The Reverend Professor Jane Shaw

Biography

I am both an Anglican priest and an intellectual & cultural historian. I have previously held posts as Dean of Divinity at New College, Oxford; Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco; Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University, where I was also Professor of Religious Studies; and, most recently, Principal of Harris Manchester College and Pro-Vice-Chancellor here in the University. I am currently Professor of the History of Religion here at Oxford and Provost of Gresham College in London.

As Acting Dean of Divinity, I take services in the chapel along with the other chaplains, and offer pastoral care to all members of the college. If you would like to help in the chapel, by reading or by serving as a sacristan (no previous experience needed!) please contact me.

Research and Publications

I am currently writing Seeking Infinity: Mystics in the Modern World (forthcoming with Penguin Allen Lane) and I have received Fellowships to support the completion of that book from the Leverhulme Trust and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study.  My other books include Miracles in Enlightenment England (Yale University Press 2006); Octavia, Daughter of God: the Story of a Female Messiah and her Followers (Jonathan Cape and Yale University Press, 2011); and the co-authored Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age (U of Chicago Press, 2021).  

Photograph credit: Robert Taylor