Jo Henderson-Merrygold

Between 2012 and 2014, the Community Religions Projected hosted a Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Research and Leadership Scholar (UGRLS) who was supervised by Dr Mel Prideaux.  Initially our scholar, Jo Merrygold, researched the history of the archive and developed this website.  She subsequently developed her own research project to investigate the location and context of bibles in Leeds City Centre.

Making Research Accessible

Jo Presenting at UGRL

Through her work on the website and in the archive, Jo initially focussed on making research accessible.  She delivered a poster presentation at the Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Research Experience day and a Prezi at the UGRLS conference in 2013.  She subsequently produced a report (forthcoming) on the changing methodologies of the project as part of the Studying Religion in Context module and contributed to an article by Mel Prideaux on the history of the Community Religions Project. In 2014 she presented her research at the Undergraduate Research Experience and UGRLS Conference in a 20-slides-5-minutes challenge style. In 2015 she presented the key research findings, entitled ‘Going on a Bible Hunt,’ at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research held at the University of Winchester, with the support of the Alumni Footsteps fund.

Bibles in Leeds City Centre

For the second half of her project, she developed a research project to research the Bible in Leeds city centre.  Following the 2011 Religious Mapping of Leeds Project, Jo’s research used the same boundaries but focussed on locating bibles in non-religious spaces.  Inspired by the work within the archive, and particularly Prof Kim Knott’s work on space, Jo has located distinct areas within the city centre in which bibles are likely to be found.  She is particularly interested in the associations bibles carry as cultural items, validators of oaths, (generic?) books, symbols of reassurance and security.  Her project identified many areas for future research but confirmed the endurance of the bible as a book which has great cultural significance which is not immediately linked to any religious use or purpose.

Jo was awarded first prize in the 2014 RSA Edward Boyle awards for excellence and achievement in undergraduate research for the work done during her research scholarship.  She was invited to present her research to the RSA in York in March 2014.