Dr Tina Welch

Biography

Dr Christina Welch is Reader in Religious Studies and Death Studies. She gained her first class BA (Hons) in Religious Studies with Psychology at King Alfred’s College in 2000, and her MA (with distinction) in the Archaeology of Art & Representation from the University of Southampton in 2001. In 2005 she gained her AHRB-funded doctorate from the University of Southampton. Titled ‘The Role of Popular Visual Representation in the Construction of North American Indian and Western Alternative Spiritual Identities’, it combined her interests in religion and visual representation. Christina started university as a mature student having previously had a career in the financial services sector. She did much of her study as a single parent, and is neurodivergent.

Dr Welch is the lead investigator on the AHRC/NERC-funded project Unearthing the Hidden Histories of Indigenous Caribbean Contributions to Western Botanical Knowledge, shortlisted for the 2023 THE Awards in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences category. 

Dr Welch has played a leading role in the Medieval Jewish Winchester project, an interdisciplinary project in which academics from across the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences are working closely with Winchester City Council to rediscover Winchester's forgotten Jewish history and heritage, and to make it accessible to the general public.

A leading authority on late medieval carved cadavers, she recently developed a dedicated website exploring those found in England, Wales and Scotland dating from c. 1425 to 1558, as well as carved cadavers found in Ireland. Find out more about late medieval carved cadavers.

She is currently also engaged in interdisciplinary collaborative research into cemeteries in the Caribbean as well as locally in Winchester.

Higher Education Teaching Qualification: Higher Education Academy Senior Fellowship (SFHEA) awarded 2015

In 2023 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHS)

Publications

Chapters in contracted edited books; in press

• (2024) ‘The Ritual use of plants in the Caribbean’. In P-F Tremlett & D.G. Robertson (eds.), Ritual, Personhood and the New Animism: Essays in Honour of Graham Harvey. Sheffield: Equinox.
• (2024) ‘Tomb Monuments in Medieval Ireland: Creepy-crawly cadavers in Stamullen, Bewley, Waterford, and Drogheda (c.1450-c.1500)’. In P. Cockerham & C. Steer (eds.) Tomb Monuments in Continental Europe Vol.s 1-3. Donnington: Shaun Tyas.

Chapters in contracted edited books; in preparation

• (2024) ‘Yurumein and Balliceaux; Garifuna religion, space, and place in historic and contemporary context’. In J. Eade and P. Tremlett (eds.) Bloomsbury Handbook in Religion, Space and Place. Bloomsbury.

Contracted books; in Press

• (2024) with Jasmine Shadrack (eds.), Religion, Death and the Senses: Religion and the Senses series. Sheffield: Equinox

Chapters in contracted edited books; in press

• (2024) ‘Displaying the Dead with Decency: Considering the Private Viewing of Embalmed Fleshy Bodies at Funeral Homes, and the Public Exhibition of De-fleshed Plastinated Corpses at Body Worlds’ (with Lucy Jackin). In C. Welch & J. Shadrack (eds.), Death and the Senses: Religion and the Senses series. Sheffield: Equinox.
• (2024) ‘Death & the sense of decency; Dark Tourism’ (with Alasdair Richardson). In C. Welch & J. Shadrack (eds.), Death and the Senses: Religion and the Senses series. Sheffield: Equinox.
• (2024) ‘‘Sounding out Death’, and Death and the Sense of Sound’ (with Suzi Garrod). In C. Welch & J. Shadrack (eds.), Death and the Senses: Religion and the Senses series. Sheffield: Equinox.
• (2024) ‘‘Tasting the Dead’ in C. Welch & J. Shadrack (eds.), Death and the Senses: Religion and the Senses series. Sheffield: Equinox.

Monographs (published) 

• (2023) with Niall Finneran, Materialities of Religion: Spiritual Traditions of the Colonial and Post-Colonial Caribbean. London: Routledge.

Chapters in edited books (peer-reviewed; published)

