Professor Steven Shakespeare
PROFESSOR OF CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
Theology, Philosophy and Religious Studies
0151 291 3208
shakess@hope.ac.uk
I am Professor of Continental Philosophy of Religion, having worked in an academic role at Hope since 2008. Before then, I was, the Anglican chaplain at Hope for five years. I gained my PhD at Cambridge university with a study of the Danish thinker Kierkegaard, and currently serve as Treasurer of the Kierkegaard Society of the UK. My most recent book is Kierkegaard and the Refusal of Transcendence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). My other books include Kierkegaard, Language and the Reality of God (Ashgate, 2001); The Inclusive God: Reclaiming Theology for an Inclusive Church (co-authored with Hugh Rayment-Pickard, Canterbury, 2006); Radical Orthodoxy: A Critical Introduction (SPCK, 2007); and Derrida and Theology (T & T Clark, 2009).
I have co-edited three volumes of essays: (with Claire Molloy and Charlie Blake) Beyond Human: From Animality to Transhumanism (Continuum, 2012); (with Katharine Sarah Moody) Intensities: Philosophy, Religion and the Affirmation of Life (Ashgate, 2012); and, with Niamh Malone and Gary Anderson, Art Disarming Philosophy. Nonphilosophy and Aesthetics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021). I have also co-edited (with Niall Scott)a special issue of Helvete: Journal of Black Metal Theory, and published articles and essays on topics including black metal theory, philosophy of religion and reflection upon my trade union work.
I act as one of the series editors for Reframing Continental Philosophy of Religion, hosted by Rowman and Littlefield. For several years, I edited the journal Modern Believing.
My research interests include the possibility for constructive religious thought after the so-called 'death of God' and the philosophical importance of the boundaries we draw between human and animal, machine and organism, flesh and spirit. I am currently researching specific aspects of the logic of reduplication in Kierkegaard, and the broader possibility of refocusing philosophy of religion around the notion of unconditioned immanence, rather than the transcendence of God.
I am one of the co-facilitators of the Association for the Continental Philosophy of Religion, which has gained a global reputation in organising conferences and publications around cutting edge research themes. I also act as one of the series editors for Intensities: Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Religion with Ashgate Publishing. In recognition of my contribution to the field, I am a Fellow of the prestigious Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and Patron of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals. I regularly contribute to international conferences and publications. I teach philosophy of religion and philosophical issues around personhood, as well as offering graduate supervision in my areas of expertise, not least on Kierkegaard, Derrida and other figures important for continental philosophy of religion.