Dr. Rebekah Lamb specialises in theology and the arts, particularly  literature and visual culture, in late modernity. Her research centres on the ways in which art and aesthetics are distinctive and timely modes of theological and philosophical inquiry--especially as related to ethics, practices of devotion and formation. Key figures in her work include John Henry Newman, Thérèse of Lisieux, Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, Christina Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites as well as their inheritors (JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Frances Blogg Chesterton, among others).

Prior to joining St Andrews, Dr Lamb was the inagural Étienne Gilson Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto (St Michael's College) and received her PhD in Victorian and Twentieth-Century British and Irish Literature as well as her Masters in English Literature from Western University (London, ON, Canada).  She holds an Honours BA in Liberal Arts  from the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts and studied at the college's campuses in New Hampshire, USA and Rome, Italy.

Teaching 

DI4936: Theology and Literature

DI5451: Christian Doctrine and the Arts

DI5925: Theology and the Arts (Distance Learning)

DI5453: Practical Criticism

Junior Honours Research Seminar (JHRS)

DI5080: Guided Study (Joseph Pieper)

DI2009: Saints & Cyborgs: The Imagination in Theology and Science. Co-taught with Dr. Joanna Leidenhag and Dr. Gavin Hopps

Research Areas:

Dr. Lamb specialises in theological aesthetics and theologically-informed literature and literary criticism in late modernity. She is currently the Co-Principal Investigator for a two-year project, entitled 'Catholic Women Writers in Scotland and Beyond,' funded by an RSE Collaboration Grant. The primary output of this project will be the first Handbook of Catholic Women Writers, under contract with Oxford University Press, which Dr Lamb is co-editing with four other academics.

Dr Lamb recently co-edited a volume for Religion and Literature (2023) on John Henry Newman and her next book project (under contract with McGill-Queen's University Press) re-evaluates the hermeneutic of disenchantment by examining literature as consolation in modern and contemporary literary case studies, including John Henry Newman and Immaculee Ilibagiza, among others.

She has published numerous articles, encyclopedia entries, handbook and companion entries, book chapters and review essays in Religion and Literature, The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women’s Writing, New Blackfriars, Theology in Scotland, Nova et Vetera, Church Life Journal, Magnificat, Convivium, and elsewhere.

Dr. Lamb frequently writes for public-facing journals and outlets, such as  BBC Scotland, and is often invited to speak on topics relating to her research, the public humanities, and theology's influence on culture. She is a trustee of the Christian Heritage Centre (CHC) at Stonyhurst and serves on the editorial boards of The Newman Studies Journal (NSJ) and CTS Academic.

Theology and Literature; Theological Aesthetics; Literary Theory; Philosophical Ethics; Victorian Culture; Modern Studies; Christian Doctrine and the Arts; The Liberal Arts; Christianity and Culture; Liturgy and Culture; Contemporary Literature