• (2024) ‘Judaism and engagements with Nature: Theology & Practice’ with Rabbi Neil Amswych. In N. Finneran, D. Hewlett, & R. Clarke (eds.). Managing Protected Areas; people and places. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 193-208.
• (2024) ‘Islam and engagements with Nature: Theology & Practice’ with Fahima B. Hok. In N. Finneran, D. Hewlett, & R. Clarke (eds.). Managing Protected Areas; people and places. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 209-226.
• (2023) ‘Touch and the Socially Dead’. In G. Karabin (ed).  Pandemic Reflections: Saint Francis and the Lepers Catch Up with COVID. Bradford: Ethics Press: 147-162.
• (2022) ‘Worship’. In, G. Chryssides & A. Whitehead (eds). Contested Concepts in the Study of Religion. London: Bloomsbury: 147-151.
• (2022) ‘Having a Wander through Whitechapel: Towards a Methodological Framework for a Therapeutic Urban Psychography’ (with N. Finneran). In, P. Everill & K. Burnell (eds.) Archaeology, Heritage, and Wellbeing: Authentic, Powerful, and Therapeutic Engagement with the Past. London: Routledge, 261-273.
• (2021) ‘Introduction’ (with A. Whitehead), In C. Welch & A. Whitehead (eds). Religion and Touch: Religion and the Sensesseries. Sheffield: Equinox: 1-21.
• (2021) ‘Death and Touch’. In C. Welch & A. Whitehead (eds). Religion and Touch: Religion and the Senses series. Sheffield: Equinox: 214-235.
• (2021) ‘”Civilizing the Redman”: John Locke, Adam Smith and Social Darwinist perceptions of Religion, Land-use and Progress in North America’. In C.  Mounsey (ed) Uncontrollable Extinction in terms of Global Bioethics. New York: Routledge: 68-93.
• (2020) ‘Death in Art and Literature’. In P. Booth & E. Tingle (eds) A companion to Death, Burial and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe 1300-1700. Leiden: Brill: 272-299.
• (2020) ‘Death’. In G. Chryssides & S. Gregg (eds). The Bloomsbury Handbook to Studying Christians. London. Bloomsbury: 137-140.
• (2020) ‘The Imagined Emaciated Body in Late-Medieval English Memorial Sculpture’. In C. Mounsey & S. Booth (eds.), Bodies of Information: Reading the Variable Body from Roman Britain to Hip Hop. New York: Routledge: 39-61.
• (2019) ‘Exploring Alice: the theological, socio-historical, and anatomical context of the de la Pole cadaver sculpture’. In Z. Mutah (ed), English Alabaster Carvings and their Cultural Contexts. Woodford. Boydell & Brewer, 276-295.
• (2018) ‘Late-medieval English Carved Cadaver Memento Mori Sculpture’. In T. Tomani (ed). Dealing with the Dead: Mortality and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. New York. Brill, 380-417.
• (2018) ‘The Cultural and Spiritual Aspects of Growing Edible Plants: testing for meaningfulness in Leeds, UK’ with Prof Ann Light. In J. Zeunert & T. Waterman (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Landscape and Food. Abingdon. Taylor & Francis, 570-582.
• (2016) ‘Representing Queer Women: Nakedness and Sexuality in the Visual Presentation of the Colonized Body of the Female Other’. In B. Scherer (ed), Queer/Variable Bodies: Ethics and Glocal Struggles. London. Peter Lang, 147-172.
• (2016) ‘Late Medieval Carved Cadaver Memorials in England and Wales’. In A. Classen (ed). Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: the Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death. Berlin. Walter de Gruyer, 374-410.
• (2016) ‘Marketing Death through Erotic Art’. In S. Dobscha (ed). Death in a Consumer Culture. London. Routledge, 43-56.
• (2014) ‘Religion and Culture: Religious Artifacts as T-shirts, Toys and Museum Exhibits'. In P. Hedges (ed). Controversies in Contemporary Religion: Volume 2: Debates in the Public Square and Ethical Issues. Oxford: Praeger: 177-212.
• (2014) with P. Hedges. ‘Charisma, Scriptures, Revelation, and Texts: Sources of Religious Authority, In P. Hedges (ed). Controversies in Contemporary Religion: Volume 1: Theoretical and Academic Debates. Oxford: Praeger: 57-80.
• (2013) ‘Teepees & Totem Poles: imaginings of North American Indians in European popular culture for children’. In D. Stirrup & J. MacKay (eds) Tribal Fantasies: Native Americans in the European Imaginary, 1900-2010. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 101-116. 
• (2005) ‘Representations of North American Indian Spirituality in the World of Western Children’ In C. Ota & C. Erricker (eds) Spiritual Education: Literary, Empirical & Pedagogical Approaches, Brighton: Sussex Academic Press: 40-58.
• (2004) ‘Appropriating the Didjeridu and the Sweat Lodge: New Age Baddies and Indigenous Victims?’ In J. Lewis (ed) The Encyclopaedic Source Book of the New Age, New York: Prometheus Press: 349-375.

Journal articles (peer-reviewed; published)

