Fellow
Douglas Davies
St John’s alumnus and former Tutor, Douglas Davies, has been Professor in the Study of Religion at Durham University since 1997, including a couple of years as Principal of The College of St Hild and St Bede. He directs the Centre for Death and Life Studies and is affiliated with the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing.
Originally from South Wales, he undertook undergraduate studies at St. John’s in Anthropology (1966–69) and Theology (1971–74) at Cranmer Hall, Durham, with intervening M. Litt., postgraduate research at the Oxford Institute of Social Anthropology under the supervision of sociologist Bryan R. Wilson. He taught for just over twenty years at Nottingham University, completing a PhD there in 1980, subsequently published as Meaning and Salvation in Religious Studies (1984). In recognition of his academic contributions, he holds a higher doctorate (D.Litt.) from the University of Oxford and an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in Sweden. Originally an ordinand of Llandaff Diocese and ordained in the Diocese of Southwell in 1976, he served many years in a variety of Nottinghamshire parishes as well as Chaplain to the Order of St John of Jerusalem (St John Ambulance) nationally and at Durham.
Academically, Professor Davies has long worked at the interface of anthropology, sociology, and theology. His particular focus on ritual, symbolism, and belief has, notably, been explored through funerary practices, Anglicanism and Mormonism. Influential monographs include Anthropology and Theology, The Theology of Death, Death, Ritual and Belief, Mors Britannica- Lifestyle and Death-style in Britain Today, and The Mormon Culture of Salvation. He jointly edited The Encyclopedia of Cremation with Lewis Mates and was series editor of the six volumes of The Cultural History of Death. He joint-authored Bishops, Wives and Children with Prof Mathew Guest, Reusing Old Graves with Alastair Shaw, and Natural Burial with Hannah Rumble.
Recent funded projects have focused on the hydrolysis (Resomation) of human bodies, and on Digital Death. Unusually for an academic, he is an Honorary Vice-President of The Cremation Society of Great Britain and holds a lifetime achievement award from The Association for the Study of Death and Society. His scholarly distinction is reflected in multiple fellowships: he is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (since 2009), the Learned Society of Wales (since 2012), and the British Academy (since 2017).
