ProfessorJay Johnston

BA, MArtAdmin, MLitt (Dist), MEd (Conservation), MA (Hons), PhD, FAHA

Jay Johnston is trained in religious studies, wildlife conservation, cultural heritage of Scotland and Scandinavia, curatorial and museum studies, art history and theory and continental philosophy. A cross-disciplinary specialist her work demonstrates the importance of Religious Studies scholarship for the fields of heritage studies, wildlife conservation and environmental humanities, art history, Norse and Celtic studies. She works at the interface of religion/ arts/philosophy examining visual and material culture with a particular focus on the interrelationship between ethics and aesthetics, concepts of materiality, embodiment, and epistemology.

Well-known for her contributions to the subfields of aesthetics of religion and subtle body studies, her current projects focus on (i) biocultural knowledge, wildlife conservation and human–animal–environment relations; (ii) concepts of place, identity and nature in Cornwall and the Scottish Highlands and Islands, particularly the interrelationship between local belief and natural heritage; (iii) and the project, “Faith and Fleece: Sheep as Spiritual, Cultural and Ecological Guides.”

Jay Johnston participates in a wide range of academic activities including as a Series Editor, with Garry Trompf (Sydney) and Jason BeDuhn (Northern Arizona), of Gnostica (Routledge) and as a member of the Editorial Board for the journal Religion (Taylor and Francis).