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Dr Emma Swai

Associate Supervisor
Email: dremmaswai@gmail.com

As an Associate Supervisor for postgraduate supervision at Westcott House, Emma’s areas of specialism include:

  • The portrayal of disability in biblical writings, especially New Testament
  • Disability Theology
  • Linguistic analysis of ecclesiastical texts
  • Positionality and interpretation

Emma has spent over two decades as an educator in some form, first in English Language and Literature at secondary schools, and then in Biblical Studies and Theology, both as a university lecturer and at secondary schools. She completed a lot of her PhD during COVID whilst teaching and supporting students online. This taught her another level of endurance and the ability to empathise with students in a different way.

Her research interests look at the portrayal of disability in New Testament writings. She is also working on how that portrayal ‘transfers’ into mediated objects, such as hymns or sermons. There are lots of questions that overlap with a study of disability, including ones related to animal studies, historical Jesus studies and positionality, so Emma finds herself frequently venturing into these associated areas.

Emma is co-chair of the Bodies of Communication research seminar for EABS and a member of the New Testament Exegesis, Hermeneutics and Theology of the Corpus Paulinum and the Corpus Johanneum research group, based at KU Leuven, Belgium.

The Professional bodies of which Emma is a member include the British New Testament Society, European Association of Biblical Studies, Society of Biblical Literature, British and Irish Association of Practical Theology, Sheffield Centre for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies and the Centre for Cultural Disability Studies.

Outside of academia and research, Emma loves to hide in a good book or enjoys testing out new recipes.

Publications

‘Changing Positionality, Changing Interpretation’ in: D. Bolt (ed.) Cultural Stations of Disability: A Moment in Discourse (London: Routledge, forthcoming).

Guest editor for JLCDS: Space for Interpretation – Reclaiming Disabled Power in Narratives of Belief (forthcoming).

‘Restricted More as a Daughter: The Interaction between Gender and Disability in the Gospel of Luke’ in: EWSTR Journal: Disability, Feminist Theologies and Gender Studies (forthcoming).

‘The Bible and Disability’ in: G. Bennett and E. Goodall (eds.) The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Disability Studies (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).

‘The Choice to Untie a Donkey, Ox or “Daughter of Abraham”’ in: J. D. Strong and R. Zimmermann (eds.)  Animals in the New Testament: Perspectives from Animal Studies and Ancient Discourse (London: T & T Clark, 2025).

‘The Metanarrative of Disability in John 5’ in: Journal of Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (October, 2024).

‘I was blind but now I see’ – The Linguistic Danger of Blindness Worship Metaphors’ in: Hostility, Hymnody, Healing (Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence, September 2024).

The Big Listen – Diocesan Synodal Findings, with Rev Prof Peter McGrail (The Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford, August 2024)

‘Excluded from the Kingdom or Leading the Revolution? Môroi and the Question of Intellectual Disability in New Testament Writings’ with D. Kurek-Chomycz, in: C. Laes and I. Metzler (eds.) Madness in the Ancient World: Innate or Acquired? (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023)

‘How did Lloyd-Jones and Sangster use Scripture in their preaching responses to the outbreak of World War 2? Trialling analytical approaches to the homiletical use of Scripture’ in: Journal of the Evangelical Homiletics Society 23/2 (November 2023)