• (2022) ‘Chatoyer’s Punch Ladle: A Museum Artifact that Speaks to the Hidden History of the Garifuna, An African-Caribbean People,’ with Niall Finneran. Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 11(3): 181-204.
• (2022) Interpreting the Indigenous and Imported Heritage of Medicinal and Culinary Plant Use in St. Vincent,’ with Niall Finneran. Economic Botany 76: 189-204.
• (2020) ‘Mourning Balliceaux: Towards a Biography of a Caribbean Island of Death, Grief and Memory’ with Niall Finneran. Journal of Island Studies 15 (2): 255-272.
• (2020) ‘Barbadian Gothick: The Moving Coffins of the Chase Vault in Socio-Cultural Context’ with Niall Finneran. International Journal of Folklore 131 (1): 55-75.
• (2020) ‘Out of the Shadow of Balliceaux: From Garifuna Place of Memory to Garifuna Sense of Place in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Eastern Caribbean’ with Niall Finneran. Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 8 (2): 226-251.
• (2018) ‘Powwowing My Way: Exploring Johnson’s Concepts of Indigenizing and Extending through the Lived Expressions of American Indian-ness by European Powwow Enthusiasts’, International Journal for the Study of New Religions 9 (2): 249-270.
• (2018) ‘Place, Space and Memory in the old Jewish East End of London: An Archaeological Biography of Sandys Row Synagogue, Spitalfields, and its wider context’, with Dr Niall Finneran and Rachel Lichenstein. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 23 (2): 380-403.
• (2016) ‘Chopping and Changing: exploring the Willoughby carved cadaver memorials at St. Leonard’s church, Wollaton, Nottinghamshire’. Church Archaeology, 17: 63-78.
• (2016) ‘From Villainous Letch and Sinful Outcast, to “especially beloved of God”; Complicating the Medieval Leper through Gender and Social Status’, with Dr Rohan Brown. Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historique, 42 (1): 48-60.
• (2015) ‘Death and the Erotic Woman: the European Gendering of Mortality in time of Religious Change’. Journal of Gender Studies 24 (4): 399-418. 
• (2014) ‘Coffin Calendar Girls: A New Take on an Old Trope’. Writing From Below 2 (1): 1-29.
• (2013) ‘For Prayers and Pedagogy: Contextualising English Carved Cadaver Monuments of the Late-Medieval Social and Religious Elite’. Fieldwork in Religion 8 (2): 133-155. 
• (2011) ‘Savagery on Show: The Popular Visual Representation of Native American peoples and their Lifeways at the World’s Fairs (1851-1904) and in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West (1884-1904)’. Journal of Early Popular Visual Culture 9 (4): 331-345.
• (2010) ‘The Spirituality of, and at, Greenham Common Peace Camp’. Feminist Theology 18 (2): 230-248.
• (2007) ‘Complicating Spiritual Appropriation: North American Indian Agency in Western Alternative Spiritual Practice’. Journal of New Age & Alternative Spiritualities 3: 97-117.
• (2002) ‘Appropriating the Didjeridu and the Sweat Lodge: New Age Baddies and Indigenous Victims?’ Journal of Contemporary Religion 17 (1): 21-38.

Encyclopedia, Editorials, and Companion entries (peer-reviewed; published)

• (2022) ‘Dying, care of the’ with Dr Ashley Moyse, in, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4^th edition), Oxford: Oxford University Press: 594-95.
• (2015) Editorial: ‘Diversity in Gender and Visual Representation: an introduction’ with Dr Russell Luyt and Rose Lobban Journal of Gender Studies 24 (4): 383-385.
• (2013) ‘Editorial: Death in the Field: utilizing fieldwork to explore the historical interpreting of death related activity, and the emotional coping with death’ Fieldwork in Religion 8 (2): 127-132. 
• (2012) ‘Greenham Common’. In, N. Naples (ed). Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell: 1-2.

Public Engagement Publications

• (2016) ‘Putting Jewish Medieval Winchester on the Tourist Map’. Shemot: Jewish Genealogy Society of Great Britain, 24 (1). 8-11.
• (2016) ‘Let’s Talk of Graves, of Worms, and Epitaphs; afterword’. Dancing with Death: an Awful Warning in a Welsh Church. Llancarfan. Ian Fell, 25-27.

Exhibitions

• (2022-23) ‘The Hidden History of St Vincent Botanical Garden under Alexander Anderson, 1785-1811’ – Wycombe Museum, High Wycombe (Nov 2022-Feb 2023), Dundee Botanical Garden (Mar 2023-May 2023), St Vincent Botanical Garden (from May 2023 – gifted in perpetuity)

