Classics, Ancient History, Religion and Theology

Photo of Professor David Tollerton

Professor David Tollerton

Associate Professor in Memory Studies

D.C.Tollerton@exeter.ac.uk

4238

01392 724238

Overview

My research centres on how societies understand and memorialise events of suffering. Much of this has focused on responses to the Holocaust, though has more recently also incorporated research on emerging memorialisation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During 2023-24 I am President of the British and Irish Association for Holocaust Studies and I am currently co-editing a special issue of Holocaust Studies focused on the relationship between genocide and ecocide. 

With regard to work on societal responses to COVID-19, my recent AHRC-funded project partnered with the Marie Curie charity and their ‘National Day of Reflection’ initiative. Looking at the wider picture of how memorialisation of the pandemic is beginning to develop in Britain, and drawing comparatively on historic precedents, the project considered the social, political, and religious elements of how we begin to develop new public rituals and memorial spaces amidst experiences of Covid-19. The project report is published here. 

My most recent book is Holocaust Memory and Britain’s Religious-Secular Landscape, published with Routledge in 2020. It was based on a Leverhulme Trust fellowship held during 2019-2020 and is the first study to examine Holocaust remembrance and British religiosity/secularity in relation to one another. Its first half gives attention to the varied meanings of public Holocaust memory for Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and post-Christian communities. In its second half, focus turns to the ways in which state-supported Holocaust remembrance activities are intertwined with perceptions of sacredness. This incorporates the study of ritual memorialisation events, the creation of new sacred space, and the curation of pilgrimage to Holocaust sites. The monograph breaks new ground as an interdisciplinary treatment of Holocaust studies and religious studies, arguing that critical consideration of this interface is necessary for a better understanding of both contemporary British public life and for a sustainable culture of remembrance and national self-examination.

Alongside further research on emerging memorialisation of COVID-19, I am also planning future work on the Holocaust and comparison (i.e. the history of debates surrounding comparison between the Holocaust and other historical or contemporary events). 

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Research

The majority of my research to date has focused on Holocaust memory. Key publications include Holocaust Memory and Britain’s Religious-Secular Landscape (Routledge 2020) and The Book of Job in Post-Holocaust Thought (2012). Other recent and forthcoming work in this area includes publications on colonialism and Holocaust memory, as well as the intersections between genocide and ecocide. 

I recently led an AHRC-funded project on emerging memorialisation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Partnered with the Marie Curie charity, it draws together organisations concerned with how we remember and grieve amidst the pandemic, and academics concerned with memorialisation practices. The project report is available here.

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Supervision

I am currently supervising a range of projects on Holocaust memory and other areas. 

Please do get in touch to discuss potential projects on Holocaust studies, memory studies, and societal responses to COVID-19. Have a look at the other profile tabs to see more detail concerning my current work. I am happy to discuss research proposals on any related area so do feel free to get in touch via d.c.tollerton@exeter.ac.uk

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 |

2024

2023

  • Souter L. (2023) Memory Between the Local, the National, and the Transnational: A Study of Holocaust Commemoration in America, Britain, Germany, and Italy in the Twenty-First Century.
  • Tollerton D. (2023) Remembering (and Forgetting) COVID-19 in Britain’s Religious-Secular Landscape, CrossCurrents, volume 72, pages 323-354.
  • Mutton I. (2023) 21st Century Holocaust Memorials in Ottawa and London as National Sacred Spaces.

2022

  • Tollerton D. (2022) COVID-19 Remembrance and Reflection: Lessons from the Past and Attitudes in the Present, University of Exeter / AHRC. [PDF]

2021

  • Tollerton D. (2021) The Religious Challenges of Linking Holocaust Memory with Colonial Violence, The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Genocide, Routledge.
  • Tollerton D. (2021) Art and the (Ir)resolution of Suffering, Artistic Representations of Suffering: Rights, Resistance, and Remembrance, Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Omotoso V. (2021) Imag(in)ing Jesus in the Universal or Particular: Cross-Cultural Bible Film Reception of The Lumo Project: The Gospel of Mark (2014) and Son of Man (2006).

2020

  • Tollerton D. (2020) Visions of Permanence, Realities of Instability: The Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission and the United Kingdom Holocaust Memorial Foundation, The Palgrave Handbook on Britain and the Holocaust449, Palgrave Macmillan, 449-465.
  • Tollerton D. (2020) Holocaust Memory and Britain’s Religious-Secular Landscape: Politics, Sacrality, and Diversity, Routledge, DOI:10.4324/9780429019708.
  • Tollerton DC. (2020) When the Resurrected Biblical Epic Transferred to the Small Screen … and Promptly Died Again: A Critical Autopsy of the 2016 ABC Series Of Kings and Prophets, The Bible on Television, Bloomsbury.

2019

  • Hermanin De Reichenfeld G. (2019) The Role of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of John within Origen's and Augustine's Commentaries.

2018

  • Tollerton DC. (2018) Reconfiguring the Theodicy-Antitheodicy Boundary Among Responses to the Holocaust, The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, volume 26, pages 278-292.

