Tim Middleton
About
Tim is a Junior Research Fellow in Religion and the Frontier Challenges at Pembroke College, Oxford. He is also a Research Affiliate at the Laudato Si’ Research Institute having previously completed his DPhil in Theology and Religion in association with the Institute, supervised by Celia Deane-Drummond and Graham Ward. His initial training was in the sciences, and he also holds a doctorate in Earth Sciences, investigating earthquakes in northern China.
Tim was born in Switzerland and retains a lifelong love of the mountains. He lives in Oxford and particularly enjoys both the East Oxford Farmers’ Market and road cycling with the Cowley Condors.
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Education
DPhil, Theology and Religion, University of Oxford
MPhil, Modern Theology, University of Oxford
PGDip, Theology, University of Oxford
DPhil, Earth Sciences, University of Oxford
MSci, Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge
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Research Interests
Tim’s work concerns religious attitudes to the contemporary ecological crisis, with a specific focus on Christian ecotheology. He also maintains an interest in wider conversations in science and religion, and the environmental humanities.
His 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 his current project, he is 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, he is part of an interdisciplinary research network that is investigating Climate Crisis Thinking in the Humanities and Social Sciences. He has also served as Editor of the Journal of the Oxford Graduate Theological Society. In addition, he is currently a Research Fellow at the William Temple Foundation, a think tank working on the role of religion and belief in public life.
Tim has previously taught at St Anne’s College Oxford and the University of Roehampton and is currently an Associate Tutor in Christian Doctrine at Ripon College Cuddesdon.
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Selected Publications
Middleton, Timothy. A., ‘Christology and the Temporal Trauma of the Anthropocene’ in Krebs, Andreas (ed.) Rethinking Theology in the Anthropocene (WBG, 2023), invited contribution, in press.
Middleton, Timothy A., ‘Science, Religion, and Deep Time’, Reviews in Science, Religion and Theology (2022), 5-15.
Middleton, Timothy. A. & Natasha Chawla, ‘Introduction: The Humanities in Deep Time’, Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology (2022), 173-177
Middleton, Timothy. A., ‘Christic Witnessing: A Practical Response to Ecological Trauma’, Practical Theology (2022), 1-12
Middleton, Timothy A., ‘Editorial Introduction’, Journal of the Oxford Graduate Theological Society, 2/1 (2021), 4-5.
Middleton, Timothy A., ‘Giving Birth to the Impossible: Theology and Deconstruction in Johannes Climacus’s Philosophical Fragments’, International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, 82/2 (2021), 116-35
Middleton, T. A., ‘Selling our souls: science, sin and lament’ in Malcolm, Hannah (ed.) Words for a Dying World (SCM Press, 2020), pp. 88-93
Middleton, T. A., Objecting to theodicy and the legitimacy of protesting against evil. Science and Christian Belief 29/1 (2017), 3-19.
