University of Oxford

Faculty Member, History

Darby Fellow in History

Lincoln College

Thesis Title: Transformations in English Catholic Spirituality and Popular Religion, 1945 - 1980 (now completed)

About

As the Darby Fellow in History at Lincoln College, I teach nineteenth and twentieth century British and European history, as well as a variety of other methodological and theoretical papers on the practice and discipline of history.

My doctoral dissertation, completed in October 2008 and examined by Professors Jose Harris and Hugh McLeod, examined the transformations in the spirituality and social identity of Catholics in England following the Second World War, through the Second Vatican Council, until the National Pastoral Council and historic papal visit in the 1980s. Utilizing the evolving methodological insights of English, American and Australian intellectual and cultural historians studying ‘lived religion’, it explored changes in Catholic devotional practice and popular piety throughout the period and the ways in which these intersect with broader changes in British society.

Elements from this research have already been published in part, but I am also working on a manuscript deriving from this research entitled "Faith in the Family: English Catholic Spirituality and Vatican II" (Manchester: MUP 2012). Moreover, I have recently been commissioned to expand this research to encompass a detailed study of the Archdiocese of Westminster as part of the "Lived History of Vatican II" project co-ordinated by Timothy Matovina, Kathleen Cummings and Robert Orsi at the University of Notre Dame.

Further in progress research, funded by a British Academy Research Development Award in collaboration with Dr Jane Garnett, is exploring the intersections between migration and religious identity within an urban setting and using an inter-disciplinary methodology to examine the ways in which people of a wide variety of faiths and ethnic backgrounds are living and worshipping within a multi-ethnic and multi-faith context. See www.history.ox.ac.uk/sourcesofthesacred for further information.

This fruits of this research will now be expanded by work on ‘Religion, Separation and Exclusion in the Diasporas of East London’ under the auspices of the Leverhulme Trust 'Diasporas' project - see http://www.migration.ox.ac.uk/odp/religion-separation-exclusion.shtml

Alongside these interests, I am also in the process of completing an inter-disciplinary, collaborative project which explores the role and function of pilgrimage in a contemporary cultural context. Employing a historical, ethnographic and social scientific methology, it examines the motivations and experiences of pilgrims journeying to sacred spaces and places, with my expertise focussed on the Catholic pilgrimage site of Lourdes.
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My research interests therefore span:
•  Nineteenth and Twentieth-century British social and cultural history;
•  Popular religion, ritual theory and religious anthropology;
•  Feminist theory and gender history;
•  migration and ethnicity, including urban geography;
•  Material and visual culture; and
•  Twentieth-century systematic theology and ecumenical praxis .

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