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Battle Shi’ism: Martyrdom and Messianism in Urdu Shi’i “Music” Videos
Full text linkThis article seeks to explore the utilisation of music-like recitations, known as nohay , by Pakistani Shi’a Muslims in the face of sectarian violence as political resistance and constituting “weapons of the weak” (Scott 1985). Through drawing on themes of resistance, resilience, martyrdom, and Messianic expectation that abound Shi’i theology and history, I argue that Pakistani Shi’a Muslims consolidate their belief through devotional music and thereby resist violence in a highly charged sectarian context. The first section discusses the permissibility of music within Islamic law, with a specific focus on the rulings of two contemporary Shi’a scholars and the second section will analyse the contents of one noha video by Ali Safdar, a prominent Pakistani nohakhawan
‘How much evil he has done to your saints?’: Ananias, Saul, and a Christian approach to the Contact Hypothesis in the Scottish refugee context
Full text linkThis article offers an exegetical and theological reading of Ananias’ involvement in Saul’s restoration (Acts 9:10–19) through the lens of the Contact Hypothesis. In this pericope, Ananias’ response balances an honest acknowledgement of the effects of Saul’s violence on his community with a courageous commitment to risky, personal contact. The paper argues that the Ananias-Saul narrative can provide both a theological perspective on, and a corrective to, the Contact Hypothesis, developing a praxis-based model for responding to the effects of violence and to its perpetrators. Case studies are drawn from the author’s experience in an integration sports project in Glasgow that facilitated contact among refugees, asylum seekers, and communities on either side of the city’s sectarian divide
Dialogical responses to suffering in a traumatised world: An experiment in epistolary theology
Full text linkEngaging with themes from the 2024 Church of Scotland Chalmers Lectures, as well as the authors’ forthcoming co-authored book (provisionally titled Defiant Hope: Theological Conversations in a Traumatised World), this article takes the form of an epistolary conversation about the problem of suffering and the reality of ongoing trauma. This dialogical format has deep roots within the Christian tradition and early Christian communities. It is used here because the problems under discussion resist resolution by solitary monologue. Similarly, the work of trauma theology involves communal, rather than singular, response. Our exchange critiques the limitations of traditional theodicies, which often conflate suffering with evil, thereby risking misplaced blame on those who suffer. It also warns against pastoral responses that inadvertently normalise or sustain oppressive systems, advocating instead for transformative theological practices that unmask systemic complicity, foster communal resistance, and reimagine Christian responses to suffering beyond resignation or passive endurance
Embodied Experience in a Tidal Pool: An Autoethnography of Sense Engagement: ‘a dook in the Neuk’
Full text linkThis ethnographic encounter reflects on my own wild swimming experience, which I use as the base for an autoethnographic study of this outdoor activity. I have put myself forward as both researcher and subject. I look at the sensory aspects of the experience which include smell, touch, taste, and sound to present a more self-reflective picture of wild swimming. I report that wild swimming is an embodied experience which invigorates the senses creating a feeling of euphoria and community amongst those that participate. The research adds to what is known about wild swimming by presenting a nuanced emotional and in-depth analysis of the practice. This research shows the worth of autoethnography in reporting on the complex issues of embodied experience which in turn allows both inside members of the wild swimming community to be better understood and entice potential interest of outsiders in experiencing a new sense given by wild swimming. 
Un-Forgetting the Carnival, Remembering Home
Full text linkThis article seeks to indagate the role of memory and nostalgia in the field while doing autoethnography. Navigating through the memories of the author, readers follow her and her son as they attempt to create a costume to celebrate the Spanish carnival; an activity which also embodies her childhood nostalgia and her connection with her homeland. The process raises questions about identity and the complexity and guilt surrounding the dynamics of a mother who tries to transfer the feeling of belonging, community, and an appreciation of the traditions of the native country to a child raised in the diaspora. 
