religieuse.

Fotiade, R. (2023) Boris de Schloezer, ses interlocuteurs et ses amis. Presses universitaires de Rennes

Mayhew, N. (2023) Petri, Olga. Places of Tenderness and Heat: The Queer Milieu of Fin-de-Siècle St. Petersburg. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2022. xx + 254 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $48.95; $31.99 (e-book). Slavonic and East European Review, 101, pp. 574-575. (doi: 10.1353/see.2023.a912482)

Mayhew, N. (2023) Russian Style: Performing Gender, Power, and Putinism by Julie A. Cassiday, Madison, WI, The University of Wisconsin Press, 2023, 255 pp., $79.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-299-34670-6. Slavonica, 28, pp. 122-124. (doi: 10.1080/13617427.2024.2377890)

Mayhew, N. (2023) Contemplating the divine: How Andrey Rublev revolutionized icon painting. Times Literary Supplement,

Mayhew, N. (2023) Holy foolishness and gender transgression in Russian hagiography from the Middle Ages to Modernity. Routledge

Fotiade, R. (2023) Écrire et vivre sur le seuil: Bonnefoy lecteur de Chestov. Manucius

Gamliel, O. (2023) Matthew Martin, Tantra, Ritual Performance, and Politics in Nepal and Kerala: Embodying the Goddess-Clan. European Bulletin of Himalayan Research,

Yazaki, S. (2023) Classes of beings in Sufism. Brill

Gamliel, O. (2023) In Memoriam: Scaria Zacharia z”l. Journal of Jewish Languages, 11, pp. 10-14. (doi: 10.1163/22134638-bja10032)

2022

Gamliel, O., Eliyahu, M., Eliyahu, J. (2022) עיר היהודים האבודה בקוצ'ין = The Lost Jew Town of Cochin. Pe'amim: Studies in Oriental Jewry, 167-8, pp. 53-100.

(2022) The Lev Shestov Journal - 1921-2021 Anniversary Issue. Lev Shestov Journal - Cahiers Leon Chestov,

Fotiade, R. (2022) Chestov - Deleuze: l'image-temps et la pensee du dehors. Lev Shestov Journal = Cahiers Leon Chestov, pp. 117-125.

Fotiade, R. (2022) Chestov. Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre

Mayhew, N. (2022) Petr and Fevroniia’s unorthodox marriage. Slavonic and East European Review, 100, pp. 654-673.

Chestov, L., Fotiade, R., Scholezer, B. d. (2022) Le Pouvoir des clés.

Mayhew, N. (2022) Medieval and Trans Ways of Being. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 9, pp. 293-296. (doi: 10.1215/23289252-9612977)

Yazaki, S. (2022) The Islamic manuscript collection of A.S. Yahuda in Princeton University Library: A history of acquisition. Gingko Library

Mayhew, N. (2022) Regulating Homosexuality in Soviet Russia, 1956–1991: a different history by Rustam Alexander, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2021, x + 248 pp., £80.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-5261-5576-4. Social History, 47, pp. 115-116. (doi: 10.1080/03071022.2022.2009703)

Mayhew, N. (2022) Мужеложство и современные представления о русской традиции гомофобии. Критика феміністична, 5, pp. 92-98.

2021

Fotiade, R. (2021) Foreword. Peter Lang

Gamliel, O. (2021) കേരള ജൂത സമൂഹത്തിലെ തായ് വഴി സൂചനകള്‍ = Traces of Matriliny among Kerala Jews.

Mayhew, N. (2021) Moscow: The Third Rome. Oxford University Press

2020

Fotiade, R. (2020) Nomadism și (post)naționalism: cazul avangardei românești. Editura Muzeul Literaturii Romane

Gamliel, O. (2020) Covid-19 transformation: towards a knowledge-sharing platform. DiscourseNet Collaborative Working Paper Series, 2,

Fotiade, R. (2020) Lev Shestov: the meaning of life and the critique of scientific knowledge. Oxford University Press

Gamliel, O. (2020) The story of the '99 floods. Kerala Calling, 40, pp. 79-80.

Gamliel, O. (2020) Malayalam and Kerala’s Covid-19 transformation: some thoughts during lockdown.

Bulgakovsky, D., Mayhew, N. (2020) Xenia the Servant of God, or Andrey Fyodorovich the Holy Fool. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 7, pp. 114-120. (doi: 10.1215/23289252-7914570)

Gamliel, O. (2020) A Linguistic Survey of the Malayalam Language in Its Own Terms. Harrassowitz

Mayhew, N. (2020) Queering sodomy: a challenge to “traditional” sexual relations in Russia. Peter Lang

Yazaki, S. (2020) Scrupulous devotion: the influence of Ibn Hanbal on al-Makki. University of California, Irvine; Jordan Center for Persian Studies

2019

Fotiade, R. (2019) Surrealism - The Punishments of Hell, or New Hebrides. Times Literary Supplement, pp. 46.

Gamliel, O. (2019) Review of Homo Ritualis: Hindu Ritual and its Significance for Ritual Theory by Axel Michaels. Entangled Religions, 8, (doi: 10.13154/er.8.2019.8439)

Gamliel, O. (2019) The syntactic roles of touch in shared festivals in Kerala: towards an analysis of ritual categories. Entangled Religions, 10, (doi: 10.13154/er.10.2019.8436)

Fotiade, R. (2019) Surrealism - Pierre Reverdy, The Thief of Talant. Times Literary Supplement, pp. 31.

Fotiade, R. (2019) Learning to Live: the Death of the Subject and the Ethics of Survival.