• (2021) ‘Unearthing the contribution of indigenous & enslaved African knowledge systems to the St Vincent Botanical Garden under Dr Anderson (1785-1811); £114,507 awarded from AHRC/NERC under ‘Hidden Histories of Environmental Science’, and shortlisted by The Times Higher Education for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of 2022
• (2021) ‘Documenting the Contribution of Indigenous and Enslaved Knowledge Regarding Plant Uses to the Development of the St Vincent Botanical Garden led by Dr Alexander Anderson (d.1811)’; £2,615 Seed partnership funding from UKRI for ‘Hidden Histories of Environmental Science’ 
• (2019) – with Dr Niall Finneran, ‘Towards an Archaeology of Death and Memory in the old Jewish East End of London’; £541.80 Research Grant from the City of London Archaeological Trust (Welch as Co-I)
• (2019) with Farlington Parish Church, Portsmouth, ‘Greiggs Memorial in Farlington, UK, and Greiggs Village in St Vincent; the life and death of Fanny Greigg’; £500 from the Nugee Foundation (secured funds for Greiggs village school, St Vincent) 
• (2018) ‘Mapping Memory in the East End’ follow-on funding with Dr Niall Finneran; £5,000 from University of Winchester through the Higher Education Innovation Fund (Welch as Co-PI).
• (2017) ‘Mapping Memory in the East End’ with Dr Niall Finneran; £55,030 from University of Winchester through the Higher Education Innovation Fund – for Sensing Place Heritage website (Welch as Co-PI)
• (2016) ‘Death, Art and Anatomy Conference’; £4,943 from Wellcome Foundation, £2000 from Henry Moore Foundation, £1,000 from Society for the Social History of Medicine – Grants for Conference support (Welch as PI)
• (2016) ‘Examining the anatomy of late-Medieval Carved Cadavers’; £2,821 from Wellcome Foundation, Research Grant for fieldwork (Welch as PI)
• (2016) ‘Exploring the Mercer’s Recumbent Christ Sculpture’; £2,995 from Mercers Foundation, Research Grant for 3D scanning (Welch as PI)
• (2014) ‘GEM; Grown, Edible, Meaningful’ with Prof Ann Light (PI); £39,984 for Arts and Humanities Research Council, Connected Communities, Research Grant for fieldwork (Welch as Co-I)
• (2013) ‘Stonemasonry and Medieval Carved Cadavers’; £1,500 from Henry Moore Foundation, Research Grant for fieldwork 
• (2013) ‘Carved Cadavers in Wollaton Church’; £530 from Church Archaeology Fund, for fieldwork.
• (2011) University of Winchester, seedcorn funding; £800 for late-medieval cadaver monuments project.
• (2007) ‘Culture, Colonialism & Indigenous Spiritualities: ‘Into the West’ & ‘Apocalypto’ as contemporary ways of knowing’. 5^th International meeting of Socio-Religious Studies; the religious movements in the face of the conflicts & challenges of a world in crisis’; £1,000 from British Council Overseas Travel Grant to present at a conference in Havana, Cuba.
• (2007) ‘Youth Interfaith; Faith, Spirituality and Social Change’; £500 from Alma Kirsch Trust Educational Trust for youth interfaith education project
• (2006) ‘Spirituality of Greenham Peace Camp’; £1,000 from University of Winchester Promising Researcher, for fieldwork.
  • (2005) ‘Indians Icons: Understandings of Native American Women and Colonial–era Culture through Art and Artefacts’ Women, Art & Culture: Historical Perspectives, XIV Women’s History Network Conference,’ – £500 from Women’s History Network conference grant. 
  • (2005) ‘Indigenous Concepts of Land and New Age Appropriations’ and ‘Becoming the Other: Appropriation or Appreciation?’  XIX World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions; £1,000 from King Alfred’s College, Winchester conference grant fund to present at IAHR Congress, Tokyo.
  • (2001-2004) Arts and Humanities Research Board, Postgraduate Research Studentship, £12,000 (fees) plus living expenses of £50,000
  • (2000) Southampton University, Taught Masters scholarship, fees bursary, £5,000

