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St John Henry Newman Research Centre
for Catholic Theology Presents:

John Henry Newman and the English Sensibility
by Professor Jacob Phillips

Online Academic Forum:
Thursday 15th February 2024, 6.00pm (London time)
All Welcome

Register now

Join us online on Thursday 15th February 2024 at 6.00pm (London time) for the St John Henry Newman Research Centre for Catholic Theology's Online Academic Forum, the latest in a series of occasional, public seminars by Maryvale academics. This time, Professor Jacob Phillips, will be discussing the subject of his latest book, John Henry Newman and the English Sensibility.

Jacob Phillips is Interim Dean of the Faculty of Education, Theology and the Arts at St Mary's University, Twickenham. He is also Programme Leader for the Faith and Culture Pathway on the MA in Catholic Applied Theology programme at Maryvale Institute, for which he wrote the coursebook and teaches for the module Evangelising Culture, as well as lectures on Cultural Horizons of Faith. He completed his BA (Hons) in Theology at Heythrop College, and his MA in Systematic Theology and PhD at King's College London. He has published various papers on Catholic theology, systematic theology (particularly in the German tradition), the intersection of faith and culture, and interreligious relations in Catholic theology. He also teaches at Allen Hall Seminary and the University of Roehampton.

Professor Phillips' research interests involve investigating different modes of human self-understanding in relation to systematic theology, particularly regarding the interrelation of human subjectivity and obedience. He completed his PhD at King's College London, working on human subjectivity and obedience in the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and he works also on the thought of John Henry Cardinal Newman, particularly regarding his more philosophically-orientated work, and his attempts to establish an empirically-orientated epistemics of belief, or 'assent'.

Select biography

• John Henry Newman and the English Sensibility (London: T&T Clark Series in Systematic Theology, 2023)
• Obedience is Freedom (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022)
• Simplicity and Wisdom: Human Subjectivity in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (London: T&T Clark Series in Systematic Theology, 2019)
• Mary, Star of Evangelization: Tilling the Soil and Sowing the Seed (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2018)

Attendance of the Zoom seminar is free and open to all, including non-students, by registering below.

If you have any questions about the forum or the Research Centre, please contact the Postgraduate Administrator, Melissa Pearce: