Journal

RIPL PhD Scholarships

One of the exciting things about the new Religion in Political Life (RiPL) Research Program at the University of Newcastle is that it earmarks PhD funding for at least two excellent students in this growing area of international academic concern. Religion and Religious Studies at the UoN was ranked 4* in the last Australian Research Council Excellence in Research Assessment (ERA), which put it first equal with only three other institutions in the country. The research culture here is vibrant, growing, and the RiPL program provides us an opportunity to attract high quality PhD students to join us.

RiPL’s main focus areas or steams investigate the interactions between religion in: 1) democratic authority (Stanley); 2) political radicalism (Boer and Lovat); 3) gender (McPhillips); and, 4) post-colonial legacies (Carey). A series of symposiums and seminars are planned in the coming years, which will result in published outcomes. The supervisors directing each of the RiPL program’s four streams are linked  below where you can find further details on their interests and qualifications:

If you are an Australian student who has achieved a first class honours degree and would like to pursue further PhD research in Religion in Political Life, then please do consider applying. The Australian Postgraduate Awards (APA) are for three years and include a $5k topup beyond the normal $22,860 p.a. award (tax free living allowance).

So too, international students with a high quality Master of Arts degree performance and demonstrations of research excellence through a thesis and, ideally, at least one peer reviewed publication, are strongly encouraged to apply. Postgraduate funding integrates two schemes, the University of Newcastle International Postgraduate Research Scholarships (UNIPRS)  and the University of Newcastle Research Scholarship Central (UNRSC). The UNIPRS scholarship provides tuition fees and the UNRSC is a living allowance scholarship, which is $22,860 p.a. (tax free).

All University of Newcastle PhD students are also provided with a laptop computer as well as a $5k research expenditure budget for conference travel, essential research materials, etc. 

Application process: Students should follow the normal application procedures for entry into the University of Newcastle PhD degree. Application materials for domestic as well as international students can be found at the following URL: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/students/research-higher-degree/scholarships/.

Very important! Students applying for scholarships in this RiPL research area must also do the following in their applications: 1) indicate clearly how their research aligns with the RiPL research program within their application’s research proposal; 2) choose one of the RiPL researchers as their primary supervisor; 3) coordinate their application with the RIPL Program Leader, Dr. Timothy Stanley. He will then flag the application for special review. 

Closing dates:

  • International applicants - 31 August 2012
  • Domestic applicants - 31 October 2012

Applications will be accepted by email to researchscholarships@newcastle.edu.au or fax to 61 2 4921 6908 up until midnight of the closing date. Originals of applications, transcripts etc. submitted in this way must be also be posted to the University as soon as possible.

For further details please contact the Program Leader at timothy.stanley@newcastle.edu.au

GRIT Seminars for Semester 2

The Group for Religious and Intellectual Traditions at the University of Newcastle is hosting seminars in the Cultural Collections room in the Auchmuty Library (campus map). Here’s a list of our September and October offerings:

4-5pm Tuesday 13 September

Roland Boer will speak on the topic Lenin: The Gospels and What is To Be Done?

One of Lenin’s key texts in the early years of the Russian Social democratic Worker Party is What Is To Be Done? Laying down a strategy for the merger of socialism and the worker movement in Russia, with an argument for professional revolutionaries and a regular, widely distributed newspaper (iskra, The Spark), Lenin clarified a highly effective strategy that led to the revolution. However, at the centre of the work is the parable of the Wheat and the Tares, around which are gathered a range of other parables dealing with agricultural metaphors. I explore three dimensions of this unnoticed feature: why Lenin preferred the Gospels; Lenin’s propensity to develop his own parables; and the radicalising effect on Gospel interpretation, radicalising the figure of Jesus and the disciples.

4-5pm Tuesday 18 October

Dr. Kath McPhillips will speak on Sainthood in Modern Australia – Contradiction or Possibility?

Last October, Australia celebrated the canonization of its first saint – Mary MacKillop. Unlike other Western nations, particularly in Europe, the tradition of sainthood is relatively unknown in secular Australia, and it is no surprise that the processes of beatification and canonization were somewhat perplexing to the average citizen. This paper will consider what sainthood might mean for the modern secular Australian nation, and why in a secular age, we are asked to sit – often very uncomfortably - with this ancient religious tradition? How might we ‘read’ the life of Mary MacKillop to produce understandings of who we are as a nation and as individuals?  I shall argue that the saint disrupts the symbolic orders of gender, and through this, the idea of the nation, to provide a new understanding of ethics, justice and love.

UoN Dead Sea Scrolls Public Lecture

The Dead Sea Scrolls: From Mystery to Meaning

A public lecture by Professor George Brooke, The University of Manchester 

Co-hosted by the Group for Religious and Intellectual Traditions (GRIT) and the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Newcastle

Short bio:  For over thirty years the Dead Sea Scrolls have occupied the principal place among Prof. Brooke’s research interests. Since 1992, he has been a member of the international team editing the Dead Sea Scrolls under the auspices of the Israel Antiquites Authority. His editions of the Commentaries on Genesis were published in 1996 and he is currently working with Prof. Moshe Bernstein (Yeshiva University) on a new edition of several manuscripts. He is a founding editor of the journal Dead Sea Discoveries (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994- ) and served as an area editor for the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). With P. Davies and P. Callaway, he is the author of, The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which has been translated into five languages and has been recently re-released in a new revised edition by Thames and Hudson. “With numerous factfiles, reconstructions, scroll photographs, and a wealth of other illustrations, it is the most comprehensive and accessible account available on the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

When: Monday, 15 August, 2011, 7pm
Where: Room SR.LT 2 in the Social Sciences Building at the University of Newcastle (Campus Map)
For further information please contact: Linda Hutchinson, Executive Officer of the Humanities Research Institute, +61(0)2492.17915, linda.hutchinson@newcastle.edu.au