Staff profile

Prof Anna Rowlands is the holder of the St Hilda Chair in Catholic Social Thought and Practice. She is a political theologian who works at the interface of political and social theory and Christian theology. Her original training was in the social and political sciences, followed by postgraduate degrees in theology. She has worked for two decades on the political philosophy of Gillian Rose, with additional interests in Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil. These interests coincided with research over the last 15 years in two other areas: the study of forced migration and the ethics of migration, and the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching. She has published in all these areas. Her key publications include: Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching in Dark Times (Bloomsbury, 2021) and The T&T Clark Reader in Political Theology, edited with Elizabeth Phillips and Amy Daughton (Bloomsbury, 2021) and The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Contemporary Migration (forthcoming 2024) edited with Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh. She is currently working on a new book on Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil and Gillian Rose.

• Forced Migration, Political Theology, Catholic social thought, Gillian Rose, Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt
• Synodality in Catholic tradition

Chapter in book

• Chapter One: Taxation in Catholic Social Teaching. In Render Unto Caesar: Perspectives on taxation from Catholic social thought and teaching
  
  Rowe, G., & Rowlands, A. (2025). Chapter One: Taxation in Catholic Social Teaching. In Render Unto Caesar: Perspectives on taxation from Catholic social thought and teaching. Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
• Reading Simone Weil in East London: Destitution, decreation and the history of force
  
  Rowlands, A. (2020). Reading Simone Weil in East London: Destitution, decreation and the history of force. In K. Kilby & R. Davies (Eds.), Suffering and the Christian Life (pp. 113-132). T&T Clark. https://doi.org/10.5040/9780567687265.0014
• Against the Manichees: Immigration Detention and the Shaping of the Theo-political Imagination
  
  Rowlands, A. (2018). Against the Manichees: Immigration Detention and the Shaping of the Theo-political Imagination. In U. Schmiedel & G. Smith (Eds.), Religion in the European Refugee Crisis (pp. 163-187). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67961-7_9
• On the Promise and Limits of Politics: Faith-Based Responses to Asylum-Seeking
  
  Rowlands, A. (2018). On the Promise and Limits of Politics: Faith-Based Responses to Asylum-Seeking. In B. Ryan (Ed.), Fortress Britain? Ethical approaches to Immigration (pp. 68-93). Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
• Beginning in the Middle: the third city and the politics of membership
  
  Rowlands, A. (n.d.). Beginning in the Middle: the third city and the politics of membership. In J. B. Davis (Ed.), Misrecognitions [Contracted by publisher]. Wipf and Stock.

Edited book

• T&T Clark Reader in Political Theology
  
  Phillips, E., Rowlands, A., & Daughton, A. (Eds.). (n.d.). T&T Clark Reader in Political Theology [Contracted by publisher]. Bloomsbury.

Journal Article

• Listening Practices in a Synodal Church: Interim Reflections from a Symposium in Rome
  
  Rowlands, A. (2024). Listening Practices in a Synodal Church: Interim Reflections from a Symposium in Rome. Journal of Moral Theology, 13(SI2), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.55476/001c.125236
• Temporality, Dispossession and the Search for the Good: Interpreting the Book of Jeremiah with the Jesuit Refugee Service
  
  Rowlands, A. (2018). Temporality, Dispossession and the Search for the Good: Interpreting the Book of Jeremiah with the Jesuit Refugee Service. Political Theology, 19(6), 517-536. https://doi.org/10.1080/1462317x.2018.1502908