Editorial Team
Brett H Speakman (Editor) is currently working towards his PhD in the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St Andrews. His research includes apologetics, the Inklings, imagination, and the history of Christianity. Prior to moving to the UK, Brett completed an MA in both the History of Christianity and Historical Theology at Wheaton College, while working at the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College as a graduate research assistant, where he conducted research for scholars, processed manuscripts and letters for archival use, and assisted in the editing of book reviews and articles for the journal, VII: An Anglo-American Literary Review. He is also the Co-Editor of Book Reviews for the Journal of Inklings Studies.
Jake Morley (Guest Contributions Editor) is studying towards his PhD at the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St Andrews. His broader research interests include theological aesthetics as well as the relationship between poetry and theology, while his more specific research covers English poetry from Spenser to Milton and the application to literary study of the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Prior to beginning at St Andrews, Jake taught English and Bible at The Stony Brook School in New York and performed freelance editorial work for InterVarsity Press. His previous academic work includes an MA in English from Middlebury College and an MA in systematic theology from Wheaton College.
Karen McClain Kiefer (Book Reviews Editor) is originally from Ohio, and has also lived in Maryland, Arizona and Minnesota where she built a career in corporate management and consulting, followed by service in pastoral, social and theatre ministry. She entered the PhD program in the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts at the University of St Andrews after earning a Masters in Theology at Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota. She is currently researching the nature of otherness and “empty space” in suffering and how improvisation can inform a theological context which may help us respond meaningfully. While at Saint John’s, Karen served as co-editor for the journal Obsculta.
Nayeli Riano (Editorial Assistant) is a postgraduate student at the University of St Andrews pursuing an MLitt in intellectual history. She is originally from Bogotá, Colombia, but grew up in New Jersey in the United States. Nayeli completed her undergraduate degree in English at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Dr. Gavin Hopps (ITIA Director, ex officio Editor) is Lecturer in Literature & Theology and Director of the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts at the University of St Andrews. He has been involved in ITIA since he came to St Andrews as an RCUK Academic Fellow in 2006. Prior to this, he was a Lecturer in English at the universities of Aachen, Oxford and Canterbury Christ Church and a CRASSH Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. His research is broadly concerned with theology and the arts, with a particular focus on Romantic literature and contemporary British popular music, though he is also interested in the relationship between theology and modalities of lightness (such as comedy, camp, leisure and play). He has published numerous articles on Romantic writing, a collection of essays on the spectral, the spiritual and the supernatural in Byron, a co-edited collection on Romanticism and Religion, and a monograph on the singer-songwriter Morrissey. He is currently working with Dr Jane Stabler in the School of English on a new edition of the complete poetic works of Byron, a volume in the New Directions in Religion and Literature series, a monograph on the levity of Byron’s Don Juan, and another on popular music and radical wonder, entitled The Kitsch Epiphany.
Regular Contributor(s)
Kevin Antlitz received his M.Div. (2010) and his Th.M. (2011) from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston, MA, while also completing coursework at Harvard Divinity School and Boston College. He currently serves as a Ministry Fellow with Christian Union at Princeton University. Prior to his work at Princeton, he taught as an Adjunct Professor at Gordon College.
Amber Noel received her M.Div. from Duke University in 2012 after additional graduate coursework in theology and literature, but she does not yet need glasses. She’s worked as a teacher, writer, youth minister, and party-thrower, and lives in Dallas, Texas, where she pulls together various combinations of pastoral and creative shenanigans for the good of the church. She adores hot yoga, dubstep, and bedtime snacks, as well as spending time with fine humans and animals.