Peter Sherlock

Peter Sherlock (born 26 October 1972)^[1] is an Australian academic and was the inaugural Vice-Chancellor of the University of Divinity in Melbourne, a role he held between 2012 and March 2024. He specialises in the cultural history of Renaissance and Reformation Europe, and is a recognised authority on historic monuments.^[2]

Peter Sherlock
Vice-Chancellor of University of Divinity
Incumbent
Assumed office 2012
Dean of United Faculty of Theology
In office 2008–2012
Personal details
Born	Peter Sherlock (1972-10-26) 26 October 1972 (age 52)
Alma mater	University of Melbourne, University of Oxford
Profession	academic, historian

Education

Sherlock completed a MA in history at the University of Melbourne.^[3] He held a Commonwealth Scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford from 1997 to 2000.^[2] His D.Phil thesis from the University of Oxford was titled Funeral Monuments: Piety, Honour and Memory in Early Modern England and was supervised by Clive Holmes.^[4] From 2004 to 2008 Sherlock was an Australia Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne.^[5]

Career

Throughout his career Sherlock has made significant contributions to ecumenical theological education and Australian Universities. He served as Dean of the United Faculty of Theology from 2008 to 2012^[5][6] and was appointed as the inaugural Vice-Chancellor of the University of Divinity in 2012.^[2][5] He has been the Chair of the Council of Deans of Theology since 2015 and Treasurer of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies since 2014.^[7][5] He was elected as President of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Theological Schools in 2022.^[8]

Sherlock has also contributed to Australian public theological debate. Between 2013 and 2014 he wrote a column providing religious perspectives on contemporary issues called Theophilus for The Conversation.^[9] He has been a guest on several Australian Broadcasting Commission's Radio National programs^[10][11] and also appeared on episodes of The Drum.^[12]

Sherlock's contributions to the Anglican Church includes serving as the Lay Canon of St Paul's Cathedral Melbourne from 2010 to 2016.^[13] He was editor of the Journal of Anglican Studies from 2020 to 2021.^[14][15] Sherlock he has spoken publicly in favour of the Anglican Church of Australia supporting same-sex marriage. He has been in a long-term same-sex relationship and married his partner in 2018.^[16] Sherlock delivered the 48th Barry Marshall Memorial Lecture, 'Why Australia Needs Theology', at Trinity College, Melbourne in 2017.^[17][18]

Sherlock's research explores Renaissance and Reformation Europe history and theology, especially the commemoration of the dead and cultures of remembering and forgetting. He is a recognised authority on historic monuments.^[19] He has also published in the areas of gender and religion, on theological education, and contributed multiple entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.^[20]

Select publications

Books

• Sherlock, Peter (2008) Monuments and Memory in Early Modern England. Ashgate, Aldershot. 296pp. ISBN 9780754660934
• Cassidy-Welch, Megan and Sherlock, Peter (2008) Practices of Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Turnhout: Brepols (Late medieval and early modern studies, v. 11). ISBN 9782503523361

Book chapters

• Grimshaw, Patricia, and Peter Sherlock (2021) "Women and Cultural Exchanges". In: Critical Readings in the History of Christian Mission (Volume 2). Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, pp. 600–619. doi:10.1163/9789004399594_012
• Sherlock, Peter (2020) "Monuments and the Reformation". In: Memory and the English Reformation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 168–184. ISBN 9781108900157
• Sherlock, Peter (2019) "Sacred memory: The Elizabethan monuments of Westminster Abbey". In: Historicising Heritage and Emotions : The Affective Histories of Blood, Stone and Land. Routledge, London, pp. 67–83. ISBN 9781315472881
• Sherlock, Peter (2018) "Monuments and Memory". In: A History of Early Modern Women's writing. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 292–312. ISBN 9781316480267
• Sherlock, Peter (2017) "The Revolution of Memory: Monuments at Westminster Abbey". In: Revolutionary England, c.1630–c.1660: essays for Clive Holmes. Routledge, London, pp. 201–217. ISBN 9781472438379

Journal articles

• Sherlock, Peter (2016) The Foundation of the Melbourne College of Divinity. Journal of Religious History, 40 (2). pp. 204–224. doi:10.1111/1467-9809.12279