Gamliel, O. (2019) A Unique Hebrew Glossary from India: An Analysis of Judeo-Urdu, written by Aaron D. Rubin. Journal of Jewish Languages, 7, pp. 117-120. (doi: 10.1163/22134638-07010001)

Gamliel, O. (2019) My love affair with Kerala and its Jewish heritage. Stark World

Gamliel, O. (2019) The Mantrâṅkam Paribhāṣa from a historical linguistics perspective. Oxford University Press

2018

Gamliel, O. (2018) Jewish Malayalam in Southern India. De Gruyter

Fotiade, R. (2018) The thought from outside: memory, truth and the repetition of faith. Routledge

Fotiade, R. (2018) The profane illumination of cinema: knowledge, uncertainty and belief in the age of virtual reality. Journal for the Study of Christian Culture, 40, pp. 204-230.

Gamliel, O. (2018) Who was the Fadiyār? Integrating textual evidence in Judeo-Arabic and Old Malayalam. Ginzei Qedem Genizah Research Annual, 14, pp. 9-42.

Fotiade, R. (2018) Pictures of the Mind: Surrealist Photography and Film. Peter Lang

Gamliel, O. (2018) Aśu the convert: a slave girl or a Nāyar land owner? Entangled Religions, 6, pp. 201-246. (doi: 10.13154/er.v6.2018.201-246)

Cuffel, A., Gamliel, O. (2018) Historical engagements and interreligious encounters - Jews and Christians in premodern and early modern Asia and Africa. Entangled Religions, 6, pp. 1-33. (doi: 10.13154/er.v6.2018.1-33)

Mayhew, N. (2018) Eunuchs and ascetic masculinity in Kievan Rus. Medieval History Journal, 21, pp. 100-116. (doi: 10.1177/0971945818760119)

Gamliel, O. (2018) Back from Shingly: revisiting the premodern history of Jews in Kerala. Indian Economic and Social History Review, 55, pp. 53-76. (doi: 10.1177/0019464617745926)

Salazar-Ferrer, O., Yazaki, S. (2018) La chronique japonaise de Nicolas Bouvier. Infolio

Fotiade, R. (2018) Le Ravissement de la parole : espace scénique et image-temps dans India Song. Ouvroir Litt et Arts,

Gamliel, O. (2018) On the warp and woof of language: Arabic, Malayalam and the Muḥyidīn Māla. Iśal Paitṛkam,

Gamliel, O. (2018) Textual crossroads and transregional encounters: Jewish networks in Kerala 900s-1600s. Social Orbit, 4, pp. 41-73.

Gamliel, O. (2018) The Syntactic Roles of Touch in Shared Festivals in Kerala.

2017

Fotiade, R. (2017) Foi et raison chez Léon Chestov et Blaise Pascal. Lev Shestov Journal = Cahiers Léon Chestov, pp. 15-29.

Mayhew, N. (2017) Banning spiritual brotherhoods and establishing marital chastity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Muscovy and Ruthenia. Palaeoslavica, 25, pp. 80-108.

Yazaki, S. (2017) Lamp, lamps (Islam) De Gruyter

Fotiade, R. (2017) Simply a human face. The unfilmable poetry of Benjamin Fondane. Times Literary Supplement, pp. 11-11.

Yazaki, S. (2017) Muslim-Jewish relations in the Duties of Hearts: A.S. Yahuda and his study of Judaism. Brill

Fotiade, R. (2017) Sestov-Fondane: la liberta, questa possibilita dell'impossibile. Nino Aragno

Gamliel, O. (2017) Fading memories and linguistic fossils in Jewish Malayalam. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien

Fotiade, R. (2017) Quand "l'esprit rencontre la nuit": révolte et déraison selon Camus. Cahiers de la Méditerrannée, 94,

Mayhew, N. (2017) Reading the body: Hesychasm in the life of Saint Stephen, Bishop of Perm. Rossica Antiqua, 2017, pp. 63-78.

Postgraduate research students

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The School’s researchers embrace the dynamics of the social contexts of religious traditions and the way in which doctrines and practices evolve from and contribute to society, both within and beyond the UK. We have special expertise in exploring the history and contemporary engagement of religions in contact and in change. We invite guest lectures and promote research engaged with religion in the context of challenge and change on societal, individual, and environmental levels.

Collaborative research is one of our priorities. We continued digitisation of manuscripts in South India during the pandemic (2021-22), and we host a research project in collaboration with the University of Münster on Hindu-Muslim-Jewish Origin Legends between the Malabar Coast and the Mediterranean 1400s—1800s (AHRC-DFG). Knowledge exchange is central to this cluster’s research. Ongoing activities include regular seminars and webinars throughout the teaching terms and the organisation of a series of vodcasts screened during the COP26 and hosting artists and activists (2021, see here, here, and here), and webinars on religious responses to plagues in the past and in the present (2021).

Past activities have included: research initiatives on religious transformations induced by climate change and developmental challenges (2019); research of migrations and displacement (2018–2019); workshops on Japanese Noh theatre (2019), projects for the digitisation of endangered cultural heritage (2019–2021), and involvement in global health humanitarian initiatives around the world (2018–present). The members of the research cluster are also engaged in innovative and ground-breaking teaching initiatives designed for training PG students in religion and global challenges; Contextualising Islam in Britain (2013), which brought together police, city council, the Glasgow Forum of Faith and Muslim organisations; Christian responses to hunger and food insecurity sponsored by Christian Aid, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund and the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (2012); in collaboration with the Dioceses of Glasgow and Galloway, a public seminar on Pussy Riot and civil rights in Russia (2013); a research seminar series on ritual and liturgy and their relationship to conflict and transition; a year-long series of nine lectures on Seeing God, held at the St Mungo Museum; and workshops on religious literacy at the UK Department of International Development (involving MPs, civil servants and other staff, 2013).