Tim Middleton

My research concerns religious attitudes to our contemporary ecological crisis, with a specific focus on Christian ecotheology.

I joined Pembroke College in 2022 having completed an MPhil and a DPhil in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. However, my initial training was in the sciences-I hold a doctorate in Earth Sciences, and I was previously a stipendiary lecturer in Earth Sciences at St Anne's College, Oxford.

My doctoral work in Theology and Religion brings ecotheology into conversation with recent work in Christian trauma theology, exploring how the category of trauma might fruitfully be applied to issues of nonhuman suffering in the context of mass extinction and catastrophic climate change. In my current project, I am working on a 'Theology after the Anthropocene', examining how religious visions of the deep, planetary future intersect with long-term thinking about present-day ecological challenges.

Within Oxford, I am affiliated with the Laudato Si' Research Institute at Campion Hall and an interdisciplinary network that is investigating Climate Crisis Thinking in the Humanities and Social Sciences. I have also served as Editor of the Journal of the Oxford Graduate Theological Society. Formerly, I was the Communications Officer at the William Temple Foundation-a think tank working on the role of religion and belief in public life. I am an Associate of the Faraday Institute of Science and Religion and I regularly lead workshops in schools as part of the God and the Big Bang project.

I have enjoyed teaching on the MA in Theology, Ecology and Ethics at the University of Roehampton and I am currently an Associate Tutor in Christian Doctrine at Ripon College Cuddesdon.