Professor Hilary Carey

Hilary Carey

Professor Hilary Carey Honorary Member

Citation for award of Honorary Fellowship of the Religious History Association

To Professor Hilary Carey

The Religious History Association and the Journal of Religious History owe a great debt to the initiative and vision of Hilary Carey. As editor of the Journal of Religious History she did much to raise the journal’s profile and lay the foundations for its present flourishing state. As founding president of the Religious History Association she again put in place many of the measures which have enabled the Association to raise the profile of religious history in Australia as well as providing oversight of the journal.  Professor Carey managed to do this while also fulfilling other demanding administrative duties at the University of Newcastle, NSW leading to her present appointment as head of the School of Humanities at Bristol University.

A dedicated scholar she also continued to achieve considerable recognition for her publications and, unusually, did so in two fields: medieval astrology and the interconnections between modern imperialism and religion especially in the British Empire. Recent works still exhibit this considerable range and versatility: they include God’s Empire. Religion and Colonisation in the British World  (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011) and ‘Henry VII’s Book of Astrology and the Tudor Renaissance’, Renaissance Quarterly, 65 (2012), 661-710.

She was also a co-author with the Association’s deputy-president, Glen O’Brien, of the recently published history of Methodism in Australia. As a moving spirit in the revitalisation of the Journal of Religious History, the foundation of the Religious History Association and as a distinguished scholar in the field of religious history Prof. Carey amply merits recognition as an honorary fellow of the Association.