Dr Dawn Llewellyn
Associate Professor in Religion and Gender
Dawn is Associate Professor of Religion and Gender in Theology and Religious Studies. Her research is grounded in qualitative approaches to the study of religion and gender, and she draws mainly on sociological perspectives to examine gender and feminism in contemporary Christianity and new spiritualities. She has published on women’s religious reading practices, the relationship between religion and gender, feminist generations, research methodologies, and motherhood and voluntary childlessness.
Following her undergraduate studies in philosophy and systematic theology (Edinburgh), and an MA in Women's Studies (Lancaster), Dawn completed her doctorate in Religious Studies at Lancaster. She soon joined Theology and Religious Studies at Chester shortly after, in November 2010, and is delighted to be part of this lively and collegial learning community.
Dawn enjoys engaging with wider audiences about her research. She is part of the steering group for ‘Storyhouse Women’ and co-founded its annual ‘Storyhouse Childless’, which she curates and hosts. She has featured several times on BBC Radio programes like Beyond Belief, Sunday, All Things Considered, and The Sunday Show and contributes regularly to Voice of Islam, and podcasts.
She is currently Chair of Chester Sexual Abuse Support Service, a local charity, and is a member of several academic organisations, and regularly contribute to their annual meeting and conferences: British Sociological Association, and the British Society for the Study of Religion, and Faith Lives of Women and Girls. Dawn is the current co-convenor of BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group.
Dawn's teaching focuses on religious change in contemporary society, religion and gender, Christian Studies, and research methodologies.
As well as supervising PhD candidates in religion, gender, and sexuality, she is Programme Leader for the Professional Doctorate in Theology and Religious Studies. The DProf is an advanced research degree to explore the ethical, theological, religious, cultural and spiritual dimensions of your practice or work. It uses practice-based research to question the ethos, world-views, religious cultures and values of your context. You can find out more, here: https://www.chester.ac.uk/study/course-search/theology-and-religious-studies-dprof/
Dawn's doctoral work qualitatively examined women’s spiritual reading as a third wave feminist practice, and I used this to connect religious and secular feminisms. This became the basis for my first monograph Reading, Feminism, and Spirituality: Troubling the Waves (Palgrave, 2015) http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/Reading-Feminism-and-Spirituality/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137549952
Her next book is called 'Motherhood, Voluntary Childlessness, and Christianity: Narratives of Choice' (Bloomsbury) and it explores Christian women’s reproductive choices to have children or to be childfree, and the impact this has on their religious, gendered identities.
Funded by the British Sociological Association (Sociology of Religion Study Group, she has conducted research on a service known as ‘Churching’ (Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth) in the Church of England, a project, which is funded by the ). Using participant observation and interviews, Dawn explore the mothers’ motivations for taking part, and their understandings of the ritual.
As part of her research in religion and gender, she co-founded 'The Bloomsbury Series in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality' (with Sian Hawthorne and Sonya Sharma) https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/bloomsbury-studies-in-religion-gender-and-sexuality/, and together they have also published 'The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion, Gender, and Sexuality' (2024).
Books
2016 Dawn Llewellyn and Sonya Sharma (eds), Religion, Equalities and Inequalities, (Routledge, 2016).
2015 Reading, Feminism, and Spirituality: Troubling the Waves (Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2015).
2008 Dawn Llewellyn and Deborah F. Sawyer (eds), Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).
Other Select Publications
‘Children, Family, and Childlessness’ in Stephen E. Gregg and George D. Chryssides (eds), The Bloomsbury Guide to Studying Christians, (Bloomsbury, 2019): 127 – 130.
‘Voluntary Childlessness and Christianity: Rejecting the Selfish Other’, Modern Believing, Vol. 6/2 2019: 147-156.
Graham, Elaine, and Dawn Llewellyn, ‘Promoting the Good: Ethical and Methodological Considerations in Practical Theological Research’ in Mary Moschella and Susan Willhauk (eds), Qualitative Research in Theological Education: Pedagogy in Practice, (SCM Press, 2018): 39-59.
‘Divine Imaginaries: The Turn to Literature in the Feminist Theology and Spirituality’ in Sîan Melville Hawthorne (ed.), God and Gender, (Macmillan-Palgrave, 2017):177-194.
‘“I’m Still Reading the Bible!” Post-Christian Women’s Biblical Reading Practices’ in Yvonne Sherwood (ed.), Bible and Feminism: Remapping the Field (Oxford University Press, 2017): 569-588.
‘Maternal Silences: Motherhood and Voluntary Childlessness in Contemporary Christianity’, Religion and Gender, 6/1 2016: 64-79.
Llewellyn, Dawn and Marta Trzebiatowska, ‘Secular and Religious Feminisms: A Future of Disconnection?’ Journal of Feminist Theology, 21/3, 2013: 244-58.
‘Risky Readings: The Act of Reading and the Search for Spiritual Knowledge’ in Elisabeth Arweck and Mathew Guest (eds), Religion and Knowledge (Ashgate, 2012): 165-180.
‘Across Generations: Women’s Spiritualities, Literary Texts and Third Wave Feminism’ in Chris Klassen (ed.), Feminist Spirituality: The Next Generation (Lexington Books, 2009): 179-99.
‘Forming Community in the Third Wave: Literary Texts and Women’s Spiritualities’ in Llewellyn, Dawn and Deborah F. Sawyer (eds), Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred (Aldershot, Ashgate: 2008):153-69.
- MA (Hons) (Edinburgh)
- MA (Lancaster)
- PhD (Lancaster)
- FHEA