Michaelmas Term 2025
Thursday October 16th (1st week)
Mathew Kirkpatrick
“Bonhoeffer on Freedom-From, -For, and -With the Other”
Mathew Kirkpatrick is Tutorial Fellow in Ethics and Doctrine, Tutor for Graduates, and Dean of Degrees at Wycliffe College, University of Oxford. His interests include the interplay of existentialism and Christianity, the theology of death, the relationship between theology and psychology, and the thought of Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer. Alongside numerous articles and chapters he has published several books, including Bonhoeffer for the Church: An Introduction (2024); Engaging Bonhoeffer: The Impact and Influence of Bonhoeffer’s Life and Thought (2016); Attacks on Christendom in a World Come of Age: Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and the question of “Religionless Christianity” (2011).
Thursday November 6th (4th week)
Slavica Jakelić
“Religions and Nationalisms as Antipolitics”
Slavica Jakelić is Richard P. Baepler Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Valparaiso University. Her scholarly interests and publications centre on religion and nationalism, religious and secular humanisms, theories of religion and secularism, theories of modernity, and interreligious conflict and dialogue. She is a Senior Fellow of the “Religion & Its Publics” at the University of Virginia, where she was a faculty member and co-director at the UVA’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture for several years. She is also a Senior Fellow of the “Orthodoxy and Human Rights” project based at Fordham University. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the McDonald Centre for the academic year, 2025-26.
Thursday November 20th (6th week)
Tyler VanderWeele
“A Theology of Health”
Tyler VanderWeele is Director of The Human Flourishing Program, Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and Religion, and John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard University. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University in mathematics, philosophy, theology, finance, and biostatistics. His empirical research spans psychiatric and social epidemiology; the science of happiness and flourishing; and the study of religion and health. He has published over 500 papers in peer-reviewed journals and is author of five books, including A Theology of Health (2024).
December 4th (8th week)
Clair Linzey
“Can Christian Humanism be Redeemed from Anthropocentrism? (And Should it be?)”
Clair Linzey is Research Fellow in Animal Ethics at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford. She also co-directs the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, initiated and directs the Annual Oxford Animal Ethics Summer School, and holds a teaching position at the ecumenical Graduate Theological Foundation. Alongside numerous chapters and articles her single authored book is Developing Animal Theology: An Engagement with Leonardo Boff (2021), and her numerous books written or edited in collaboration with Andrew Linzey include Animal Theologians (2023), Animal Ethics and Animal Law (2023), Ethical Vegetarianism and Veganism (2018), and The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Animal Ethics(2018).
