Dr George Wilkes PhD

Dr George Wilkes

Department of Theology and Religion
Director, Project on Religion and Ethics in the Making of War and Peace
Honorary Fellow, Edward Cadbury Centre

Contact details

I join research specialisms in religion, ethics and conflict in contemporary international affairs with historical interests in Jewish history, Middle Eastern affairs, and interfaith relations.

Qualifications

  • PhD, University of Cambridge

Biography

I am the founding Director of the Religion and Ethics in the Making of War and Peace Project. From 2005 to 2010, I was a Fellow at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge, from 2010 to 2018 a Research Fellow in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, and since then have been a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the School of Security Studies, Kings College London. I have lectured at Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leuven, and Birmingham universities, and have been a board member of the International Council of Christians and Jews and of Relief & Reconciliation Syria. Trained as a contemporary historian, I work on promoting effective cultures of change with peacebuilders, humanitarians and ethics and law teachers in the military.

Research

My research and public policy interests include: religion and interreligious relations in peacebuilding; religion, culture and military ethics education; peacebuilding, inclusion and ethics in the Balkans and Middle East; peace, war and international affairs in Jewish Law and ethics. I have directed a research team since 2011 working on religion and attitudes to reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I also work with research partners teaching ethics and international humanitarian law in militaries around the world, producing collaborative work on education, ethical norms and cultures of change.

Other activities

Publications

  • ‘Cross-Communal Acts of Commemoration Designed to Promote Peace at a Local Level in Bosnia-Herzegovina’, Journal of the British Academy, supplementary Issue on Memorialisation and Sustainable Peacebuilding, Vol. 9, 2021.
  • ‘Reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina’ and ‘Judaism and Peace’, in Jolyon Mitchell, et al, eds, The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Religion and Peace (forthcoming, 2021).
  • ‘Religion and Reconciliation: Power, practice and rejections of the truth and reconciliation project in South African and Bosnian contexts’, in Henry Redwood et al, eds, Reconciliation After War: Historical Perspectives on Transitional Justice (London: Routledge, 2021) pp. 165-179.
  • ‘Interreligious Dialogue and Feelings of Shame and Pride About State Power: A Jewish Contribution’, Religija I Tolerancija, XIX/35, jan-jul 2021, 155-172.
  • ‘Attitudes to “religious conflict” within religious Jewish peace organisations in Israel’, in Afe Adogame and Corey Williams, eds, Religion, Conflict, Violence and Tolerance in Global Perspective (New York: Lexington Books, 2020) pp. 247-65.
  • ‘Shifting The Study Of Interreligious Peacebuilding From Coalitions Of The Willing To Creators Of New Opportunities For Understanding’, in Zorica Kuburić, Ljiljana Ćumura and Ana Zotova, eds, Mir i Pomirenje (Novi Sad: CEIR, 2018) pp. 179-94.
  • ‘Articles 18 and 19: When Freedom of Religion is Pitted against Freedom of Expression’’, Tony Gray et al, eds, Contemporary Human Rights Challenges: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Its Continuing Relevance (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018) pp. 148-59.
  • ‘Evaluating Customised Military Ethics Education Programmes’, in Don Carrick, James Connelly and David Whetham, eds, Professional Military Ethics Education: contemporary challenges and responses (London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 127-41.
  • ‘When international dialogue about military ethics confronts diverse cultural and political practices: ‘Guilt’ as a case in point’, in Peter Olsthoorn and Jelena Vukoicic, eds, Military Ethics and Leadership (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 205-29.
  • ‘Religious pluralism and the Slovenian Military Chaplaincy’, with Gorazd Andrejc, in Torkel Brekke, ed., Military Chaplaincy in an Age of Religious Pluralism (Oxford: OUP, 2017), pp. 39-61.