Gareth Evans-Jones

Gareth Evans-Jones is a lecturer of Philosophy and Religion at Bangor University, and is a co-director of the National Centre of Religious Education for Wales.

Gareth's academic interests are varied yet interrelated in religion, philosophy and society. These interests include the reception history of the Bible and its role in contemporary issues; religion, literature and society; the history of slavery and ethics; Judaism and Christianity, and their interfaith dialogue; witchcraft and neopaganism; Welsh Nonconformity and the Welsh in America; nineteenth century print culture; and the role played by religion in maintaining ethnic and national identities in diasporic communities.

His PhD (AHRC funded) explored how the Welsh migrants in the United States used the Bible to respond to 19th century slavery, which was published as a monograph in Welsh by the University of Wales Press in 2002: ‘Mae’r Beibl o’n tu’: ymatebion crefyddol y Cymry yn America i gaethwasiaeth (1838-1868). The monograph was awarded the 2022 Sir Ellis-Griffith Memorial Prize.

Gareth is still studying the field of slavery and religion, and is also researching certain aspects of modern Zionism.

In addition to being an academic, Gareth is also an author, and has written two novels (Eira Llwyd, 2018, and Y Cylch, 2023), a volume of flash fiction and photographs (awarded the Wales Book of the Year Creative Non-Fiction 2023 award), entitled Cylchu Cymru, and has edited the first anthology of queer Welsh-language writing, Curiadau: Blodeugerdd LHDTC+ (Barddas 2023). Gareth was awarded the Playwright Medal at the National Eisteddfod in 2019 and 2021, and has collaborated with several writers and organisations with his poetry writing, including Literature Across Frontiers, and Meta Arts, and his poems have been translated into Czech, Armenian, Polish, Ladakhi, and English.