• (2023) – ‘Unearthing the Hidden Stories of Indigenous and Enslaved African people and their horticultural knowledge to the St. Vincent Botanical Garden’ – Andromeda Gardens, Barbados
• (2023) – ‘The “Carib Chief’s” Skull: Where was Humanity in Late-eighteenth Century Colonial Science’, Bridging the Gap: bringing together the Human Sciences with the Humanities – VariAbilities (with the Royal College of Surgeons), London.
• (2023) – ‘In the Shade of the Breadfruit Tree: Slavery, History, and Art’ – Linnean Society of London (online; invited speaker)
• (2023) – ‘Alexander Anderson, and Transforming the St Vincent Botanical Garden’ 52^nd Annual Conference British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies: Homecoming, Return, and Recovery, St Hughes College, Oxford.
• (2022) – ‘Chatoyer’s Ladle: uncovering the hidden history of a London Museum artifact that speaks to the heritage of St Vincent, and the Garifuna people’, with Dr Niall Finneran, 9^th International Garifuna Heritage Conference (in collaboration with the University of West Indies Open Campus (SVG): St Vincent History, Ancestry and Heritage University of West Indies Open Campus (on-line presentation)
• (2022) – ‘Unearthing the contribution of indigenous & enslaved African knowledge systems to the St. Vincent Botanical Garden under Dr Anderson (1785-1811),’ 9^th International Garifuna Heritage Conference (in collaboration with the University of West Indies Open Campus (SVG): St Vincent History, Ancestry and Heritage University of West Indies Open Campus (on-line presentation)
  • (2021) – ‘Chatoyer’s Punch Ladle: a museum artefact that speaks to the hidden history of the Garifuna, an African-Caribbean people’, with Dr Niall Finneran, Colonial Slavery in European Museum: arts and representations, Paris (on-line presentation).
  • (2021) – ‘Sensing Place: using digital platforms to engage communities with their heritage – case studies from East London and the Caribbean’, with Dr Niall Finneran, Changing Meaning of Heritage Places, Our World Heritage (on-line presentation).
  • (2020) – ‘Why are Community Heritage projects Important? A Case Study from Grieggs Village, Charlotte Parish, St Vincent and the Grenadines, with Dr Niall Finneran, 7^th International Garifuna Heritage Conference, Kingstown, St Vincent & the Grenadines.
  • (2020) – ‘Teaching Garifuna History at Secondary School Level: challenges and opportunities,’ with Dr Niall Finneran, 7^thInternational Garifuna Heritage Conference, Kingstown, St Vincent & the Grenadines.
  • (2019) – ‘Mastering Death; the voices of staff and students in the purpose and possibilities of a death studies Distance Learning Masters degree,’ Death, Dying and Disposal 14, Bath, UK.
  • (2019) – ‘Carved Cadavers; Context, Anatomy & an ‘Experimental Archaeology of Art’, Disciplinary Convergence: Dialogues and Conversations, University of Notre Dame (USA) in England, London, UK.
  • (2019) – ‘The Garifuna Cultural Landscape (St Vincent and the Grenadines, Windward Islands): Community Engagement with an African Diaspora within an African Diaspora’ with Dr Niall Finneran, International Association of Caribbean Archaeology, Bridgetown, Barbados.
  • (2019) – ‘The ‘Good’, the ‘Bad’ and the ‘Ugly’: Anatomical Accuracy in pre-Versalian British Mortuary Sculpture’, with Dr Wendy Birch, International Federation of the Association of Anatomists, London, UK.
  • (2019) – ‘Dissecting the Anatomy of Late-medieval and Early-Modern English Carved Cadavers’ with Dr Wendy Birch, International Federation of the Association of Anatomists, London, UK.
  • (2019) – ‘Exploring the Garifuna & Kalinago Heritage and Culture- Cultural Survival, Youth and Opportunities in Heritage Tourism’ with Dr Niall Finneran, 6^th International Garifuna Heritage Conference, Kingstown, St Vincent & the Grenadines.
  • (2018) – ‘The Garifuna Cultural Landscape (St Vincent and the Grenadines, Windward Islands): Community Engagement with an African Diaspora within an African Diaspora?’ with Dr Niall Finneran, African Archaeology Research Day, University of Cambridge.
  • (2018) ‘Pow-wowing My Way’, European Association for the Study of Religions, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
  • (2018) – ‘Balliceaux: a Garifuna Site of Memory in Global Context’, with Dr Niall Finneran, 5^th International Garifuna Heritage Conference, Kingstown, St Vincent & the Grenadines.
  • (2017) – ‘Contextualising the Fashion for Carved Cadaver Memorials in Late-Medieval England’, Skeletons, Stories and Social Bodies, University of Southampton, UK.
  • (2016) – ‘Contextualising English Late-Medieval Carved Cadavers; Depicting the Pains of Purgatory in Anatomical Art’, Othello’s Island: International Conference of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Nicosia, Cyprus.
  • (2015) ‘Beyond Memento Mori’ Body, Surface, Agency: Cambridge Medieval Art Seminar Series, University of Cambridge, UK.
  • (2015) ‘The Marginalization and Misunderstandings of Late-medieval English Transi Memorials’, Leeds Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK.
  • (2015) ‘Understanding Spiritual Well-being in Late medieval England through Sculptures of the Emaciated Dead’, Hygiene, Medicine, and Well-being in the Middle Ages and the early Modern Age, University of Arizona, Tuscon, USA.
