Professor Jane Shaw

jane shaw

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Professor Jane Shaw, FRHistS

Principal of Harris Manchester College

Professor of the History of Religion & Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford

Professor Shaw is Principal of Harris Manchester College, Professor of the History of Religion and a Pro-Vice-Chancellor in the University of Oxford. Professor Shaw is an historian whose research and writing cover a number of areas: modern religion; the arts; gender; and the impact of technology on society. 

She is the author of several books, including Miracles in Enlightenment England (Yale 2006) and Octavia, Daughter of God: the Story of a Female Messiah and her Followers(Jonathan Cape and Yale, 2011). Gen Z, Explained: the Art of Living in a Digital Age, an interdisciplinary study of Generation Z (18 - 25 year olds), which Professor Shaw wrote with three colleagues, was published by University of Chicago Press in 2021, and came out in paperback in 2022. She is currently writing a book about spirituality and religion in the early twentieth century. 

Before coming to Harris Manchester College, she was Professor of Religious Studies and Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University, and before that Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Prior to that she taught at the University of Oxford for sixteen years. Professor Shaw read History at Oxford as an undergraduate, has a master’s degree in religion from Harvard and a PhD in history from the University of California at Berkeley. 

Within the University of Oxford, Professor Shaw is a Pro-Vice-Chancellor (without Portfolio) and also serves as Chair of the Management Board of the  Rothermere American Institute and Chair of the Pitt Rivers Museum Board of Visitors.

Selected Publications

Gen Z, Explained: the Art of Living in a Digital Age (University of Chicago Press, 2021)

Miracles in Enlightenment England (London & New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006) 

Octavia, Daughter of God: the story of a female messiah and her followers (London: Jonathan Cape; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011) 

Practical Christianity (New York: Church Publishing; 2012)

Pioneers of Modern Spirituality: The Neglected Anglican Innovators of a ‘Spiritual But Not Religious Age’ (London: Darton, Longman and Todd; New York: Church Publishing; 2018)

Edited Books:

The History of a Modern Millennial Movement: The Southcottians edited with Philip Lockley (London: Bloomsbury, 2017) 

Culture and the Nonconformist Tradition edited with Alan Kreider (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)