One of the world’s leading experts on religion and politics will join the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing as a Leverhulme Visiting Professor.

Professor Miguel Vatter, currently Professor of Politics in the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University, will join the department for the next academic year.

Professor Vatter has also held visiting professorships in Germany and China.

In 2022, Vatter's Divine Democracy: Political Theology after Carl Schmitt (Oxford) was called “essential reading” by Wendy Brown and his Living Law: Jewish Political Theology from Hermann Cohen to Hannah Arendt (Oxford) was praised as an “erudite and comprehensive work” by Judith Butler.

“We are delighted to welcome Professor Vatter to Lancaster,” commented Professor Arthur Bradley.

“His presence will further enhance English Literature & Creative Writing’s international reputation for research in the field of literature, philosophy and religion.”

In his time at Lancaster, Professor Vatter will deliver lectures, seminars and workshops on his new project on the "planetary turn" in the contemporary arts, humanities and social sciences. What consequences, he will ask, does the climate emergency have for our understanding of politics and religion?