New College Festival Programme

Abi Millar: ‘The Spirituality Gap: Searching for Meaning in a Secular Age’

At a time when more and more people in the Western world are moving away from organised religion, what does spirituality look like? Abi grew up in an evangelical church, but after losing her faith, she found herself searching for meaning elsewhere. 

In ‘The Spirituality Gap’, she immerses herself in twelve different practices, ranging from ayahuasca to astrology, reiki to raves. Throughout, she asks, how can we embrace ritual in our own lives, even if we are wary of religion?

Mustafa Briggs: ‘Islam & The Making of The Modern World’

We welcomed Mustafa Briggs to the festival to speak about his new highly anticipated book ‘Islam & The Making of The Modern World’, following the worldwide impact of his 2022 book ‘Beyond Bilal: Black History in Islam’.

The event, which was chaired by Shadaab Rahemtulla, will explore the legacy of Muslim civilizations on science, culture, trade, and politics across the world, and the importance of highlighting these interconnected histories in order to resist Eurocentric accounts.

Sponsored by the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at the School of Divinity, this event drew together Briggs’ knowledge on Islam and Black history, international relations, and inclusive African Islamic scholarship.

Vanessa R. Sasson: ‘The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women’

What do we see differently when we become the creator, rather than the consumer, of stories? This is what Vanessa Sasson, an academic in the field of Buddhist Studies, set out to do in her first novel, ‘Yasodhara and the Buddha’ (Bloomsbury 2021), telling the Buddha’s life story through the eyes and experiences of his abandoned wife.

Her second novel, ‘The Gathering’ (Equinox 2023), goes further still, exploring the story of the first Buddhist women’s request for ordination. Sasson joined Naomi Appleton in conversation as they explored not only the ways in which Sasson’s research feeds into her creative writing, but also how creative writing might be viewed, in itself, as a form of academic practice.

Shannon Vallor: ‘The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking’

How can we find the balance between giving our humanity over to AI and fearfully opposing it? What are the ethical questions we should be asking now? And where does our agency in all this begin and end? Shannon Vallor joined Jeremy Carrette to answer some of these questions raised in her astounding new book, ‘The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking’. This was a fascinating and philosophical journey into Vallor’s expertise on AI, robotics, and data science, and how these significantly reshape human moral character, habits, and practices.

With support from Kenneth and Isabel Morrison.

Entangled Forest: A Creative Writing Workshop with Liz MacWhirter

In a New College Festival of Books and Belief first, we invited you to attend a creative writing workshop guided by author and poet Liz MacWhirter. This is a guided, reflective space to respond creatively in this challenging time.

Attendees could work towards a poem, prose, a manifesto, lament or prayer; the aim is to use language as an act of self-care, resistance and hope. There was prompts for free writing including poems, natural objects and a short film by digital artist Jonathan Kearney. Devices such as list-making and collage will also enable you to explore composting and re-purposing words into poetic forms that serve to both constrain and liberate, whether they retain a poetic structure or lean towards prose.

Nadine Aisha Jassat: Many Ways to Tell a Story

We were delighted to welcome the poet, author and public speaker Nadine Aisha Jassat to speak about her wide-ranging and impactful storytelling career. Her poetry collection, ‘Let Me Tell You This’ has been described as ‘beautifully written, immense and full of passion’ (Nikita Gill) and poems from it feature on the Scottish secondary school curriculum. Her award-nominated children’s stories are ‘charismatic’ and ‘enchanting’ (The Guardian), and 'truly mak[ing] the world a better place’ (Sophie Anderson).

Jassat knows what it is like to be many things at once: she lives in Scotland and grew up in the North of England with a Yorkshire mum and Zimbabwean dad. She is of mixed heritage; a heritage which can only be told in stories. Our chair, Emma Wild-Wood, asked her about these amazing stories, the things that inspire her work, and the many ways in which her writing brings people together.

This event was sponsored by the Scottish Book Trust’s Live Literature fund.

Liz MacWhirter in Conversation with Jane McKie: ‘Blue: A Lament for the Sea’

This event marked the launch of Liz MacWhirter’s beautiful long prose poem ‘Blue: A Lament for the Sea’, accompanied by an underwater film by digital artist and theologian Jonathan Kearney.

The inspiration for ‘Blue’ comes from a medieval prophecy in Scottish Gaelic that foretells an apocalyptic sea flood, above which the sacred Isle of Iona shall arise; words that have wintered a thousand years unfold in the poem, haunting the Anthropocene. The 20-minute performance is a poetic vision of a journey through ecological grief, immersing the audience in a surreal, flooding landscape.

After the poem, Liz was joined in conversation by fellow poet Jane McKie, and the two discussed environment and landscape, the impetus for taking renewed responsibility for the planet, and the contemplative theology of historical figures such as Julian of Norwich.

This event was sponsored by the Scottish Book Trust’s Live Literature fund and run in partnership with the Iona Community.

Religion and Scottish Drama with Greg Walker, Randall Stevenson, Linda McLean and Donald Smith

Attendees joined Greg Walker and Randall Stevenson, the editors of the new ‘Oxford Handbook of Scottish Theatre’ (OUP 2025), as they discuss the unique and fascinating relationship between religion and Scottish drama with two literary legends, Linda McLean and Donald Smith.

The handbook traces Scottish drama from its earliest folk plays to the present day across the Gaelic, Scots and English languages, focusing on pivotal moments in Scottish, European and world history and the ways in which performances of all kinds responded to them. This new handbook also highlights efforts made over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to amplify the voices of working-class, LGBTQ+ and other minoritized communities in Scottish theatre.

This event was sponsored by the Scottish Network for Religion and Literature.

Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin: ‘Ordinary Saints’

Who gets to decide how we are remembered, and who we will become? Drawing from her own experience growing up in a devout Catholic household in Ireland, Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin asks these same questions in her sparkling début novel, ‘Ordinary Saints’. This award-winning novel has received huge praise for its sensitive and compelling treatment of queerness, grief, humour, family, and the Catholic church in contemporary Ireland.

We welcomed Niamh in conversation with our chair, Benjamin Bateman, as they explored identity, belief and human connection in her fiction.