  • (2015) ‘Speculating on (Self-)Projected Humility in the Memento Mori Memorials of the Late-Medieval English Social and Religious Elite (c.1420-1558): Carved Cadavers and the Power of the Crafted Image of the Human lLkeness’. Speculation and Misinterpretation on the Medieval and Early Modern IMAGO – The Israeli Association for Visual Culture of the Middle Ages, and the Art History Department, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
  • (2015) ‘Depicting Death in Late-Medieval Funerary Sculpture: English and Welsh Carved Cadavers, ca.1240-1588’.Mourning and Morbidity: Death in British Art. British Art Research School, York University, York, UK. 
  • (2014) ‘English Carved Cadavers Memorials’. Fifty years after Panofsky’s Tomb Sculpture: New Approaches, New Perspectives, New Material. The Courtauld Institute, London, UK.
  • ·     (2014) ‘“Brief life is vain, such glory has this end”:  Exploring English Carved Cadaver Memorials, c.1425-1558,’ 11^thInternational Symposium on the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age: Death and the Culture of Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time. University of Arizona, Tuscon, USA.
  • ·     (2014) with Dr Rohan Brown ‘”From Villainous Letch and Sinful Outcast, to ‘especially beloved of God’: Complicating the Medieval Leper through Gender and Status,” Gender and Medieval Studies Conference, University of Winchester, Winchester, UK.
  • (2013) ‘Imaging the American Indian in Contemporary Popular Culture; Confirming and Challenging the Legacy of Catlin, his Peers and Successors’. American Indian Images; making and Breaking George Catlin’s Legacy. National Portrait Gallery, London, UK.
  • (2013) ‘English Carved Cadaver Monuments’. Death and Commemoration in Salisbury and Wessex in the Later Middle Ages, Salisbury, UK.
  • (2013) ‘For Prayers and Pedagogy: Contextualising English Cadaver Monuments of the late-medieval social and religious elite’. Bi-Annual Symposium of Latin American and Caribbean Internacional del Conociemeinto: Muerte, Cultuta y Cronotopo; Dialogos interdisciplinarios, Santiago de Chile, Chile.
  • (2012) ‘Sex, Death and the Erotic Women; the European Gendering of Mortality in Times of Major Religious Change’. Gender and Visual Representation, Winchester, UK.
  • (2012) ‘Can Erotic Art Reflect Religious Change: Contextualising Early Modern, and Contemporary, “Death and the Maiden Imagery”’, British Association for the Study of Religions, Winchester, UK. 
  • (2011) ‘The North American Indian’ and Re-setting the Stereotype: Challenging Misrepresentations through the Lens of Jeff Thomas’. Indigeneity and the Arts: Visual Cultures & Communication, Canterbury, UK.
  • (2010) ‘Rotting Corpses & Renaissance Religiousity’. Society of Renaissance Studies, York, UK.
  • (2009) ‘Civilizing the Redman: Locke, Smith, Land and Social Darwinism’. International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture, Amsterdam, Holland.  
  • (2009) ‘Savagery on Show: The Popular Visual Representation of North American Indian Peoples and their Lifeways at the World’s Fairs and in the Wild West’s’. Visual Delights IV: Visual Empires, National Fairground Archive & Sheffield University, Sheffield, UK.  
  • (2009) ‘Telling History through Horses: the Lakota as Portrayed through the Works of John Fusco’. Southwest Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 
  • (2008) ‘Victorian Voyeurism; Sex and Social Darwinism’. Queer People 4: The Whole History of Sexuality, Christ College, Cambridge, UK.
  • (2008) ‘The Spirituality of Greenham’. Winchester & British and Irish School of Feminist Theology conference, Winchester, UK.
  • (2008) ‘Representing Religious Responses to Social Change through Contemporary Indigenous Cinema’. Media, Spiritualites and Social Change, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA.
  • (2007) ‘Culture, Colonialism & Indigenous Spiritualities: ‘Into the West’ & ‘Apocalypto’ as contemporary ways of knowing’. 5^th International meeting of Socio-Religious Studies; the religious movements in the face of the conflicts & challenges of a world in crisis, Havana, Cuba.
  • (2006) ‘Looking the part: Indigenous Environmentalism and the Western Ecological Dream’. Critical Perspectives on Religion and the Environment, Birmingham, UK.
  • (2006) ‘Educating the Empire’s Wards: Civilizing the Children of Colonised peoples’ Empires of Religion Conference, Dublin, Ireland.
  • (2006) ‘Tow Tides of Neo-Paganism’, American Academy of Religion, Washington D.C.
  • (2005) ‘Indians Icons: Understandings of Native American Women and Colonial–era Culture through Art and Artefacts,’ Women, Art and Culture: Historical Perspectives, XIV Women’s History Network Conference, Southampton, UK.
  • (2005) ‘Indigenous Concepts of Land and New Age Appropriations’ and ‘Becoming the Other: Appropriation or Appreciation?’ XIX World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, Tokyo, Japan. 
    • (2004) ‘Mission Schools and the use of Schools at the World’s Fairs’ Women, Religion and Education Seminar, University College, Winchester, UK.
    • (2003) ‘Incorporating the Other into our Spiritual Self’, British Association for the Study of Religions, Chester, UK.
    • (2003) ‘Dances with Two Wolves: Native Americans and the New Age’, Alternative Spiritualities and New Age Studies Conference, Milton Keynes, UK.
    • (2003) ‘Hobbyists and Hobbyism in the UK’, Pow-wow: Performance and Nationhood in Native North America, British Museum, London, UK.
    • (2002) ‘Representations of North American Indian Spirituality in the World of Western Children: (Neo)Colonialism in a Post-Colonial Society’, International Journal of Children’s Spirituality Conference, Winchester, UK.