Notes from the Field: : Methodological Opportunities and Constraints
Full text linkThis paper critically reflects on the methodological and ethical challenges faced by researchers conducting fieldwork on Syria under Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian regime. Drawing on my own experiences with interviews and archival research across Lebanon, Turkey, and Europe, I explore how war, displacement, and authoritarian legacies reshape access, data reliability, and researcher safety. Rather than treating these conditions as mere obstacles, the paper considers how they fundamentally shape the knowledge production process, and the questions researchers are able—or unable—to ask. Collaborating with Syrian interlocutors—many of whom are navigating trauma, exile, and surveillance—pushed me to reconsider what it means to conduct ethical, accountable research amid profound precarity. The analysis engages the politics of representation, researcher positionality, and the emotional and political labor embedded in fieldwork. I also interrogate the academic structures that privilege certain voices and sites of knowledge over others. While grounded in the Syrian context, the paper speaks more broadly to the dilemmas of conducting research in authoritarian and conflict-affected settings where access is limited, and knowledge is contested. By foregrounding the often-invisible labor and compromises of research, this paper calls for more honest, situated, and politically engaged approaches to studying Syria and similar contexts. In bringing these methodological struggles to the surface, it aims to open space for deeper conversations about ethics, accountability, and power in Middle East research during times of protracted crisis
Global Thought and its Ghosts
Full text linkAn essay which utilises short fiction and music to reflect on the teleological determinism characteristic of historical Eurocentric theorising which aspired to a global universality. How can we think theory in the ruins of such meta-narratives? Does theory still retain an emancipatory function? Can global thought also mean an excavation of wreckages, or giving voice to revisiting spectres from the past? Can such ghosts meaningfully contest the “capitalist realism” which threatens the subsumption of futurity and utopian imagining today
Death, Blood, and Succession: Justinian’s Novel 158 and the relationship between inheritance law and imperial power in late Roman law
Full text linkRomanist historians have consistently argued that Justinian’s revision to the agnatic line of succession in Novel 118 signifies an increased recognition of the blood principle. This paper takes a corrective approach to the place of blood in late Roman inheritance patterns and argues that the exchange of agnatic for general blood principle was not a policy change insofar that the imperial state had always dealt with a kind of blood. Thus, the change in succession law from agnatic line to general blood line should be viewed as a development within the principle of blood. Within this paper, ‘blood’ and ‘blood relationship’ refer to those in kinship, for example, mothers, fathers, children and so on. I will use this definition to explain how blood connections were endowed with proprietorial value through the imperial state’s developments in inheritance law. Power refers to imperial state’s ability to influence family hierarchy and Empire. Thus, the concept of blood was malleable because it’s cultural value and it legal value could be altered through imperial power. The approach of this paper is guided by David Miller and Peter Sarris’ annotated translations of Justinian’s Novels which treats the sources as self-conscious literary constructions. The analysis emphasises how juristic science itself functioned as part of imperial power. Ultimately, this paper argues that Justinian\u27s Novel 158 exemplifies how the imperial state manipulated legal definitions of \u27blood\u27 to consolidate its control over family structures and inheritance
On why we need to be trauma-informed in churches: An auto-ethnographical reflection on submission language
Full text linkLaura Gilmour considers the word ‘submission’ through the lens of the trauma of domestic abuse in the context of undergoing a ministerial recognition process. Using quilting art as embodied theological reflection, Gilmour’s piece contrasts surface self-presentation with deeper, hidden realities within the self, revealing how submission and survival are interwoven in the experience of the one who has lived through domestic violence. Her work highlights the power of deliberately slow, creative practices in the remaking of one’s self – especially for those whose voices have been silenced
“Reformed Humanism: Essays on Christian Doctrine, Philosophy and Church” by David Fergusson
No full textReview ofDavid Fergusson, Reformed Humanism: Essays on Christian Doctrine, Philosophy and Church (London: T&T Clark, 2024), pp. x + 291, hardback 978-0567712745 £85.00; paperback 978-0567712783 (Dec 2025) £28.99