Associate staff
Bernard Beatty
Bernard Beatty is Senior Fellow in the School of English at Liverpool University. From 1988-2005 he was Editor of the Byron Journal. He is the author of Byron's 'Don Juan', Byron and the Limits of Fiction (with Vincent Newey), Liberty and Poetic Licence: New Essays on Byron (with Charles Robinson), and The Plays of Lord Byron (with Robert Gleckner). His other published essays are on the Bible, poetry and the Bible, literary theory and theology, Bunyan, Dryden, Rochester, Dickens, and most of the Romantics. He plays the organ and lives in Chester, England.
Dr Ian Bradley
Dr Ian Bradley teaches and publishes in the areas of Scottish spirituality, hymnody, liturgy, pilgrimage, the spirituality of water, nineteenth-century music, and theology and popular culture (including the only University course in the world on the theology of musical theatre). He welcomes applications for postgraduate research on aspects of hymnody and church music, musical theatre and operetta, pilgrimage and Scottish spirituality. See more...
Dr Michael Downes
Dr Michael Downes has been Director of Music at the University of St Andrews since 2008, having previously studied and lectured at the universities of Cambridge and Sussex. His research interests include contemporary music, nineteenth and twentieth-century French music, and opera and musical theatre. He is interested in the expression of religious and spiritual ideas in music: his first book (published by Ashgate in 2009) deals with two works by Jonathan Harvey which set Indian religious texts. As a conductor, Michael has premiered numerous works by young British composers with the Bergamo Ensemble, a London-based group which he founded in 1999; since moving to Scotland, he has established St Andrews Opera and has become the musical director of the St Andrews Chorus. He is a regular reviewer of music books for the Times Literary Supplement, and frequently lectures on music and opera for organisations including the Royal Opera House.
Prof Philip Esler
Prof Philip Esler, Principal of St Mary's University College, Twickenham, has a strong interest in the extent to which paintings on biblical subjects represent significant achievements in biblical interpretation. He has pursued this interest most notably in a jointly authored monograph with British artist Jane Boyd on a painting by Velázquez in the National Gallery in London (Visuality and Biblical Text: Interpreting Velázquez' Christ with Martha and Mary as a Test Case. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2004). He has also written on the Lazarus paintings in the Roman catacombs in a work co-authored with Professor Ronald A. Piper (Lazarus, Martha and Mary: A Social-Scientific and Theological Reading of John. London: SCM, 2006) and on ancient Greek art as a context for athletic imagery in Paul (‘Paul and the Agon: Understanding a Pauline Motif in Its Cultural and Visual Context’, in Annette Weissenrieder and Friederike Wendt, eds., Iconography and the New Testament. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005, 356-84). Another essay of his on the biblical paintings of Welsh artist Ivor Williams will appear in 2010 (The Biblical Paintings of Ivor Williams [1908-1984]’, in Martin O'Kane and John Morgan-Guy, eds., Imaging the Bible in Wales 1800-1975. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009, 180-94). He is currently researching paintings on biblical themes in Italy in the period 1250-1450.
Prof Ann Loades
Ann Loades is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at St Chad’s College, and Professor Emerita of Divinity, University of Durham, UK. She is also an Honorary Professor in the University of St Andrews. She was the first woman to be given a personal Chair in Durham (in 1995) and in 2001 was honoured with a CBE for services to Theology. She had significant involvement with the Arts and Humanities Research Board/Council 1999-2003 and was President of the Society for the Study of Theology for two years (2005-6). See more...
Dr Grant Macaskill is Lecturer in New Testament Studies and has published on Matthew’s Gospel, Revelation and various texts of early and later Judaism. With a particular interest in fantasy and science fiction, recently he has published an article on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy ('Dead Gods and Rebel Angels: Polemics and Power in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and Hal Duncan's Book of All Hours,' Cultural Encounters 5: 2009) and is currently working on the depictions of evil in recent literature and on Union with Christ in the New Testament.
Prof Patrick Sherry
Professor Emeritus at Lancaster University, Patrick Sherry's current research is in theological aesthetics. He is author of Spirit and Beauty: An Introduction to Theological Aesthetics (Second Edition, SCM Press 2002) and Images of Redemption: Art, Literature and Salvation (T&T Clark, 2003).
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