Newsletter – April 2025
Please note that announcements regarding CRPL events and news are posted on the University’s CRPL site, which you can access here. This includes updates and announcements on the CRPL seminar series, which, following our final seminar of this semester, on 1 May 2025, will resume on Thursday 9 October 2025, at the usual time (11.30-13.00) in the usual place (Botany House Seminar Room 1.03). Please send me your “wish list” of speakers!
Announcements
CRPL is thrilled to be welcoming Dr Zaynab Ango, who is taking up a prestigious British Academy Visiting Fellowship
Dr Zaynab Ango, from the University of Abuja in Nigeria, will join us for her six-month fellowship in the period May-October 2025. During this period, Dr Ango will work with Adriaan van Klinken on her research project titled "The Return of the Repressed: Sexuality Discourse in Hausa Digital Prose Fiction." Later in her fellowship, she will be sharing her research with us, so please watch this space!
CRPL congratulates Bethan Oake on successfully defending her PhD viva! Well done, Dr. Oake!
Coming up soon…
PGR Training Event on Monday 14 April 2025...
CRPL Visiting Fellow Dr. Ann Gillian Chu is visiting us from Hong Kong where she researches and teaches at Hong Kong Baptist University. On Monday 14 April, from 11.00-13.00 (in Botany House 1.03) Dr. Chu is running a hands-on workshop for postgraduates with focus on networking, social media and internationalisation. This is a terrific opportunity for career-development. If you are a postgraduate, involved in any way with either CRPL or PRHS, this is for you. Please take advantage of this opportunity.
Final CRPL Seminar of the Semester on Thursday 1 May 2025…
Dr. Atif Imtiaz (Criminology, University of Bradford) is author of Wandering Lonely in a Crowd, on being Muslim in Britain. The title of his seminar presentation is “Criminology, Islamic Theology and Sufism: Some Preliminary Thoughts.” For full details (including bio and abstract), see here). The seminar is at the usual time (11.30-13.00) in the usual place (Botany House, 1.03).
***CRPL AGM on Tuesday 6 May 2025***IMPORTANT!
Our Annual General Meeting will be from 15.00-16.00 on Tuesday 6 May in Michael Sadler 1.37. Please attend if you possibly can. This will be an occasion both to look back and look ahead. Bring your ideas – for seminars, research days, impact events, new activities and collaborations. Please note: for the CRPL report (which I will be putting together) we need to: 1) reflect on the past year and 2) set goals and aspirations for the next 1-3 years. Your input will be invaluable. If you cannot attend, please send me any input.
From the Iqbal Centre – events on 7 and 12 May 2026
On Wednesday 7 May, from 17.00-18.30, in Parkinson Building SR B.22 come hear about “Muslimness in the Manosphere.”
Dr. Sahar Ghumkhor, a Lecturer at the University of Melbourne and a CERS visiting fellow, Dr. Hizer Mir, a Lecturer at the University of Leeds, Hussein Mohamud, currently training in psychoanalysis, and Dr. Will Barylo, a research fellow at the University of Warwick, will be exploring the intersection between Muslimness and the manosphere. They will focus on how various groups have either cooperated with or rejected the Western Manosphere and show how the Islamicate has been deployed to justify these positions. The seminar will be co-badged by the Centre for Race and Ethnicity Studies, ReOrient and the Iqbal Centre for Critical Muslim Studies.
On Monday 12 May, 2025, from 16:00 - 17:30, in Clothworkers North, LT (Cinema) 2.31, University of Leeds, Dr Hina Khalid (University of Cambridge) is presenting on the theological visions of Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) and Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). For more about this event please see here. Tickets are free.
