My research focuses on gender and contemporary Christianity and spiritualities. While grounded in qualitative approaches in the study of religion, I also draw on feminist theologies and hermeneutics; sociology of religion; and feminist theory.
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Email
d.llewellyn@chester.ac.uk -
Telephone
01244 511072
About Dr Dawn Llewellyn
My current project examines the interactions between Christian women’s identities, motherhood and voluntary childlessness.
I joined the Department in November 2010, having completed by PhD in Religious Studies from Lancaster University. My doctoral work qualitatively examined women’s spiritual reading as a third wave feminist practice, and used this to connect religious and secular feminisms: this became the basis for my first monograph Reading, Feminism, and Spirituality: Troubling the Waves (Palgrave, 2015) http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/Reading-Feminism-and-Spirituality/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137549952
Prior to this, I studied Philosophy and Systematic Theology as an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh and Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario), and completed an MA in Women’s Studies at Lancaster University.
As well as lecturing in Christian Studies and supervising MA, PhD and Professional Doctorate students in our very collegial and dynamic department, I coordinate the training and research seminars we offer all our postgraduate students. These events are a space to hear international scholars, for postgraduates to develop their research skills, to present work in progress, and for staff and students to engage with each other as a learning and research community. Please click here for a copy of this year’s Theology and Religious Studies schedule (and click here for the Faculty of Humanities Postgraduate Pages). Please do not hesitate to get in contact if you have any questions or queries!
I am a member of several academic organisations, and regularly contribute to their annual meeting and conferences: British Sociological Association; BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group; British Society for the Study of Religion; European Society for the Study of Religion; European Association of Social Anthropologists; Feminist and Women’s Studies Association; and the European Society of Women in Theological Research.
Teaching
Undergraduate Modules
- Global Perspectives in Christianity
- Religion and Culture: Transformation in British Religious Life
Postgraduate Modules
- Advanced Methods in the Study of Religion
- Advanced Methods in Practical Theology
- Gender, Religion and Literature
- Research Proposal (Professional Doctorate in Practical Theology)
- Consensus and Dissent: Contemporary Issues in Gender Studies
Research
Research Interests
- Gender, Christianity and Post-Christianity
- Religion and Literature
- Qualitative Methodologies
- Third Wave Feminism and Religion
- Motherhood and Childlessness
PhD and DProf Supervision
I welcome enquiries for research at doctoral level in any of my research areas listed above or from students wishing to explore other areas within (delete as appropriate):
- Contextual, Practical and Public Theologies
- Religious Studies, Contemporary Spiritualities and Religion and Society
Doctoral Completions
Dr David. G. Ford (Phd) Reading the Bible Outside the Church: A Case Study
Dr Ros Lane (Dprof) Imprisoned Grief: A Theological Response to the Experiences of Bereaved Prisoners
Current Doctoral Students
Jane Nattrass Women’s Uses of Fetal Burials after Miscarriage
Richard Walker ‘Mission-Shaped Church’, the Eucharist and Ecclesiology
Current Professional Doctorate Projects
Steve Birkinshaw Collective Worship and Young People’s Spirituality
Susie Collingridge Clergy-Married-to-Clergy and Patterns of Ministry
Graham Edwards Telling Our Stories: Methodist Narrative and Identity
Margaret Jones A Theology of Rapprochement
Anna Ruddick Embodying Transformation: Insights from the Evangelical Urban Ministry of the Eden Network
Published Work
Books
2016 Dawn Llewellyn and Sonya Sharma (eds), Religion, Equalities and Inequalities, (Routledge, 2016).
2015 Reading, Feminism, and Spirituality: Troubling the Waves (Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2015).
2008 Dawn Llewellyn and Deborah F. Sawyer (eds), Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008)
Other Select Publications
Forthcoming ”But I Still Read the Bible!”: Post-Christian Women’s Biblical Reading Practices’, in Yvonne Sherwood (eds), The Bible, Feminism and Gender: Remapping the Field (Oxford: OUP, forthcoming).
2013 Dawn Llewellyn and Marta Trzebiatowska, ‘Secular and Religious Feminisms: A Future of Disconnection?’ Journal of Feminist Theology, May 2013 21: 244-258.
2012 ‘Riskier Reading: Women’s Spiritual Reading and the Search for Religious Knowledge’ in Elisabeth Arweck and Matthew Guest (eds), Religion and Knowledge (Aldershot, Ashgate: 2012).
2010 ‘Spirituality in the Third Wave? Women, Reading and Religion’, Journal of the European Society of Women in Theological Research, (Vol. 18, 2010):75-84 (conference proceedings).
2009 ‘Across Generations: Women’s Spiritualities, Literary Texts and Third Wave Feminism’ in Chris Klassen (ed.), Feminist Spirituality: The Next Generation (Lexington Books, 2009).
2008 ‘Forming Community in the Third Wave: Literary Texts and Women’s Spiritualities’ in Dawn Llewellyn and Deborah F. Sawyer (eds), Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred (Aldershot, Ashgate: 2008):153-69.
2008 Deborah F. Sawyer and Dawn Llewellyn, ‘Introduction’ in Dawn Llewellyn and Deborah F. Sawyer (eds), Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred (Aldershot, Ashgate: 2008):1-7.
2008 Michèle Roberts, Dawn Llewellyn and Deborah F. Sawyer, ‘getting a/cross god: An Interview with Michèle Roberts’ in Dawn Llewellyn and Deborah F. Sawyer (eds), Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008):15-26.
Qualifications
MA (Hons) (Edinburgh); MA (Lancaster); PhD (Lancaster); FHEA.