Authors and Editors

Mark Bendall 

Mark Bendall, Senior Lecturer in Social and Communication Studies at the University of Chester, obtained a First Class degree and a PhD at Cambridge University. His work has been published by a number of US and UK publishers, including Fitzroy Dearborn (2001), Bowling Green University Press (2001), Greenleaf (2004) and Chester Academic Press (2006). He was also a contributor for Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility, edited by Stephen May (Oxford University Press, 2007). His research is primarily on representation and responsibility in the fields of communications and criminology, and he is currently collaborating on a project on luxury and ethics with members of the United Nations Research Institute of Social Development, commencing a "Reading Bond" project, and contributing to studies of pedagogy.

Peter Blair

Peter Blair is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Chester, where he specialises in twentieth-century literature, colonial and postcolonial literature, and creative writing.  He was formerly an editor with a publishing company, and has made numerous contributions to major reference books.  Peter's poems and stories have appeared in periodicals and anthologies, and he has been runner-up in the short-story section of the Bridport Prize.  He has published articles and reviews on various aspects of South African literature, and is currently writing a book on the liberal tradition in the South African novel. He is also co-editor with Ashley Chantler of Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine.

Anne Boran

Anne Boran is Head of the Department of Social and Communication Studies at the University of Chester, where she teaches World Development, Latin America Area Studies, Global Political Economy and Globalisation programmes.  Her current research interests are labour/social movements and globalisation.  She is series editor of the Issues in the Social Sciences Series, published by Chester Academic Press, and her publications include: Crime: Fear or Fascination?, Gender in Flux (co-editor: Bernadette Murphy), and Implications of Globalisation (co-editor: Peter Cox).

Jaki Brien

Jaki Brien leads the English team in the Faculty of Education and Children's Services at the University of Chester. She contributes to several programmes and particularly enjoys teaching courses on writing for teachers and specialist modules on children's literature on both undergraduate and Masters' programmes. She is currently seconded to the ITE Steering Team for the National Literacy Strategy.  She has written many short stories for educational publishers and her first novel for young adults has just been selected by a major publisher for their forthcoming 'Print on Demand' project.

Ashley Chantler

Ashley Chantler is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Chester, where he specialises in twentieth-century literature and creative writing. He has presented papers and written articles and reviews on Rochester , William Cowper, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Romanticism, Byron, Ford Madox Ford, Zbigniew Herbert, William Burroughs, and the theory and practice of textual editing. He has had poems published in various national and international periodicals and his poetry collection, In Praise of Paving, was published in 2003; he is also the author of Nana and Grape (2004), an illustrated narrative poem for children. He is currently editing the first critical edition of the poetry of Ford and co-editing a collection of essays on translation.

Peter Cox

Peter Cox is a Senior Lecturer in Social and Communication Studies at the University of Chester. His doctoral thesis, completed in 2002, explored Gandhian themes in the light of post-development theory and practice. His work is interdisciplinary in nature, ranging across the social sciences, and has a particular focus on community development. His current research is about the interaction of mobility, development and grass-roots activist technologies, highlighting the importance of non-motorised transport. Peter is co-editor of Cycling and Society (Ashgate, 2007) and is currently working on a book on Transport and Development.

Meriel D'Artrey

Meriel D'Artrey is Deputy Head of the Department of Social and Communication Studies at the University of Chester and teaches on the Communication Studies, Public Relations and Criminology programmes. She has worked in corporate communications, advertising, marketing, and public relations, both in-house and in agencies.  She gained her MA from the University of Edinburgh and her MSc from the London School of Economics, and also has a PGCE in Higher Education. She has taught public relations in a number of universities and co-wrote a chapter in R. Tench & L. Yeomans (Eds.), Exploring Public Relations (FT Prentice Hall, 2006).  Her research interests include the interface between employment and education and, more recently, attitudes towards road safety issues.

