Religion in Four Contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand Novels
Supervisors
Jane Shaw and Andrew Bowyer
College
Mansfield College
Biography
Vida Long is a third-year DPhil student at the University of Oxford. Her DPhil research is interdisciplinary, synthesising religious studies and postcolonial literary studies. Her thesis examines the articulation of religion/s, secularisation and postcolonial religious change in contemporary novels from Aotearoa New Zealand through a postcolonial postsecular framework. She works on texts by Maurice Gee, Patricia Grace, Keri Hulme and Witi Ihimaera.
Educational Background
Vida gained her BA Hons (1st class) in English Literature and Religious Studies and her MA in Religious Studies from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. Her MA thesis was on religion and New Zealand women’s poetry. She began her DPhil at Oxford in 2022. Her research is supported by the AHRC and Clarendon.
Research Interests
Religion and literature; postcolonial literature; secularisation and religious change; postcolonial religion.
