Heythrop Library

Dr Zita Toth

Dr Zita Toth is a lecturer in Philosophy at King’s College London. Her main research interest is Medieval Philosophy, especially some metaphysical issues bordering on theology, but she also teaches and researches in Philosophy of Religion. Currently, she is working on some later medieval views of creation and divine concurrence.

Dr Toth explained

I have only been in London for a year and half, but have been planning to make it to the Heythrop Library since its collection would be very useful for my research (e.g., in all of London, it’s the only place that seems to have the new Routledge book on divine causation, edited by Ganssle).

Dr Sarah Pawlett Jackson

Dr Sarah Pawlett Jackson is an early-career academic with research interests in the philosophy of intersubjectivity, embodiment and philosophy of religion. She has taught at a number of institutions including Heythrop College, Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, University of Roehampton, St Mellitus College and the University of London.

Dr Pawlett Jackson told us:

The Heythrop Library has been an incredibly useful resource for me as an early-career researcher working in philosophy and theology – as a work space, community and extensive academic resource. I am grateful for the ongoing opportunity that this scholarship therefore enables.

Dr Kathryn Wills

Kathryn Wills completed her doctorate in 2020, after a long career teaching in Catholic schools and completing several MA’s. She embarked on an academic career, passionately committed to Theology and Literature as a new engagement with human experience. She is an independent researcher which makes research in academic libraries problematic.  More at Dr Kathryn Wills – Blackfriars Hall (Oxford).

Dr Wills wrote:

I am currently researching for my next book on René Girard’s mimetic theory in the context of Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, with a view to comparing his ideas with those of the French poet Yves Bonnefoy, who translated these plays into French and wrote introductions exploring an alternative reading of resurrection.

I am also researching for an article in The International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church on the nature of translation of liturgy and the new lectionary.

David Smith, MA (Oxon)

David read Theology at Oxford (Merton College), graduating with a First in 1980. He spent his career in secondary education, as a Head of English (Marlborough College) and, for the last 10 years, taught English at St Paul’s and oversaw the development of its academic digital strategy. He retired in 2016.

David is interested in the work of the English Dominican Cornelius Ernst (1924–1977), researching his life and papers in the English Dominican Archive at Douai Abbey and at the British Library. He was a friend of the visionary artist and writer Timothy Hyman (1946–2024), compiled his bibliography and continues to research his life and work, too. The inter-relationship of art, religious experience and theology interests him greatly.

David wrote:

I’ve been using the Heythrop Library for a couple of years. It’s a warm, friendly place with very helpful, personable staff who always go to great lengths to provide the material I require. I would be delighted to continue my association with it through this generous scholarship scheme.

Dr Anna Westin

Anna (BA, Dip Appl. Ethics, Mag., MA, PG Cert HE, PhD) has completed a PhD in the philosophy of addiction, engaging in the existential and phenomenological approach of Kierkegaard and Levinas at St. Mary’s University, London. She is currently a Lecturer at St. Mellitus College, East Midlands, Visiting Lecturer and Honorary Visiting Fellow at St. Mary’s University, Bakhita Centre for Research on Slavery, Exploitation and Abuse. Anna has published two philosophy manuscripts with Bloomsbury and Routledge, and is working on a current book entitled Embodied Mysticism and Ethics (Bloomsbury). She is the Director of The Willow Network, a research collective engaged with discourses on suffering and healing through the arts, and working with experts-by-experience of human trafficking.

Dr Westin wrote:

As an academic researcher in the London area, I would greatly benefit from the use of the library. Much of my lecturing is done in the East Midlands, and so having a London base of research and study would be invaluable, as I am living in central London. It would also provide an academic community, and sources which are beneficial to my research area of philosophy of religion, and existentialism and phenomenology in particular. Drawing on the Catholic tradition in scholastic engagement with continental thought in particular would be a great help to my work.