The Team


Editorial Team

Annie Konzelman (Editor-in-Chief) is a doctoral student in the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts. Both her Master’s and doctoral research with ITIA explore the theological implications of Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy in relation to the imagination and literary fiction. Additionally, Annie has spent time working in different curatorial, research and editorial positions. Her broader interests include pop music, literary theory and photography.

Matthew Nelson (Associate Editor) is a doctoral student at the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts (ITIA) in St Andrews, under the supervision of Gavin Hopps. He is researching the theological implications of the fiction of Thomas Pynchon (1937- ), considering his work in relation to the Gothic tradition and post-secular literature.

Eden O’Brien (Associate Editor) recently received her Master’s in Theology and the Arts from the University of St Andrews. Since encountering literature through the critical lens of Plato’s aesthetics, Eden has been interested in studying how the arts reconcile the inherent unreality of imitation with artistic truth. By contextualizing popular artistic expressions within more traditional systems of thought, she hopes to explore art’s significance for everyday formation. Eden is especially interested in the interplay between art and imitation with reference to Tolkien’s poetics, Aestheticism, and camp.

Dante Clementi (Associate Editor) is a doctoral student in the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts, researching the relation between silence and language in Søren Kierkegaard’s writings on Matthew 6: 24 – 34. Outside of Kierkegaard, his additional interests include the relation of philosophy and poetry, philosophies of self-transformation, and accounts of visual and literary art as limit-experiences. 

Cody Warta is a PhD student at the University of St Andrews where he studies metaphysics and ecclesiology while emphasizing the research of biblical studies. His work is primarily interested in sacramentology, which he sees to be a linchpin for nearly all theological study. During his masters of divinity degree, he studied renaissance art and the Christological significance of various altar pieces. He is currently a humanities teacher at Covenant School in West Virginia, where he teaches Christian doctrine and theology as well as medieval humanities.

Dr. Gavin Hopps (ITIA Director, ex officio Editor) is Senior 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.