TRS Staff
DR CHRIS ARTHUR, MA, PhD, Dip Ed, PGCE (Edinburgh)
Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, Undergraduate Admissions Tutor
Email: c.arthur@lamp.ac.uk
Areas of interest
(a) The impact of media on religion; methodology in the study of religion; religious pluralism; religion in museums; the nature of religious studies as a discipline.
(b) The essay/creative nonfiction. See www.chrisarthur.org for details.
Some recent and current areas of supervision
- Georges Bataille’s relevance for religious studies
- Redemption in film noir
- Religious themes in animation
- Virtual pilgrimage
- Problems of definition in religious studies
- Displaying sacred artefacts in religious and secular museums
Publications Include
“Failing Religious Studies”, in Maya Warrier & Simon Oliver (eds.), Theology and Religious Studies: An Exploration of Disciplinary Boundaries, T & T Clark/Continuum, London: 2008, pp.59-73
"Material Religion in Cyberspace", Material Religion: the Journal of Objects Arts and Belief, Vol.1 no.2 (2005), 289-293
"Media, Meaning and Method in the Study of Religion", in Steven J. Sutcliffe (ed.), Religion: Empirical Studies, Ashgate, Aldershot: 2004, pp.19-31
"What are Universities for?" Contemporary Review, Vol.285 no.1664 (2004), pp.146-149 [Awarded a Times Higher Education Supplement/Palgrave Macmillan writing prize in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2003]
Religious Pluralism: a Metaphorical Approach, The Davies Group, Colorado: 2000
"Exhibiting the Sacred", in Crispin Paine (ed.) Godly Things: Museums, Objects and Religion, Leicester University Press, London: 2000, pp.1-27
“A Revolution in Religious Consciousness”, Bulletin of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, Vol. 29 no.1 (2000): 12-16
“Seeing (Beyond) the Frame”, Media Development, Vol. 47I no.4 (2000), pp. 3-6
“Curating the Curator”, Museums Journal, Vol. 99 no.1 (1999), pp.41-45
The Globlisation of Communications: Some Religious Implications, WCC Publications, Geneva: 1998 (Portuguese translation by Walter Schlupp, A Globalização Das Comunicações Algumas Implicações Religiosas, Editora Sinodal,São Leopoldo: 2000)
“Maitreya, The Buddhist Messiah?” in Fiona Bowie (ed) The Coming Deliverer, University of Wales Press, Cardiff: 1997, pp.43-59
“The Numinous in Modern British Fiction”, Contemporary Review, Vol. 269 no 1566 (1996), pp 33-37
“The Role and Limitations of Phenomenology of Religion in Religious Education”, Religious Education, Vol 90 no 3/4 (1995), pp 445-462
“Silence, Metaphor and the Communication of Religious Meaning, Part I”, New Blackfriars, Vol 74 no 865 (1993), pp 457-464
“Silence, Metaphor and the Communication of Religious Meaning, Part II”, New Blackfriars, Vol 74 no 866 (1993), pp 486-495
“Zen and the Art of Ignoring Information”, The Information Society, Vol 9 no 1 (1993), pp 51-60
Religion and the Media, an Introductory Reader, Cardiff: University of Wales Press: 1993 [editor]
“On the Spirit of Haiku”, The Month, Vol. 25 no 8 (1992), pp 311-314
“Phenomenology of Religion and the Art of Storytelling”, in Sumner B Twiss & Walter H Conser (eds), The Experience of the Sacred: Readings in the Phenomenology of Religion, Brown University Press, New England: 1992, pp 145-166
Memberships Include
- Irish PEN – affiliated to PEN International, the worldwide association of writers which promotes literature and defends freedom of expression
- International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures
- Editorial Advisory Board of Material Religion: the Journal of Objects Art and Belief. Click here for the Journal website.
