New book: Scott, A THEOLOGY OF POSTNATURAL RIGHT

Peter Manley Scott 
A Theology of Postnatural Right

Studies in Religion and the Environment/Studien zur Religion und Umwelt Volume/Band 13, 
2019, 200 pps, 34.90 EUR
http://www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/3-643-91076-9

This study provides a theological and social ethics for an ecological age. It develops a concept of right for an order of creaturely life. This order consists of a "society" that encompasses humans and other creatures. The concept of right presented here is elaborated by reference to a postnatural condition, which rejects claims of a given natural order. Strong contrasts between nature and the human as well as nature and technology are also called into question. A pioneering study, this theory of right faces an ecological horizon, draws on theological resources in the doctrine of creation and proposes an ethics towards a freer social order. 

Peter Manley Scott is Samuel Ferguson Professor of Applied Theology and 
Director of the Lincoln Theological Institute at The University of Manchester, UK.

PhD Studentship: Public Theology

As part of its partnership with Manchester Cathedral, LTI is pleased to announce a fully funded PhD studentship. To apply, please click the link below.

PhD Studentship - Evaluating the Theology of Public Engagement at Manchester Cathedral
School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
The University of Manchester
https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BPX196

Robots vs Loneliness?

In November last year, LTI ran an event at Manchester Cathedral, which was funded by and organised as part of the ESRC annual Festival of Social Science. The event, 'Robots vs Loneliness?', emerged from LTI's project Living with and Loving Machines (lead researcher: Dr Scott Midson). It featured a public discussion that brought together a panel of experts from different fields to share their research on social trends with robotics, and to respond to audience member's questions. 

Panel members included Prof Rena Papadopoulos (Middlesex University), Dr Beth Singler (Cambridge University, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence), James Young (BBC presenter), and Dr Dave Cameron (University of Sheffield). Discussions highlighted concerns about replacement of humans, projection of personhood to machines, the type of sociality we might expect or demand from robots, and how loneliness itself relates to, for example, solitude. More details of the event are on the minisite.

Below is a short trailer of the event. 

A full video of the event can be viewed on the LTI YouTube website.

CARING FOR OUR COMMON HOME | DIRECTOR SPEAKS

On Saturday, 4 February, Peter Scott will speak at the Caring for our Common Home event, at Keswisk School, Keswick. 

FERGUSON LECTURE | 7 March 2019

Kathryn Tanner gives the 2019 Ferguson Lecture at 4 p.m. on Thursday 7 March.

The title of the Ferguson lecture is Grace and the Temporalities of Capitalism and develops an aspect of her most recent research. You’ll find a short blurb below.

The fusion of past, present, and future within contemporary capitalism hinders its critique: a fundamentally different future becomes unimaginable. A Christian understanding of grace expands the range of imaginative possibility by offering a counter-temporality in which past, present, and future are broken apart rather than collapsed.

The lecture will take place on Thursday 7 March at 4 pm in the Ellen Wilkinson Building, Graduate School Conference Room, C1.18 at the University of Manchester. (The Ellen Wilkinson building is no. 77 on the campus map. You can access the campus map here.) The lecture will be followed by a wine reception at 5.30 pm.

Creating Desire?

What is the link between mythology and sexbots? In a collaborative project that brings together Classics, Biblical Studies, Theological Anthropology, and Cultural Critique, Drs Kate Cook (Leeds), Scott Midson (Manchester, LTI), and Holly Morse (Manchester) explore how technological designs for our future are strongly tied to mythological ideas from our past (and present). The project focuses on the figures of Pandora, Eve, and Roxxxy (the world's first sexbot) to explore how notions of creation and desire intertwine in our understandings of artificiality and gender. 

Work from this project has been presented at the University of Manchester Religions & Theology seminar on the 6th December 2018 (below), and will be presented at the University of Leeds Classics seminar on the 7th February 2019.