Jolyon Mitchell is Professor of Communications, Arts and Religion and has also served as Academic Director and Acting Director of IASH at the University of Edinburgh. Professor Mitchell's research and teaching focuses on Religion, Violence and Peacebuilding with particular reference to the arts (e.g. film, theatre, radio, visual arts as well as other new and old media). He has written and published extensively in these and related areas. His books include Promoting Peace, Inciting Violence: The Role of Religion and Media (Routledge, 2012), Martyrdom: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2012), and Media Violence and Christian Ethics (CUP, 2007). He is currently working on books related to Theatre and Religion and Peacebuilding and the Arts.
Educated at the Universities of Cambridge (BA, MA), Durham (MA, Cert. Th.), and Edinburgh (PhD), Jolyon Mitchell worked as a producer and journalist for BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4 before he was appointed to the University of Edinburgh. As Director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues (CTPI), President of the national association for Theology and Religious Studies (TRS-UK) he directs a number of interdisciplinary research projects and helps to host a wide range of public lectures and events. He was recently appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).
Professor Mitchell has worked with numerous post-docs, supervised over twenty doctorates and well over 100 other postgraduates. Many of these completed doctorates have been published as books or articles. His former students now work in a wide range of countries all over the world. He continues to supervise and work with a wide range of doctoral students. Professor Mitchell has himself given numerous invited lectures around the world including at the Gregorian University in Rome, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of the Philippines, the University of Sydney, the University of Tehran, the Theology Faculty at Butare, Rwanda and the Vrije University in Amsterdam as well as all over the UK, Ireland and different parts of North America.