Terry Pratchett, creator of the Discworld and co-creator of the Long Earth died at home on Thursday 12^th March 2015, aged 66. His award winning books and talks have amused and inspired many. They have also sometimes provoked new thoughts and even awed or humbled us. How do you tell people that you are dying, slowly as parts of you fail? Terry Pratchett, inspired by Richard Dimbleby’s taboo-breaking announcement of his struggle against cancer, told the world. His support for dementia research was more than financial – although he was more than generous financially too. His efforts were of a piece with the kind of thing his Discworld characters would do: naming a demon as a first step in slaying it. Terry was also a vociferous supporter of the right to live and die with dignity. He insisted that being able to chose when to die was a matter of decency and respect for life.

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The Department of Religious Studies at the Open University invites applications for October 2015 entry to our PhD programme (for information on our areas of expertise and research interests, please see http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/research-degrees/research-areas/religious-studies). The Open University is part of the CHASE AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership (alongside the Courtauld Institute of Art, Goldsmith’s College at the University of London and the Universities of East Anglia, Essex, Kent and Sussex) and successful applicants for PhD study will be able to apply for studentship funding. For UK students, these awards cover both fees and maintenance. For EU residents awards are on a fees only basis. The funding is also designed to enable professional development opportunities, including public engagement skills and placements with CHASE partner organisations in the UK and overseas.

Research in the department is characterised by a strongly interdisciplinary approach and ethos. The Department hosts the Cross-Cultural Identities research group (http://www.open.ac.uk/arts/research/cross-cultural-identities/) and we currently have ten full-time and part-time PhD students working on a range of subjects. The Open University offers excellent provision for new PhD students. Each student is supported by two supervisors as well as a strong programme of university-wide and Faculty-specific training in research skills. In addition, students have the opportunity to participate in a lively research culture and to contribute to regular seminar programmes, conferences and workshops held in Milton Keynes, London and other Open University national/regional centres.

The Religious Studies Department has a successful track record in winning external research funding, leading large-scale collaborative research projects and supporting individual research. On-going research projects include ‘Re-Assembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource’ funded by the Norwegian Research Council http://www.tf.uio.no/english/research/projects/redo/; ‘Religion, Martyrdom and Global Uncertainties’ funded by RCUK http://www.open.ac.uk/arts/research/religion-martyrdom-global-uncertainties/ and ‘Pilgrimage and England’s cathedrals, past and present’ http://christianityandculture.org.uk/ground-breaking-project-investigates-role-pilgrimage-past-and-present.

The department also has strong links with a range of learned societies including BSA Soc-Rel (the Sociology of Religion Study Group of the British Sociological Association), the BASR (British Association for the Study of Religion), EASR (European Association for the Study of Religion), the Ecclesiastical History Society (EHS) and scholarly journals including Critical Research on Religion, Culture and Religion, Fieldwork in Religion and Folklore.

Informal enquiries re studentships should be made to paul-francois.tremlett@open.ac.uk in the first instance. Applications will be considered by the Faculty of Arts on a competitive basis and forwarded to four CHASE panels for further assessment and ranking. For full details of all subject areas and how to apply, please see the CHASE website: http://www.chase.ac.uk/. Please note that the deadline for all Postgraduate Research applications, including the CHASE Studentships, is January 14, 2015. It is anticipated that interviews at the Open University for shortlisted candidates in Religious Studies will take place in late January 2015. 

Dr Paul-Francois Tremlett

A recent commentary on this blog (Violence, Information and the Radicalisation of the Last MenbyDr Paul-Francois Tremlett) offered some fascinating insights on radicalisation and associated violence, and questioned whether they are necessarily motivated by religion. A recently published report from our department further explores this assumed connection between religion, radicalisation and violence, and more broadly, the commonly assumed link between religion and security.

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Welcoming new students is one of the greatest pleasures of being Head of Department. So, along with my colleagues in Religious Studies, I’m pleased to welcome nearly 300 students now starting on A217 “Introducing religions” and nearly 400 on A332 “Why is religion controversial?”. Although the team the Open University’s Milton Keynes campus doesn’t often meet the undergraduate students for whom we’ve prepared teaching and learning materials, we are honoured to know that so many are interested in studying with us. We don’t know how many OU students studying at level 1 will continue with Religious Studies in later stages of their studies, but we’re enthusiastic about our involvement with the various modules available there too (i.e. AA100 “The Arts past and present” and A105 “Voices, texts and material culture”). We are equally pleased that we have students completing their Masters degrees with us and look forward to reading their dissertations and, we hope, discussing possible PhD projects with them. This year, we also have four new students commencing research towards their PhDs. These are Aled Thomas researching “The Transition of Auditing from Psychiatric Practice to Religious Ritual: Social and Religious Developments in the Church of Scientology”,Claire Wanless researching “Secularisation and Religious Transmission: Communities of Practice, Networks and the Rise of Postmodern Religion“, Theo Wildcroft researching “Yogic-animist ritual: witnessing emergent embodiment” and Kasia Kowalska researching “Universalism and Particularism in Jewish Prayer in the Orthodox, Reform and Liberal Movement in the United Kingdom”. They will join a community of existing PhD students at various stages of their research. We wish all our students every success in their studies with us.

We are also celebrating the nomination of researchers within our team for a Times Higher Education award under the the “Widening Participation or Outreach Initiative of the Year” category. You can read more about the Building on History: Religion in London project at https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/boh .