User:Kidwellj/Jolyon mitchell

Jolyon Mitchell

Jolyon Mitchell is Professor of Communications, Arts and Religion in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. His research and teaching interests include peacebuilding, violence and communications; film, religion and ethics; media, religion and culture; theology, history and the arts; and media ethics. Mitchell is also active as a radio producer and journalist.

Education and Media Career
Mitchell was educated at Cambridge, Durham and Edinburgh universities. He began his career as a producer and journalist for BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4. For BBC Worldservice, Mitchell produced several programmes, including an Outlook special on the King's College Chapel choir and a Meridian documentary on The Great Dance, a ballet based on C.S. Lewis's book Perelandra. He also reported as a journalist for many Worldservice programmes, including Outlook, Meridian, Education Matters, Focus on Faith, Woman's Hour, 24 Hours, In the News, and many others. Mitchell's interviews on European attitudes to Islam were featured in the Worldservice's What do Muslims' believe? series, as well as is John Bowker's book Voices of Islam.[4] His 1994 Radio 4 documentary on American radio preachers, Garrison Keillor's Radio Preachers, was replayed on the Worldservice in 1995. In 2002, Mitchell's research in Ghana on West African Video Film was the basis for an Omnibus documentary on the Worldservice. Other radio credits include a special on the Edinburgh Festival for the Radio 4 programme Images of Faith, and New College Celebrates, on the 150th anniversary of New College, for Radio 4's Morning Service. Mitchell continues to serve as a producer, journalist, consultant, and interviewee on programmes such as Beyond Belief (Radio 4),Reporting Religion (Worldservice) and A World in Your Ear (Radio 4). In addition, he has given interviews on Australian and Iranian radio on topics such as religion, media and violence.

Academic Career
In addition to his work as a broadcaster, Mitchell is known for his research on media ethics, film, peacebuilding and other topics. He teaches courses and supervises postgraduate research on these subjects at the University of Edinburgh, where he is also director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues. In 2011, Mitchell was awarded a full professorship as the Professor of Communications, Arts and Religion. His inaugural lecture, 'Swords into Plowshares: Transforming Arms into Art', was praised by the religion and public affairs think tank Ekklesia as 'innovative' and as 'combin[ing] academic research and learning in a highly accessible style'.[5] The lecture can be watched on Edinburgh University's channel on YouTube.[6]

Mitchell's publications reflect his wide range of interests and involvements. His first book, Visually Speaking: Radio and the Renaissance of Preaching, challenges preachers to develop their visual language skills by learning from radio broadcasters.[7] In 2007, he published Media Violence and Christian Ethics in Cambridge University Press' New Studies in Christian Ethics series.[8] That book explored resources in Christian theology for helping audiences reflect critically on and respond peacefully to the presentation of violence in the media. Mitchell has a book on Martyrdom coming out in the Oxford University Press Very Short Introductions series,[9] as well as a major new research monograph entitled Promoting Peace, Inciting Violence: The Role of Media and Religion with Routledge.[10] Mitchell has said in an interview that this book will examine the ambiguous role of media in both causing and preventing violence, and will contain studies of the First World War, Rwanda, the Iran-Iraq War, and other conflict situations.[11]

Mitchell is the co-editor of the Religion, Media and Culture: A Reader (with Gordon Lynch and Anna Strhan),[12] Religion and Film Reader (with S. Brent Plate),[13] andMediating Religion: Conversations in Media, Religion and Culture. (with Sophia Marriage).[14] He also has an edited volume entitled Religion and the News (with Owen Gower) coming out on Ashgate.[15]

In addition, Mitchell is the author of numerous academic articles in journals, edited volumes, and popular publications.[16]

In 2010, Mitchell became the Director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues (CTPI). CTPI is the oldest public theology research centre in the world and was founded by the Edinburgh theologian Duncan B. Forrester. During Mitchell's tenure as director, CTPI launched a three-year research project, Peacebuilding through Media Arts (PMA), that investigates the portrayal of religious violence in media arts and the use of media arts in peacebuilding efforts.[17] Among other events and research projects, PMA put on a major art exhibition incorporating works from the Methodist Art Collection, Scottish artists, and an original edition King James Bible.[18] Also in 2010, Mitchell named Dr George Wilkes as CTPI research fellow; Wilkes, formerly of Cambridge, brought his Project on Religion and Ethics in the Making of War and Peace to CTPI.[19] Mitchell is a life member of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge and a member of the AHRC Peer Review College.[20] He is the only British member of the International Study Commission on Media, Religion and Culture, which is 'a group of scholars and practitioners who have gathered to consider the shape and direction of both productive and reflective work in these three intersecting fields'.[21] He has held a visiting professorship at Dartmouth College, and been a visiting fellow at the University of Melbourne and the Centre for Advanced Religious and Theological Study at the University of Cambridge.