2017

  • Tollerton DC. (2017) “A New Sacred Space in the Centre of London”: The Victoria Tower Gardens Holocaust Memorial and the Religious-Secular Landscape of Contemporary Britain, Journal of Religion and Society, volume 19, pages a-22.
  • Tollerton DC. (2017) The Exile, the Nomad, and the Ghostly: Holocaust Memory and Identities of the Biblical at the Edge of Reception Studies, Biblical Interpretation, volume 25, pages 574-590, DOI:10.1163/15685152-02545P07.
  • Tollerton DC. (2017) Britain’s New Holocaust Memorial as Sacred Site, Material Religion: the Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, volume 13, DOI:10.1080/17432200.2017.1290247.
  • Tollerton DC. (2017) Elie Wiesel and the Biblical Archetypes of the Contemporary Middle East, Journal of the Bible and its Reception, volume 4, no. 1, pages 125-145, DOI:10.1515/jbr-2017-2005.
  • Tollerton DC. (2017) Exodus: Gods and Kings and the Secular-Religious Transgression of Sacred Boundaries, A New Hollywood Moses: On the Spectacle and Reception of Exodus: Gods and Kings, Bloomsbury, 152-166.
  • Tollerton D. (2017) 'Hmmm … But Loved the Plagues': On Engaging with Ridley Scott's Epic and its Audiences, A New Hollywood Moses: On the Spectacle and Reception of Exodus: Gods and Kings, Bloomsbury, 1-8.
  • Various. (2017) A New Hollywood Moses: On the Spectacle and Reception of Exodus: Gods and Kings, Bloomsbury.
  • Tollerton DC. (2017) Moving Beyond ‘Fatwa This!’ Islamic Relationships with Noah and the Flood Narrative, Noah as Antihero, Routledge.

2016

2015

2014

  • Tollerton DC. (2014) Divine Violence Caught on Camera: Negotiating Text and Photography in Broomberg and Chanarin’s Holy Bible, Biblical Reception, volume 3, pages 146-160.

2013

2012

  • Tollerton DC. (2012) Job of Suburbia? A Serious Man and Viewer Perceptions of the Biblical, Journal of Religion and Film, volume 15, no. 2.
  • Tollerton DC. (2012) The Book of Job in Post-Holocaust Thought, Sheffield Phoenix Press.

2011

  • Tollerton DC. (2011) Two Jewish-American Interpretations of the Book of Job in the Aftermath of the Holocaust: A Short Discussion of the Relationship between Job’s Reception and its Ancient Production, Text, Theology and Trowel: Recent Research in Biblical Studies, Wipf and Stock.
  • Tollerton DC. (2011) Midrashic Tradition and Innovation in Post-Holocaust Retellings of Job, Retelling the Bible: Literary, Historical and Social Contexts, Peter Lang Verlag.

2009

  • Tollerton DC. (2009) Reading Job as Theological Disruption for a Post-Holocaust World, Journal of Theological Interpretation, volume 3, no. 2.

2008

  • Tollerton DC. (2008) 'A New Collection of Holy Scriptures'? Assessing Three Ascriptions of the Sacred to Holocaust Testimony within Jewish Theology, Holocaust Studies: a journal of culture and history, volume 14, no. 3.

2007

  • Tollerton DC. (2007) Emancipation from the Whirlwind: Piety and Rebellion among Jewish-American Post-Holocaust and Christian Liberation Readings of Job, Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, volume 2, no. 2.

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External impact and engagement

I have written on Holocaust memory, contemporary politics, and COVID-19 for The Independent, The Guardian, The Times Higher Education, and The Conversation, as well as speaking on BBC radio and at a range of public and school events in around the country. Here are a range of media and blog pieces published:

'Diane Abbott’s Suggestion that Jews Don’t Experience Racism is Not Only Absurd – But Dangerous', The Independent, 24 April 2023.

'Gary Lineker Compared the Goverment’s Asylum Policy to 1930s Nazi Germany. Is That Ever Okay?', The Independent, 10 March 2023.

'There’s a Better Way to Mark the Pandemic than Praising "Heroes" and "Sacrifice", The Independent, 23 March 2022.

‘What can History Tell Us About How to Memorialise the Pandemic?’, Talkabout published by the Marie Curie Trust, 3 August 2020.

‘The Role of Sacrality in British State-Supported Holocaust Remembrance’, LSE British Politics and Policy blog, 25 June 2020.

‘De-Globalised Holocaust Memory and Cultural-Religious Diversity in Britain’, LSE Religion and Global Society blog, 19 February 2020.

‘David Cameron’s For The Record and Public Holocaust Memory’, The British Association for Holocaust Studies blog, 10 November 2019.

'Comparisons Between US Immigration Policy and the Nazi Period may not be Helpful, But They are Hard to Avoid', The Conversation, 25 June 2018.

'Scrap Thought for the Day - For the Love of All that is Holy', The Conversation, 2 November 2017.

'The Problem with London's New Holocaust Memorial', The Conversation, 26 October 2017.

'The Six-Day War and 21st Century Religion in the Public Sphere', Religion Bulletin, 6 June 2017.

'Easter Egg Row is an Undercooked Mess that Feeds English Nationalism', The Conversation, 5 April 2017.

‘In the Age of Trump, Why Bother Teaching Students to Argue Logically?’ The Guardian, 15 November 2016.

‘Universities Should Not Just Condemn “Zionist bashing”, But Also Educate’, Times Higher Education, 10 May, 2016.

‘Should We Compare the Refugee Crisis and the Holocaust in the Lecture Hall?’ Times Higher Education, 8 September 2015.

‘Texas Shooting is a Pointless Chapter in the Story of Intolerance and Extremism’, The Conversation, 8 May 2015.

‘Comparing Hamas to Biblical Cult of Child-Killers is Neither Accurate Nor Helpful’, The Conversation, 20 August 2014.



Contribution to discipline

  • President of the British and Irish Association for Holocaust Studies (2023-24)
  • Secretary of the British Association for Jewish Studies (2019-2023)
  • Co-chair of the AAR 'Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Unit'
  • Editorial board member for Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and Histor

 

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