Researcher of the Month (May 2026): Elizabeth Eastwood Dewing

I come from a Christian family and so grew up the confluence between the secular and the sacred. I think it was this that first attracted me to the Israel-Palestine conflict in my mid-teens, where I suddenly saw the biblical history that I had grown up with was colliding with the political dynamics of the modern Middle East.

I came to Leeds to do my undergraduate degree in English and History. During this time, I had the privilege of spending a few months living and working with people on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict. In these environments I became painfully aware of my Britishness. The involvement of Britain in creating the current violence is often sidelined when faced with more recent accusations of fault.

In much of the recent historical discussion surrounding British involvement of Israel-Palestine, religion is the unglamourous factor in the debate. It is shut out in favour of factors such as of politics, imperial ambitions, or military gain. But when I was writing my undergraduate dissertation, I began reading the accounts of the people who had been involved in the early discussions of Jewish restoration to the Holy Land, which became Christian Zionism. Their immense faith and the centrality of their Christianity to their lives was striking. My research is trying to reinsert this back into the narrative.

I am currently completing my masters of research in Philosophy, but split between the Schools of History and PRHS. My research is looking at nineteenth century British theological perceptions of Palestine and the rise of British Christian proto-Zionism. I am also doing work with my supervisor, Nir Arielli, combining environmental history with my background in literature through exploring peat bogs in the work of the Brontë family.

Even though we seem to have an illusion of our society as beyond religion, our world is deeply shaped by faith, and people have - and continue - to shape their decisions based on their religious beliefs. Although I often don't agree with what these people believe, the centrality of religion to their decision making deserves attention. I am trying to do this in a historical context