Professor Bev Clack
Professor in the Philosophy of Religion
School of Education, Humanities and Languages

Role
Professor in the Philosophy of Religion. Main research interests involve applying feminist ideas to the philosophy of religion, and considering the uses of psychoanalysis for a contemporary philosophy. Currently working on the themes of failure and loss. Also interested in the possibility of developing a philosophy of religion that engages with practical politics.
Teaching and supervision
Courses
Modules taught
Undergraduate
- Essentials in the Philosophy of Religion
- Continental Philosophy of Religion
- Religion, Philosophy and the Body
Supervision
PhD supervision in the areas of contemporary theology, philosophy of religion (including relationship with feminism and psychoanalysis), and gender.
Research Students
Name | Thesis title | Completed |
---|---|---|
Thomas Dobson | Training to Teach: Westminster College and the development of Higher Education in the 20th century | Active |
Richard Fretwell | Religious Freedom in a Post-Christian Age: A critical analysis of liberalism, secularism and human rights through the lens of religious freedom in education in England | Active |
Research
- Philosophy of religion, and particularly feminist approaches to the subject. Also the relationship between psychoanalytic theory and philosophy of religion.
- Co-organiser of interdisciplinary seminar series 2014-15 on 'Success in the Neoliberal Life Cycle: Alternative Perspectives on a Dominant Paradigm.'
- Currently writing on failure and loss.
Groups
Publications
Professional information
Conferences
Conference papers
- ‘Constructing Death as a Form of Failure: Addressing Mortality in a Neo-Liberal Age’ for Inaugural Conference for the International Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying, Pomona College, Claremont, USA, November 2014.
- ‘Loss and Waste: On Uncertainty and the Acceptance of Limits,’ Philosophy and Psychoanalysis in Dialogue Conference [sponsored by the Institute of Psychoanalysis and the Institute of Philosophy], Heythrop College, London, October 2014.
- ‘Feminism and Religion,’ Inaugural Lecture for International Gender Studies Centre, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, October 2014.
- 'Feminism, Evil and a Philosophy of Transformation,' Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia, July 2014
- 'Being Human: Religion and Superstition in Psychoanalytic Philosophy of Religion', Royal Institute of Philosophy Conference, Oxford Brookes University, June 2010.
Further details
Academic Qualifications
- BA Honours Degree (First Class) from Westminster College Oxford (1986)
- PhD in the History and Philosophy of Religion from King’s College London on the Suffering of God in the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1991)
- MSc (Distinction) in Theoretical Psychoanalytical Studies from UCL (2006)
Previous employment
- Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at University of Surrey Roehampton (1990-2002)
- Joined Brookes in 2002 as Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Religious Studies
- Promoted to Reader in Theology, Philosophy and Culture in 2004
- Promoted to Professor in Philosophy of Religion in 2009
Before becoming an academic, Bev worked in the Press Office of the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican Centre in London (1989). She is currently City Councillor for St Clements, Oxford (Labour and Co-operative Party) (2012-2016).