CRPL workshop and impact engagement day
On Thursday 5 June from 10.00-16.30 in Baines Wing 2.10, CRPL Visiting Fellow Dr. Jo Sadgrove is organising “Reclaiming Histories: Slavery, Race, and the Churches.” For more detail, see here. The event is a collaboration between CRPL, USPG and LCI (the Leeds Church Institute). Confirmed speakers are Rev Dr Carlton Turner, Contextual and Practical Theologian and Anglican priest (Queens Foundation, Birmingham) and Rev Dr Evie Vernon O'Brien, theologian and former regional racial justice director, (Mirfield College). There will also be a film showing of "After the Flood" with Robert Beckford.
Save the Date: Wednesday 8 October 2025
There will be a range of activities and events on Leeds University campus, centred on themes of religion and violence. For more details on what promises to be a stimulating day, see here).
Recent Updates on the Religion in Public blog
Read up on our regular series “Researcher of the Month” to find out more about CRPL research and researchers. Since the last newsletter, we have featured:
January – Hannah Waite
February – Yannis Ng
March – Eva Frojmovic
April – Chris Swift
Alongside this, we have published features on the Agaba Masquerade in Yorkshire (by Gloria Adichie), on two events on the Far Right and Christianity (led by Rev Dr Helen Paynter), and on Nir Arielli’s recent major publication on the Dead Sea. Be sure you read and contribute to our blog to keep it lively and up-to-date.
Publications by CPRL members:
Robyn Ashworth-Steen, “PaRDeS: Navigating Pastoral Care as a Congregational Rabbi.” European Judaism 58/1 (Spring 2025): 121–136 (doi: 10.3167/ej.2025.580112).
Robyn Ashworth-Steen, “Leaving a Toxic Community: Ritual Moments,” in The Sacred Struggle: Jewish Responses to Trauma, edited by Rabbi Lindsey Danziger and Rabbi Benjamin David (CCAR Press, 2025).
Robyn Ashworth-Steen (together with Yehudis Fletcher), “Our Revolt-ing Women: Bringing Women Together,” in Volume 1 of the two volumes Abuse in World Religions, edited by Johanna Stiebert (see below) (Routledge, 2025).
Rabiha Hannan (together with Rahmanara Chowdhury), “Developments in the field of understanding Spiritual Abuse within Muslim Contexts,” in Volume 1 of the two volumes Abuse in World Religions, edited by Johanna Stiebert (see below) (Routledge, 2025).
Rabiha Hannan (together with Rahmanara Chowdhury), “Dynamic Resistance to Spiritual Abuse: Strategies and Innovations in Muslim Contexts,” in Volume 2 of the two volumes Abuse in World Religions, edited by Johanna Stiebert (see below) (Routledge, 2025).
Johanna Stiebert, “Marriage and the Bible: It’s Complicated” (31 March 2025), ViaMedia https://viamedia.news.
Johanna Stiebert has edited two forthcoming volumes with the title Abuse in World Religions. Volume 1 (out in June) is on Articulating the Problem and Volume 2 (out in July) is subtitled Towards Solutions.
Chrissie Thwaites, “Challenges to conducting sensitive research,” Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religions (March 2025), https://doi.org/10.18792/jbasr.v26i0.90; see here: https://www.jbasr.com/ojs/index.php/jbasr/article/view/90
Adriaan van Klinken and Belinda Qaqamba Makinana, ‘“Deliver us from Evil’: Pentecostal Christianity, Queer Sexualities and the Language of Deliverance in Nigerian Literature,” in Chantal Zabus and Chris Dunton (eds), TransAfrica: The Languages of Postqueerness, 95-111 (London: Bloomsbury, 2025).
Adriaan van Klinken, “A Kenyan Environmental Prophet: Wangari Maathai’s Contribution to the Ecology of Religion,” in Afe Adogame, Ebenezer Obadare, and Wale Adebanwi (eds.), Topographies of African Spirituality: Essays in Honor of Jacob K. Olupona (London and New York: Routledge, 2025).
I very much hope to see you at upcoming events of CRPL and/or the Iqbal Centre. Please send me your updates and announcements. If you possibly can, please attend our AGM on 6 May. If you can't, please send me your ideas and input.
All good things,
Johanna (j.stiebert@leeds.ac.uk)