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A conversation with Ausma Zehanat Khan
No full textAusma Zehanat Khan is a multi-award-winning author of crime and fantasy fiction that features Muslim protagonists and Islamic cultural milieus. Her work also engages with a wide range of contemporary global issues including genocide, terrorism, police violence, and refugee crossings. To date she has published 12 novels, which include two mystery series and the fantasy series The Khorasan Archives. Her first novel, The Unquiet Dead, which opens her Khattak/Getty crime series, was the winner of the Barry Award, the Arthur Ellis Award, and the Romantic Times Award for Best First Novel. Her latest crime series is set in Colorado and introduces us to a new detective who is female and Muslim. In this interview, Khan discusses the influence of her Pashtun roots and her work as an international human rights lawyer on her writing, the importance of diverse characters in genre fiction, the challenges of “translation” in the process of publishing and marketing books, and the global nature of her chosen genres
Assessing the impact of a cathedral pre-Christmas son et lumiere on participants’ psychological wellbeing and spiritual health
No full textThis study employs The Index of Balanced Affect Change (TIBACh) and the Francis Index of Spiritual Health Change (FISH) to assess the perceived impact on 518 participants who attended the Starlight pre-Christmas son et lumiere in Liverpool Cathedral. The Index of Positive Affect Change demonstrated that up to two-thirds of the participants went away feeling more positive about life. The Index of Existential Spiritual Health Change demonstrated that around two-fifths went away feeling more positive about relationships with themselves, with others, and with the world. The greater impact on existential spiritual health was among younger people. The greater impact on psychological wellbeing was among those without connections with a religious worldview. In other words, the installation is enabling the cathedral to extend the Church’s reach among the young and among the unchurched
Drawing on the concept of implicit religion and psychological type theory: shaping a cathedral congregation survey and listening to diverse voices
No full textConceptualising cathedrals as welcoming spaces that soften the boundaries between common ground and sacred space, the present paper tests the thesis that a rich account of participants’ experience of a cathedral Sunday Choral Eucharist can be facilitated by intentionally engaging each of the four psychological functions identified by psychological type theory: sensing, intuition, feeling, and thinking (SIFT). Of the 139 participants who completed a quantitative survey during the service in the Anglican cathedral in Liverpool, 81 also addressed the qualitative section that posed four questions designed to access each of the cognitive functions. The sensing function provided rich description, the intuitive function forged links and insights, the feeling function engaged the human heart, and the thinking function analysed the implications and voiced the criticisms. The SIFT approach can be commended for further application in cathedral studies and more widely
Introduction to the special issue on cathedral studies (part 3)
No full textThis is the third special issue of Journal of Beliefs and Values dedicated to advance the field of cathedral studies. Cathedrals play a distinctive part in the natural landscape of England and Wales, shaping the contours of the city in which they are located. Cathedrals play a distinctive part in the cultural and heritage landscape, drawing in tourists and visitors from across the globe. Cathedrals play a distinctive part in the religious landscape, resisting the decline in attendance experienced by parish churches. The field of cathedral studies is concerned with all three of these areas
Reading the incident at the pool called Beth-zatha (John 5: 1-16) through the lenses of dominant introverted feeling, dominant extraverted feeling, and dominant extraverted thinking: Evaluating text differently
No full textThe sensing, intuition, feeling, thinking (SIFT) approach to biblical hermeneutics focused initially on the four distinctive voices of the two perceiving functions (sensing and intuition) and of the two judging functions (thinking and feeling). Subsequent studies have introduced the additional nuance of distinguishing between the introverted and the extraverted expressions of these four functions. The present study brings into focus the distinctive voices of three of the four judging function-orientations, drawing on the involvement of 22 type-aware participants exploring in type-alike groups the incident at the pool called Beth-zatha narrated in John 5: 1-16
Why write? Creative writing in the classroom explored from a professional writing perspective
No full textCreative writing in the subject English classroom occupies an ambiguous position. Time and practical constraints mean that it may be positioned as something to be ‘mastered’ in the pursuit of examination marks. Yet writing creatively as an activity goes far beyond assessed outputs. This paper explores creative writing with professional writers to articulate what the activity may bring to these proponents, in the hope of sharing this perspective with students and teachers in the classroom. Using extended metaphors and a poetic transcription approach, it considers what writing is, and addresses the question, ‘Why write?’. Implications for classroom practice are explored
Pronouns, phronesis, and the perils of polite bureaucracy
No full textSunny Dhillon argues that strategic essentialism around gender risks undermining the intersectional approach universities claim to champio
Oral Health Interventions to Improve Access in Rural Areas of High-Income Countries: A Mixed Methods Systematic Review
No full textObjectives
The aim of this mixed methods systematic review was to identify oral health interventions in rural areas of high-income countries and synthesise the evidence on how access is addressed.