• Death & the Maiden (2017); https://deathmaidenconference2017.wordpress.com
• Death, Art and Anatomy (2016); http://carvedcadavers.wixsite.com/daaconference
• Gender and Visual Representation (in 2014, 2012)
• Winchester Death Days (in 2013; 2012; 2011, 2010)
• Faith, Spirituality and Social Change (in 2008, 2007, 2006)

• (2023) – ‘Bats in Churches: Heritage Treasures – Keyston Carved Cadaver’ – Bats in Churches Trust, online
• (2023) – ‘Alexander Anderson; the man and his work transforming the St Vincent Botanical Garden’ – Dundee Historical Society online
• (2023) – ‘Hidden History of St Vincent Botanical Garden, 1785-1811’ – Dundee Botanical Garden
• (2023) – ‘Plants, People and Power’ – Tavern Talks, Winchester
• (2022) – ‘The St Vincent Botanical Garden; History’, Southampton African-Caribbean elders lunch club 
• (2022) – ‘Alexander Anderson, The St. Vincent Botanical Gardens & The Forsyth Letters’, Chelsea Physic Garden, London
• (2021) – ‘St Vincent Botanical Garden and Garifuna Foodways on St Vincent’ – Afro-Indigenous Histories of Food and Gardening; Garifuna Plant Knowledge Past and Present, New York Botanical Gardens Conservation and Humanities Seminar online  
• (2021) – ‘Death in European Art and Literature (1300-1700)’ – Arnos Vale cemetery public lecture online
• (2021) – ‘Reading’ Damage and Design in British and Irish Cadaver Sculptures’ – Church Monuments Society public lectureonline
• (2021) – ‘West Hill Cemetery; an overview 1840-2020’ with Dr Mark Allen, public lecture at Winchester Catholic History Society lecture online
• (2020) – ‘Death and the Maiden’, Church Conservation Trust public lecture online
• (2020) – ‘Exploring Medieval Cadaver Tombs’ Church Conservation Trust public lecture online
• (2020) – ‘Living Stones: Discussion of the churchyard and memorials of St Georges Cathedral Kingstown,’ public lecture at Kingstown, St Vincent and the Grenadines
• (2020) – ‘New information of the village history of Greiggs: Fanny Greigg, a History,’ public talk at Greiggs National Heroes Day, St Vincent and the Grenadines
• (2020) – ‘Contextualizing Carved Cadavers of the Late medieval and Early Modern Britain’ public lecture at Winchester Catholic History Society, Winchester, UK
• (2019) – ‘Fanny Greigg’s memorial at St. Andrew’s Church, Farlington’, public talk at St. Andrew’s Church, Farlington, Portsmouth, UK
• (2019) – ‘Jewish medieval Winchester’, public lecture for the University of the Third Age, Littleton, Winchester, UK
• (2019) – ‘Erotic Death Art: Exploring Death and the Maiden Imagery’, public lecture at London Month of the Dead, UK.
• (2019) – ‘West Hill Cemetery’ with Dr Mark Allen, public lecture, Discovery Centre, Winchester, UK
• (2019) – ‘Sensing Place: Images of East End Children’, public exhibition, East London Mosque, London, UK.
• (2019) – ‘Jewish Medieval Winchester’, Winchester Cathedral Public Seminar Series, Winchester, UK.
• (2018) – ‘Carved Cadavers: Morality and Mortality Uncovered’, public lecture, Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds, UK.
• (2017) ‘Remembering the Victorian Dead: Winchester’ West Hill Cemetery’ with Dr Mark Allen, Winchester Records Office, Hampshire History talks series, Winchester, UK.
• (2017) – ‘Death, Sin and Purgatory in Medieval England’, Winchester Cathedral Public Seminar Series, Winchester, UK.
• (2017) – ‘Erotic Death Art: Exploring Death and the Maiden Imagery’, London Month of the Dead, UK.
• (2016) – ‘British Carved Cadaver Sculptures’, 10 Days/Nights, Winchester Arts Seminar, UK.
• (2016) – ‘How the Dead Help the Living, Live’, Hopes and Fear Pitt Rivers Museum Festival, Oxford, UK.
• (2015) – ‘Anatomy, Religion, and English Late-Medieval Carved Cadaver Sculptures’, Morbid Anatomy Museum, Brooklyn, USA.
• (2015) – ‘The Use of Mummified Body Parts in Medieval European Medicine’, Pitt Rivers Museum Day of the Dead Festival, Oxford, UK.
• (2011) – Bought and Sold: Southampton’s Links with the Slave Trade’, Tudor House Museum, Southampton, UK.

• (2023) ‘Medieval Jewish Winchester Trail’, Emerging Jewish Scholars Network, Heritage Trails workshop, online
• (2019) ‘What is the Future for Religion?’, Hampshire Education Youth Voice workshop, Winchester, UK
• (2018) ‘Pocahontas and After’, Border Crossings, London, https://www.bordercrossings.org.uk/sites/default/files/Pocahontas%20and%20After%20-%20Catalogue.pdf
• (2018) ‘Religion: Provider of Peace or Causer of Conflict?’, Hampshire Education Youth Voice workshop, Winchester, UK
• (2018) History and Social Science teacher workshop on the Garifuna, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ministry of Education
• (2017) ‘Reality vs the Media: Does the Media Stereotype Religion’, Hampshire Education Youth Voice workshop, Winchester, UK
• (2016) ‘Would the World be a better place without Religion’, Hampshire Education Youth Voice workshop, Winchester, UK
• (2015) ‘What is Religion?’, Hampshire Education Youth Voice workshop, Winchester, UK
• (2012) ‘Teaching about Native American Spiritual’, Hampshire County Religious Education
• (2007-2014) Interfaith Dialogue adviser, Hampshire County Council

• (2022 ongoing) ‘Decolonising Memorials & Exploring Burials at Winchester Cathedral’, Winchester Cathedral
• (2020) ‘Heritage Asset identification’ Caribbean Heritage Organization, web workshops (with Prof. Niall Finneran)
• (2018) ‘Teaching History in St Vincent: a new approach’ St Vincent and the Grenadines Education Department, Kingstown, St Vincent (with Prof. Niall Finneran)
• (2016) ‘International Standards on Freedom of Religion and Belief’, OSCE and Turkmenistan government, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan (with Dr Paul Hedges)
• (2015) ‘Religion and Education’, OSCE and Turkmenistan government, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan (with Dr Paul Hedges)
• (2014) ‘Freedom of Religion and Belief; Religion and Human Rights’, OSCE and Turkmenistan government, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan (with Dr Paul Hedges)
• (2012) ‘Environment and Religion’, Alliance of Religion and Conservation/UrbanAg
• (2009-2011) ‘Equality and Religion adviser’, South Central Ambulance Service-
• (2008-2011) ‘Religion and Education’, Peter Rabbett Educational Consultancy and Training 
• (2008-2009) ‘Black History Month; Southampton and Slavery’, Southampton City Council
• (2007-2010) ‘Religion and migrants’, online Migrant Project: Religion and Social Change through Art, Mexico

