Professor Mathew Guest
| Biography | I am a sociologist of religion, my research focusing on the institutional contexts that frame the expression and status of religious identities within late modern societies. Following early research on the evangelical movement in the UK and on the transmission of moral and religious values via clergy families, since 2009 my work has focused on the ways in which religious identities inhabit contexts of higher education. This work has led to several nation-wide empirical research projects, with findings published in a number of essays, reports and books, including Christianity and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith (2013), Chaplains on Campus: Understanding Chaplaincy in UK Universities (2019), and Islam on Campus: Contested Identities and the Cultures of Higher Education in Britain (2020). Most recently, I have pursued a project alongside colleagues at the University of Coventry, on worldview diversity among university students across the UK. This builds on innovative research in the USA in gauging how students within different universities relate to those with cultural and religious worldview different from their own. It aims to trace patterns of religious diversity and develop an understanding of how positive relationships across this diversity are built within higher education contexts. In recent years my research interests have also extended into questions of how recent cultural developments characterised as 'neoliberal' have changed the expression of religious identities and the task of the sociology of religion as it seeks to make sense of them. My first book on this topic, Neoliberal Religion: Faith and Power in the 21st Century, was published in 2022 by Bloomsbury. My general interest in the sociology of religion is reflected in the postgraduate students whose research I supervise, both on the PhD and the Doctor of Theology and Ministry programmes. All of my postgraduate research students are engaged in the empirical study of contemporary religion, and I would be more than happy to engage in email correspondence with further candidates who wish to pursue a project that reflects my research interests. At the undergraduate and MA level I work alongside Professor Douglas Davies, Dr Jonathan Miles-Watson and Dr Sitna Quiroz within the broad field of the study of religion. Each of us works from a social scientific perspective and emphasise the importance of studying religion as a lived phenomenon. My broader research activities bring me into contact with a lively international network of academics working in related areas. I currently serve as chair of the British Sociological Association’s Religion Study Group (SocRel), and work with an excellent executive committee on developing that subfield within the UK context. |
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| Research Interests | Religion in neoliberal contexts Religion, worldviews and values in higher education |
| PhD Supervision Availability | Yes |