Methods
Searches were conducted in Cochrane, CINAHL, Dentistry and Oral Sciences Source, PsycINFO and PubMed, with the last search in January–February 2025. All study types published in English since 2000 were included that reported oral health interventions aimed at addressing access to dental services. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was used to assess study quality. The Penchansky and Thomas model of access, with Saurman's adaptation, guided the thematic synthesis.
Results
The final dataset was 73 articles. Most authors reported small-scale interventions delivered by dental and primary health providers. Fluoride varnish application, treatments and health promotion were most reported in clinics, community settings and schools. Lack of service availability and accessibility caused by geographic distance required alternative service models, including telehealth. Free or minimal cost interventions were needed in low-income settings. Stakeholder partnerships and understanding of local context were critical. Evaluations of community acceptability and awareness were rare. There was a dearth of studies addressing the six dimensions of access, with wide variation in study quality.
Conclusions
There is an absence of robust, well evaluated studies, with lack of homogeneity preventing meta-analysis. Rural oral health interventions should be informed by comprehensive frameworks of access, be grounded in equity, involve communities in design, development and evaluation, should reduce silos between oral and general healthcare, and should prioritise prevention. Access to high quality oral health is a fundamental human rights and equity issue for rural people
Exploring the missional capacity of cathedral installations and events:Theory and data
No full textHosting income-generating installations and events in cathedrals remains controversial. This paper examines three narratives suggesting that such activities are missional and supportive of Anglican ecclesiology. Then it explores new survey data gathered from people attending the 2024 pre-Christmas son et lumiere in Liverpool Cathedral. Five statistics stand out within these data: while only 30% were churchgoers (attending at least six times a year), 91% felt welcomed and at home in the Cathedral, 61% lit a votive candle, and 56% said they would attend more events like this. As a consequence of attending this installation, 28% said that they were more likely to attend a carol service in the Cathedral, and 21% that they were more likely to attend a carol service in their local church
“Double-edged tools”: Reading genre from the margins
No full textThis introduction to the special issue “Breaking Convention: Genre Fiction in a Global Frame” begins by tracing the “world-literariness” of genre fiction, both in terms of the global reach of individual texts and the movement of genre tropes and conventions into a wide range of geographic and cultural contexts. Following John Frow, it approaches genre as unfixed and dialogic, but also foregrounds the role of the market in shaping “genre worlds”, in which power remains unequally distributed. Although genres like sci-fi, crime fiction, and romance have been disparaged as formulaic and reinforcing hegemonic ideologies, the articles in the issue grapple with their simultaneous potential for resistance, which should be of great interest to scholars engaged with the legacies of empire today. The authors explore how genre conventions can be transgressed and reimagined to challenge prevailing norms of gender and sexuality, class and caste, race and ethnicity, or wider geo-political structures of power. Ultimately, it is hoped that the issue will open up new and non-hierarchical lines of enquiry with genre as a means of cross-regional comparison and connection between the local and the global