58³Ô¹Ï

Dr Rebekah Lamb-Varela

Director of Teaching

Lecturer in Theology, Imagination and the Arts

Phone

+44 (0)1334 46 2840

Email

rl89@st-andrews.ac.uk

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Research areas

Dr. Rebekah Lamb specialises in theology and the arts, particularly Ìýliterature and visual culture, in late modernity. Her research centres on the ways in which art and aesthetics are distinctive and timely modes of theological and philosophical inquiry--especially as related to ethics, practices of devotion and formation. Key figures in her work include John Henry Newman, Thérèse of Lisieux, Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites as well as their inheritors (JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Frances Blogg Chesterton, among others).

Prior to joining 58³Ô¹Ï, Dr Lamb was the inagural Étienne Gilson Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto (St Michael's College) and received her PhD in Victorian and Twentieth-Century British and Irish Literature as well as her Masters in English Literature from Western University (London, ON, Canada). ÌýShe holds an Honours BA in Liberal Arts Ìýfrom the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts and studied at the college's campuses in New Hampshire, USA and Rome, Italy.

TeachingÌý

DI4936: Theology and Literature

DI5451: Christian Doctrine and the Arts

DI5925: Theology and the Arts (Distance Learning)

DI5453: Practical Criticism

Junior Honours Research Seminar (JHRS)

DI5080: Guided Study (Joseph Pieper)

DI2009: : The Imagination in Theology and Science. Co-taught with Dr. Joanna Leidenhag and Dr. Gavin Hopps

Research Areas:

Dr. Lamb specialises in theological aesthetics and theologically-informed literature and literary criticism in late modernity. She is currently the Co-Principal Investigator for a two-year project, entitled 'Catholic Women Writers in Scotland and Beyond,' funded by an RSE Collaboration Grant. The primary output of this project will be the first Handbook of Catholic Women Writers, under contract with Oxford University Press, which Dr Lamb is co-editing with four other academics.

Dr Lamb recently co-edited a volume for Religion and Literature (2023) on John Henry Newman and her next book project (under contract with McGill-Queen's University Press) re-evaluates the hermeneutic of disenchantment by examining literature as consolation in modern and contemporary literary case studies, including John Henry Newman and Immaculee Ilibagiza, among others.

She has published numerous articles, encyclopedia entries, handbook and companion entries, book chapters and review essays in Religion and Literature, The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women’s Writing, New Blackfriars, Theology in Scotland, Nova et Vetera, Church Life Journal, Magnificat, Convivium, and elsewhere.

Dr. Lamb frequently writes for public-facing journals and outlets, such as ÌýBBC Scotland, and is often invited to speak on topics relating to her research, the public humanities, and theology's influence on culture. She is a trustee of the Christian Heritage Centre (CHC) at Stonyhurst and serves on the editorial boards of The Newman Studies Journal (NSJ) and CTS Academic.

PhD supervision

• DavidÌýBernabe Romero
• BethanyÌýGilbert
• ElizabethÌýGoings
• LydiaÌýKelliney
• JoseÌýRama Dominguez
• MelodyÌýSchwarting

Selected publications

• Lamb, R. A. & Knight, M. (Editor), 2025, The Cambridge companion to religion in Victorian literary culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

• Lamb, R. (Editor), Bicket, L. (Editor), Meszaros, J. (Editor), Lander Johnson, B. (Editor) & Mason, E. (Editor), 2029, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Research output: Book/Report › Book

• Lamb, R. A., 16 Jan 2025, Gerard Manley Hopkins in context. Dubois, M. (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 110-117 8 p. (Literature in context (Cambridge University Press)).

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

• Lamb, R. A., 12 Nov 2024, Holman Hunt and The Light of the World in Oxford. Bockmuehl, M. (ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, p. 52-70 19 p. (Routledge studies in theology, imagination and the arts).

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

• Lamb, R. A., 2024, (Accepted/In press) CTS Press. CTS Press

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Foreword/postscript

• Open access
  Lamb, R. A., 1 Aug 2024, In: Nova et Vetera. 22, 3, p. 893 922 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Lamb, R. A., Feb 2024, (Accepted/In press) The nineteenth-century present: literary responses to historicity. Manchester: Manchester University Press

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

• Lamb, R. A., Feb 2023, Magnificat.

  Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Featured article

• Hurley, M. D. & Lamb, R. A., 2 Oct 2023, In: Religion and Literature. 55, 1, p. 1-5 5 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Lamb, R., 2 Oct 2023, In: Religion and Literature. 55, 1, p. 49-70 22 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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