Prof Richard H Roberts

Career: temp lectr in theology and religious studies Univ of Leeds 1975-76, lectr in systematic theology Univ of Durham 1976-89 , Maurice B Reckitt res fell Dept of Religious Studies Lancaster Univ 1988-91, prof of divinity Univ of St Andrews 1991-95, prof of religious studies Lancaster Univ 1995-2003 (now emeritus); visiting emeritus prof Univ of Stirling; founding dir: Centre for the History of the Human Sciences Univ of Durham 1988-91, Inst for Religion and the Human Scis Univ of St Andrews 1991-95; sr hon res fell Dept of Religious Studies Lancaster Univ 1994-95; memb Sociology of Religion Advsy Bd Int Theological Jl Concilium 1992-; founding memb Scientific Ctee Assoc for Rhetoric and Communication in South Africa; rapporteur res projects in sociology of religion ESRC 1993-; memb Editorial Bd: Literature and Theology 1988-, Jl of Contemporary Religion 1994-: memb: Soc for the Study of Theology 1975-, Centre for the History of the Human Scis Univ of Durham 1985-, Br/Int Comparative Literature Assoc 1987-, Int Sociological Assoc 1995- (pres Research Ctee 22 1998); hon prof of religious studies Univ of Stirling 2002-; fell Centre for Human Ecology Edinburgh 2003

Books and Publications: Hope and its Hieroglyph: a critical decipherment of Ernst Bloch's' Principle of Hope' (1990), A Theology on Its Way: Essays on Karl Barth (1992), The Recovery of Rhetoric: persuasive discourse and disciplinarity in the human sciences (co-ed with J M M Good, 1993), Religion and the Transformations of Capitalism: Comparative Approaches (1995), Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World (co-ed with Jo Pearson and Geoffrey Samuel (1998), Time and Value (co-ed with Scott Lash and Andrew Quick, 1998), Religion, Theology and the Human Sciences (2001); current research religion and theory, ritual, musica and altered states of consciousness