Celia Deane-Drummond

Celia Deane-Drummond is Professor of Theology and the Biological Sciences and Director of the Centre for Religion and the Biosciences at the University of Chester. She studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and gained a doctorate in Plant Physiology at the Reading and Letcombe Research Station (University of Oxford). She then worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Vancouver and Cambridge, followed by a period as a lecturer at the University of Durham, before developing her interest in theology, which led to her second doctorate, from the University of Manchester. Her publications include Theology and Biotechnology: Implications for New Science (Cassells, 1997), Creation through Wisdom: Theology and the New Biology (T & T Clark, 2000), The Ethics of Nature (Blackwells, 2004), and Genetics and Christian Ethics (Cambridge U.P., 2006).  She was editor of the journal Ecotheology from 2001 to 2006 and is consulting editor to its successor, The Journal for Religion, Nature and Culture.

Ian Dunn

Ian Dunn was educated at Queen Mary College and University College, University of London. He has been County Archivist of Cheshire and Chester Diocesan Archivist, Senior Policy Advisor and County Secretary. He was County Librarian and Head of Archives, Museums, Arts and Information for Cheshire County Council and, until his retirement in 2008, Director for Regional Affairs. He was lecturer in Archive Studies at the University of Liverpool from 1983 to 1995. He is a Past President of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire and was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1988. His particular interests include architectural and ecclesiastical history and he has been Chairman of the Chester Cathedral Fabric Advisory Committee since its inception in 1992.

Eric Dunning

Eric Dunning, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Leicester and Visiting Professor of Sociology of Sport at University College Dublin, has since 2004 also been Visiting Professor of Sociology of Sport at the University of Chester. His works include: Quest for excitement (with Norbert Elias; Blackwell, 1986); The roots of football hooliganism (with Patrick Murphy and John Williams (Routledge, 1988); Sport matters (Routledge, 1999); Fighting fans (with Patrick Murphy, Ivan Waddington and Antonios Astrinakis; University College Dublin Press, 2002); Norbert Elias (with Stephen Mennell; Sage, 2003); Sports histories (with Dominic Malcolm and Ivan Waddington; Routledge, 2004); and Barbarians, gentlemen and players (with Kenneth Sheard; Routledge, [Rev. ed.], 2005).

David Charles Ford

Until 2011, David Charles Ford was Programme Leader for Sociology at the University of Chester. He gained his BA (Hons) at the University of Humberside, an MA at the University of Essex, a PGCE (16+) at the University of Huddersfield and a PhD at the University of Essex. He previously taught at the University of Essex, and held posts as Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Bath and City University, London. His primary research area of interest was in Social Theory, with a particular emphasis on social inequality and disadvantage. David was series editor of the University of Chester Press's Issues in the Social Sciences series. David's research was concerned with explaining the socio-economic polarisation of smoking in Britain and he published a number of articles on this subject.

Ron Geaves

Ron Geaves was formerly Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Chester and is now Professor of Religion at Liverpool Hope University. He is also currently Chair of the Muslims in Britain Research Network. His research focuses on the adaptation of the religions of the Indian subcontinent to their respective communities in Britain. Much of it is interdisciplinary, with a concentration on field work. His major publications include The Sufis of Britain: An Exploration of Muslim Identity (Cardiff Academic Press, 2000), Continuum Glossary of Religious Terms (Continuum, 2005), Aspects of Islam (Georgetown University Press, 2005) and Islam And The West PostSeptember 11^th (with Theodore Gabriel and Yvonne Haddad; Ashgate, 2004).

Ken Green

Ken Green is Professor of Applied Sociology of Sport and Head of the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at University of Chester. He has published articles on related issues in a number of academic journals and was joint editor, with Ken Hardman, of Physical Education: A Reader (Meyer, 1998). Since 1997, he has been editor of the European Physical Education Review.