Teaching-related

2009 – 2021: Programme Leader for Masters in ‘Death, Religion & Culture’ (by Distance Learning since 2013) with administrative responsibility for the programme including re-validations, ethics clearance for dissertations, and pastoral care responsibilities for all students

2007 – ongoing: Postgraduate teaching on ‘Death, Religion & Culture’, module administration, over 80 MA dissertations supervised

Current modules taught: Introduction to Studying Death; Death and Pastoral Care in Global Religions; Death in Art and Literature; Religion, Ritual and Death 

Previous module taught: Contemporary Approaches to Death & Dying; Death in World Religions; Pastoral Care of the Dying and Bereaved; Death & Visual Culture; Theology, Philosophy & Ethics of Death; Death & Martyrdom; Gateway to Independent Study; Research Methods 

2005 – ongoing: Undergraduate teaching in ‘Philosophy, Religion and Ethics, programme; module administration, over 150 dissertations supervised

Current modules taught: Indigenous Religions; New Religions & Alternative Spiritualities; Aspects of Islam; Living Religions (Judaism & Islam, and Hinduism & Buddhism); Thinking with the Earth

Previous modules taught: Exploring Judaism; Mapping Mortality; Themes and Issues in the Study of Religions; Religion and the Environment; Religion and Education; Religion in Contemporary Britain; Religion in Contemporary Europe; American Spiritualities; Identity, Equality and Diversity; Faith and Globalisation; Spirituality and Performance; Overseas Fieldtrip module (to Istanbul, India, Nepal)

Administration-related

2023-ongoing: Postgraduate Research Committee member

2018-2021: Distance Learning Working Group

2017-2019: University Research Degree Quality Committee member

2015 – 2021: Faculty Research & Knowledge Exchange Committee member

2014-2018: Academic Conduct Officer for Theology, Religion and Philosophy department

2013-2017: Committee member of University Teaching Enhanced Learning, & University Distance and Blended Learning Working Groups

2008-2010: Faculty Academic Standard Committee member

2006-2009: University Learning and Teaching Committee member

Other

2006 – ongoing: Winchester Research Apprenticeship Project (WRAP) supervisor; over 150 undergraduate WRAP students supervised 

External Examiner

2018-2022: Religion & Ecology Masters by Distance Learning – Trinity St. David’s, University of Wales

2016-to 2020: The Arts Past & Present; Voices, Texts & Material Culture – Open University level 4 Humanities

2011-2015: Theology & Religious Studies BA (Hons) & MA; Ministry Training BA (Hons): Oxford Brookes University  

• Currently supervising 4 Part-Time candidates as Director of Studies, 2 Part-Time candidates as second supervisor, 1 full-time candidate as second supervisor
• Supervised to completion: -
• Dr Rohan Brown (2012) ‘Timor Mortis Conturbat Me’: Complicating Walter’s Traditional Community-based Death Typology using Popular Literature (DoS)
• Dr Toni Griffith (2018) The Journey of Memory: Forgetting and Remembering England’s Medieval Jews (DoS)
• John Merriman (2021) The Impact of the Black Death (1348-49) in the Winchester Diocese through a Comparison of the Mortality Evidence of the Rural Community and Clergy (second supervisor)

• PhD theses examined:-
  • 2014; University of Winchester – Robert Farwell, ‘Gondarene-period Ethiopian Narrative Murals of the Seventeenth to Twentieth Centuries, iconography and Context’
  • 2015; All Hallows College, Dublin – Yongnam Park, ‘Unfolding the Spirituality of Vincent van Gogh in his Letters and Paintings: Towards a Spiritual Transformation through Visual Art’
  • 2015; University of Winchester – Terrance McMath, ‘Dancing Theology: Dance as Metaphor of Christian Salvation’
  • 2018; University of Winchester – Sean Bride, ‘”A Mark Peculiar”: Tattoos in Captive Narratives, 1846-1858’
  • 2018; University of Winchester - Bethan Michael-Fox, ‘Present and Accounted for: Making Sense of Death and the Dead in Late Postmodern Culture’
  • 2020; University of Winchester – Jo Langdon, ‘Revisioning the Black Atlantic through case studies: The National Museum of African American History and Culture, The Whitney Plantation, Toussaint Louverture and Howe Peter Browne, 2nd Marquis of Sligo’
  • 2022; University of Durham – David Tudor, ‘A Consideration of the Current View and History of the People of Canvey Island, Essex, in the Context of Modern England with Regard to the Place of the Church in Community particularly in the Face of Bereavement and the Conduct of Funeral Rites’