About me: Hello, I'm Father Jarel Robinson-Brown - a parish priest in the Church of England, currently serving in the Diocese of London. I have always felt a vocation to the priesthood and to scholarly life, combining a life of service to those in parish communities with a life that bridges the gap between the academy and the wider world and Church. As an undergraduate, I wrote my dissertation on St Benedict of Nursia and John Wesley and the rules they wrote for the spiritual life. As a Masters's student, I wrote my dissertation on Origen of Alexandria and his treatise on prayer. I now have the privilege of pursuing part-time doctoral study at the University of Aberdeen under the Very Reverend Professor John Behr (Professor of Humanity). About my project: Thesis title: 'The Theology of Sexual Desire, the Body and Monastic Life in the Canons of Shenoute of Atripe' Perhaps unusually for a priest, but important for the Church today. My research focuses on the body, sex and desire in Christian theology and Patristics (early Christian writings) - in particular, I will be looking at the very neglected work of Shenoute of Atripe, a 4th-century Egyptian monk whose work encompasses sexuality, gender and power in the monastic life. In relation to Shenoute's work, I am particularly interested in his theology of desire and the body - and how Shenoute's rule helps us understand how Egyptians in Late Antiquity, in Upper Egypt, understood their bodies in relation to desire - both desire for God, and for one another. I will use Foucault's work to help make connections between Shenoute's understanding of sexuality and desire and our current time. This research is really important to me, because I have come to love Shenoute's work and Coptic Christianity in particular. Much of Shenoute has been neglected, largely because he writes in Sahidic Coptic rather than Greek which has made him slightly less accessible to the "mainstream". I'm also keen to complete this research because little attention has been given to how early Christian writers such as Shenoute might help us to navigate current discourse in the Church around sexuality, gender, desire and the body - Shenoute's voice is a critical one in the theological conversation today. Our attention to voices such as Shenoute's is one of the ways in which the Church can be attentive to the Spirit speaking to the Church. How the funds will be used: One of the difficulties of combining full-time priesthood with further study is the limitation of funding. I have been grateful to have received £1,500 from the St Luke's College Foundation and I am waiting to hear what support, if any, I may receive from the St Matthias Trust. The annual course fees for the PhD are £2,356.00 per year. I have some funds for this coming year, but not enough for the following years, and I would be gutted if I had to give up on this project. The funds raised will go towards the cost of course fees and to my ongoing learning of Sahidic Coptic through the Waldensian Faculty of Theology in Rome. Any help that you feel able to give would be *hugely* appreciated. I am hoping to complete this PhD in four to five years maximum. For more about my work please visit: www.jarelrobinsonbrown.com
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