Brian Howman

Brian Howman is a Senior Lecturer in Social and Communication Studies at the University of Chester. He is a social and political historian, with a strong attachment to interdisciplinary approaches. Having taken his first two degrees at the University of Chester, Brian obtained a PhD from the University of Warwick for a thesis on slave abolitionists in the North West of England. He has a broader interest in early industrial society and the effects of hegemonic structures in both historical and contemporary contexts (particularly discrimination against motorcyclists).

David J. Hunter

David J. Hunter has been Professor of Health Policy and Management at the University of Durham since 2000, having previously been Professor of Health Policy and Management at the University of Leeds and Director of the Nuffield Institute for Health at Leeds. In 2004, he took over as Chair of the UK Public Health Association. He has published widely on health policy and management topics. His previous publications include Public Health Policy (Polity Press, 2003).

Bruce Ing

After spending some years working in nature conservation, Bruce Ing lectured in Biology at Chester College (now the University of Chester) from 1971 until 1994, when he retired from full-time teaching. He is now Visiting Professor of Environmental Biology. His publications include numerous scientific articles and papers, particularly on Myxomycetes, and he is the author of The Myxomycetes of Britain and Ireland: An Identification Book (Richmond Press, 1999). He has also lectured on the subject during a tour of the United States, which including running a workshop at the University of California, Berkeley.

Roger Kay

Roger Kay is Storrar Cowdry Professor of Family Law at the University of Chester. He is a qualified solicitor and researches and publishes in Family Law and Insurance Law, including a regular, six monthly update on Insurance Law for Business Law Review. He has also published articles and book reviews in International Family Law and Law Teacher, and has given papers at the World Conference of the International Society of Family Lawyers in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Learning in Law Initiative Conference at Warwick University. He is the academic member of the Cheshire Family Justice Council and has also been appointed to the executive committee of the Heads of University Law Schools.

Merritt Moseley

Merritt Moseley is Professor of Literature at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.  He is the author of critical books on David Lodge, Kingsley Amis, Julian Barnes and Michael Frayn and has edited four volumes of the Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Novelists Since 1960, and, most recently, the DLB volume on Booker Prize Winners. He has on two occasions been Visiting Professor in the Department of English at the University of Chester, which he regards as his second academic home.

Bernadette Murphy

Bernadette Murphy was awarded a First Class Honours Degree and a PhD in Sociology by the University of Durham. She taught Sociology, Research Methodologies and Gender and Health in the Department of Social and Communication Studies at the University of Chester until her untimely death in November 2007.

Christopher Partridge

Christopher Partridge was formerly Professor of Contemporary Religion at the University of Chester and is now a Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Lancaster University. He completed his PhD at the University of Aberdeen on philosophical/theological approaches to religions and the study of religion. Much of his current research is in the areas of popular music, the sociology of religion, and the study of new religions and alternative spiritualities. His publications include Encyclopedia of New Religions (Lion, 2004), Fundamentalisms (Paternoster Press, 2001), H. H. Farmer's Theological Interpretation of Religion (Edwin Mellen Press, 1998), The Re-enchantment of the West (2 vols., T & T Clark, 2004-5), and UFO Religions (Routledge, 2003). He is also the co-editor (with Professor Ron Geaves) of the journal Fieldwork in Religion.

Lisa Peters

Lisa Peters is the Law Librarian at the University of Chester. She has a BSc in Russian and Law from the University of Surrey and a MSc  (Econ) in Information & Library Studies from the University of Wales. Her PhD thesis, from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, was on the subject of Wrexham Newspapers, 1848-1914. She also has a PGCertHE from the University of Chester and a CertARM from the University of Liverpool. Prior to joining the University of Chester, she worked at Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru/The National Library of Wales and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Her research interests are in the North Wales press and the Victorian politics of North East Wales. She has been a member of the committee for the History of the British Book Trade since 2006.

