Dr Scholastica Jacob

Academic Summary

Centre for Catholic Studies, University of Durham, PhD in History of Religion and Theology, 2019-22

Birmingham College of Law, Law Society Finals and Law Society Common Professional Examination, Birmingham, 1988-9

University of Lancaster, B.A (hons) History, 1983-6

Research Interests

Benedictine history, female contemplative history and spirituality, history of the book, women’s writing, religion and the study of emotions, development of religious life in the Anglican communion in the nineteenth century, the role of the contemplative life as medium for ecumenical growth

Affiliations

Project Development Manager for the Institute for the Study of Religious Life, St Antony’s Priory, Durham

Library Special Collections Research Assistant, St Mary’s College, Oscott

Secretary, Catholic Record Society

PUBLICATIONS

Forthcoming:

Jacob, Scholastica, ‘From Exile to Exile? The Cambrai Benedictine’s experience of rupture and resettlement’ in Female Religious and Narratives of the French Revolution: Identity, Memory and History, C Begadon and G Betros (ed.) IMEMS Press, Boydell & Brewer, 2023

Jacob, Scholastica, ‘Expulsion and Exile: Religious Narrative as a Therapeutic Response to Trauma’ in M. Cucchiara and L. Zwicker (eds.) Meaning and Order in Public and Private: Women, Religion, and the Emotions in Germany and Beyond, Camden House, 2023

Jacob, Scholastica, The Correspondence between Hamilton Herbert Kelly and Dorothy L. Sayers, 1938­–48, SSM Publications, Durham, 2023

Jacob, Scholastica, From Exile to Exile: Repatriation, Resettlement and the Contemplative Experience of English Benedictine Nuns in England 1795–1838 (editors of Brill have requested submission of full proposal for a new series on Religion and History in the Modern Age)

Published:

Jacob, Scholastica Susan, ‘From Exile to Exile: Repatriation, Resettlement and the Contemplative Experience of English Benedictine Nuns in England 1795–1838’, Durham University, March 2022, etheses.dur.ac.uk.

Jacob, Scholastica (2021) A Brief Narrative of the Seizure of the Benedictine Dames of Cambray by Dame Ann Teresa Partington. In: Duquette N. (eds.) The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Romantic-Era Women’s Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11945-4_131-1

Jacob S. (2021) English Convents. In: Duquette N. (eds.) The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Romantic-Era Women’s Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11945-4_54-1

Jacob, Scholastica, ‘Religious Life for Women in East and Central Africa: a sustainable future’. A summary report of the research project ‘Religious Life for women in East and Central Africa: a sustainable future’ conducted by Dr Catherine Sexton and Dr Maria Calderón Muñoz. April 2020. Available on durham.ac.uk/religiouslife or https://bit.ly/3byvxT3

Jacob, Scholastica, ‘Julian of Norwich’, in Stanbrook Benedictines (Wass, 2017), pp. 24–7.

Jacob, Scholastica (ed.), A Brief Narrative of the Seizure of the Benedictine Dames of Cambray

from the writings of Dame Ann Teresa Partington (Wass, 2016).

Jacob, Scholastica, ‘Stanbrook – Moving On: The Next Instalment’, Benedictine Yearbook, EBC, 2010.

Broadcasts

The Search for the Lost Manuscript – Julian of Norwich, BBC TV documentary film, 2017.

Open Country – Nuns of Yorkshire, BBC Radio 4, March 2013.

Details

After a short career in legal private practice, the Charity Commission and Arts Council, Scholastica was a professed member of the English Benedictine community at Stanbrook Abbey. Between 2002 and 2018 she served the monastery, inter alia, as archivist, assistant novice mistress, teacher of Church history, member of the abbess’ council, mistress of ceremonies, infirmarian and shepherd. During this period, she produced articles on monastic history, gave talks and ran workshops on the role of female religious and Benedictine theology.  In 2018 she took time out of the Abbey to discern her future and spent time at the Margaret Beaufort Institute before moving to Durham for her doctoral studies. She is now based in the Northeast but travels Oscott College to work on the Special Collection, and to religious communities around the country to assist and advise on their archive management and heritage preservation. To this end she is also working on a post graduate Archives and Records Management course at the University of Dundee.

Participation in the Berlin based international conference on Women, Religion, and the history of Emotions in Modern Germany and Beyond in 2022, enabled Scholastica to develop research into the monastery as an emotional community and nuns’ writing as therapeutic as well as spiritual and theological texts. She is currently preparing her contribution to the conference volume due for publication later this year.

Scholastica’s interest in monastic arts and crafts is also providing new research opportunities, while she continues to practice skills of hand spinning and weaving which she learnt at Stanbrook Abbey.