Lord of the Rings professor to help cathedral connect spirituality and culture

A Literature and Theology Professor at the University of Nottingham, who has examined the links between Lord of the Rings and Christianity, aims to help people explore the connections between Christianity and culture when she takes up a new role at Southwell Minster this month. The Reverend Doctor Alison Milbank, will be licensed as Priest Vicar by the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham, the Rt Revd George Cassidy, at Southwell Minster on Saturday 18th July at 5.45 pm during a service of Evensong.

Alison will take up the role in a part-time unpaid capacity, while continuing her work as Associate Professor of Literature and Theology in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham, where she teaches on all aspects of the relation of religion and culture.

She said: “My passion is for theology as outreach, especially through engagement with cultural practices.” She recently gave a lecture on Tolkien as a religious and ecological thinker to over 3,000 young people and described their enthusiasm as akin to a football crowd. She explained: “The need to reclaim the public square for debate about faith has never been greater, and I hope to assist the congregation of the Minster and the diocese as a whole in our common vocation to demonstrate the beauty and the coherence of Christian belief.”

A Cambridge graduate, Alison has taught at Virginia, in the USA and at Cambridge. She has written books on the influence of Dante on British culture and theology, on theological aspects of the Gothic and horror fiction, and most recently, Chesterton and Tolkien as Theologians: the Fantasy of the Real. Recently she also contributed, with the Dean of Southwell, the Very Revd John Guille, to a colloquium on the Victorian lay theologian and social activist, Josephine Butler - editing a volume of essays on her work and on her influence on those caring for prostituted women today. In the past she has worked as a children's editor of the Bible Reading Fellowship and Education Secretary of The Mothers' Union.
 
Alison hopes her new post at the Minster will allow her to develop it as a centre of learning within the Diocese. She is currently involved in the preparations for an international conference in Southwell, called, 'Green as a leaf': renewing a theology of creation’, for September 2010, which will involve the Cathedral, the Diocese, the Nottingham Trent University at Brackenhurst and her own Department at the University of Nottingham, in exploring the resources of the Christian tradition on this theme through poetry, art, practical workshops, as well as scripture and theological reflection.

Following her ordination in 2006, Alison became an assistant curate at Holy Trinity Church in Lambley, Nottinghamshire. Alison is married to the renowned theologian John Milbank who is Research Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Nottingham. They have two children, Arabella (21) who is studying French and English at Oxford and Sebastian (17) who is studying for his A levels at The Minster School, Southwell.