Emma Rees

Emma Rees is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Chester. Her Margaret Cavendish was published in 2004, and she is currently working on Can't: Uncovering the Postmodern Vagina. She has contributed essays to recent books including one on Shakespeare and gender for Rhetorics of Bodily Disease and Health in Medieval and Early Modern England; one on 19th-century gynaecology for The Female Body in Medicine and Literature; a section on Shakespeare and the Renaissance for Studying Literature; and a chapter, co-authored with Richard E. Wilson, on Freudian fetishism, in Led Zeppelin and Philosophy. Emma was born and bred in Birmingham, moving to Chester in 1999 after living in Norwich for several years, where she taught at UEA.  

John Renshaw

John Renshaw is former Head of the Department of Art and Design at the University of Chester.  He has been a Visiting Tutor at Manchester Metropolitan University's Department of Textiles & Fashion (Drawing) and at the Royal Academy Schools, London (Painting). He has also taught in secondary schools and colleges of further education and, during 1986-87, was awarded a Teacher Fellowship in Art Education, jointly organised by the Department of Education and Science, Chester College (as it then was) and Cheshire Education Services. In April 2003, he was an invited visiting artist at Plattsburgh State University, New York. His research interests concern pedagogy in relation to fine art practice, particularly drawing. He is also a practicing artist, whose work has been exhibited in the UK, Hong Kong, Canada and the USA.

Roger Swift

Roger Swift is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Chester, where he was Director of the Centre for Victorian Studies and Director of the Graduate School until his retirement. His numerous publications include The Irish in Britain (with Sheridan Gilley; Barnes & Noble, 1989), Victorian Chester (Liverpool U. P., 1996), The Irish in Victorian Britain (with Sheridan Gilley; Four Courts Press, 1999), Gladstone centenary essays (with D. W. Bebbington; Liverpool U. P., 2000), Irish migrants in Britain, 1815-1914 (Cork U. P., 2002) and Problems and perspectives in Irish history since 1800 (with D. G. Boyce; Four Courts Press, 2003).

Anthony Thiselton

Rev. Canon Anthony Thiselton, Emeritus Professor of Christian Theology at the University of Nottingham and Canon Theologian of Leicester Cathedral and Southwell Minster, was Research Professor of Christian Theology at the University of Chester from 2003 to 2008. His major publications include The two horizons (Paternoster Press, 1980); New horizons in hermeneutics (Zondervan, 1992); Interpreting God and the postmodern self (T & T Clark, 1995); The first epistle to the Corinthians: A commentary on the Greek text (Eerdmans, 2000); and A concise encyclopedia of the philosophy of religion (Oneworld, 2002).

Chris Walsh

Professor Chris Walsh is Head of English at the University of Chester. He has published widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction and poetry. His publications include: Studying Literature: A Practical Introduction (with Graham Atkin and Susan Watkins; Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995), A Reader's Guide to the Poetry of Robert Browning (Chester College of Higher Education, 1996), and The Practice of Reading: Interpreting the Novel (with Derek Alsop; Macmillan, 1999). He is editor of the Longman Literature in English series.

David Charles

David Charles Ford is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for Sociology in the Department of Social and Communication Studies. His primary research area of interest is in social theory, with a particular focus upon contemporary social inequality and disadvantage. His current research is concerned with explaining the socio-economic polarisation of smoking and he has published a number of articles on this subject. David's teaching commitments include being module leader for the Department's ‘Sociological Imagination', ‘Shaping of Society', ‘Sociology of Health, Disease and Medicine' and ‘Advanced Social Theory' modules.

Alan Wall 

Alan Wall is Professor of Writing and Literature and Programme Leader of Combined Honours Creative Writing in the Department of English. He joined the University of Chester in 2004 and holds an MA from the University of Oxford. Alan has published six novels, three books of poetry, and a book of short stories, including his latest novel, Sylvie's Riddle, parts of which are set in Chester. His works have been translated into nine languages and published in 11 countries, and have won numerous prizes. He was appointed Royal Literary Fund Project Fellow in 2007/2008 to write Writing: A Guide Book, and his book Writing Fiction was published by Collins in May 2007.