‘Ben’ Pink Dandelion is Woodbrooke’s Programme Leader for Research.

Ben began his academic work in Quaker studies in the late 1980s, co-founding the Quaker Studies Research Association in 1993. He was assistant Director of the Centre for Quaker Studies at the University of Sunderland, 1994-98, and then initiated what is now the Centre for Research in Quaker Studies in 1998. He has supervised over 100 postgraduate completions.

Ben’s specialism is in the sociology of religion although he has also been published in history, theology, spirituality, travel and urban studies. He also supervises Amish studies.

Ben edited Quaker Studies for 25 years, and spent 6 years on the Steering Group of the American Academy of Religion Quaker Studies Unit. He sits on two editorial boards and is Honorary Professor of Quaker Studies at the University of Birmingham.

Qualifications

BA, PhD

Research Interests

Ben has an ongoing interest in sects, secularisation and internal secularisation, as well as the decennial surveys of Quaker faith and practice.

Publications

Authored:

• Making our Connections: the spirituality of travel. London: SCM, 2013.
• Open for Transformation: being Quaker. London: Quaker Books, 2014.
• With Douglas Gwyn and Timothy Peat,  Heaven on Earth: Quakers and the second coming. Second Edition, Createspace, 2018
• The Cultivation of Conformity: a general theory of internal secularisation, Routledge, 2019.

Edited:

• With Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Religion and Youth. Aldershot, Ashgate, 2010.
• With Margery Post Abbott, Mary Ellen Chijioke, and John Oliver, The Historical Dictionary of Friends (Quakers). Second Edition. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press,  Second Edition, 2011
• With Stephen W. Angell, The Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies, Oxford: OUP, 2013,  (Paperback 2015)
• With Stephen W. Angell, Early Quakers and their Theological Thought 1647 – 1723, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
• With Stephen W. Angell, Quakers, Industry and Technology: FAHE,  2017.
• With Stephen W. Angell, The Cambridge Companion to Quakerism: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• With Rebecca Wynter The Prison Letters of Wilfrid E. Littleboy, Handheld Press, 2020.
• With Stephen W. Angell and David H. Watt, The Quakers 1830 – 1937, New Garden, PA: Penn State University Press, 2023.
• With Stephen W. Angell and David H. Watt, Global Quakerism in a Postcolonial Context: 1938 – 2018, New Garden, PA: Penn State University Press, forthcoming.

Articles

• ‘Guarded Domesticity and Engagement with “the World”: the separate spheres of Quaker Quietism’, Common Knowledge, 16/1 (2010), 95-109.
• With Bill Chadkirk, ‘Present and Prevented 2006 and 2008: Summary Report on the survey of the 11th May 2008 and comparison with the survey of the 7th May 2006’, Quaker Studies, 15 (2010), 84-97.
• With Peter Collins, ‘Transition as Normative: British Quakerism as Liquid Religion’, Journal  of Contemporary Religion 29/2 (2014), 287- 301.
• ‘Friends in Britain’, Quaker Religious Thought  123-24 (2014): 5- 23.
• ‘The British Quaker Survey’, Quaker Religious Thought  123-24 (2014): 136-40.
• With Rhiannon Grant. ‘When two or three are gathered’ in a Zoom Room: The Theology of Online Unprogrammed Quaker Worship’ Quaker Studies 26,  (2021): 279-290.
• ‘Quakers and Host Cultures: towards a theory of accommodation.’ Quaker Studies  27 (2022): 203 – 213.
• ‘Believing and Belonging in Britain Yearly Meeting: the use of serial quantitative studies.’ Quaker Studies  28 (2023): 61 – 77.

 Chapters

• ‘The Implicit Prophet: Larry Ingle’s persistent call to rigour.’ In festschrift for Larry Ingle, edited by Charles Fager, 2011.
• ‘From God’s People to a People of God: theology and testimony as symbols of truth amongst Quakers’ in Dudiak, J., ed., Befriending Truth: Quaker Approaches and Contributions, Philadelphia, PA: FAHE 2015, pp. 82 – 106.
• ‘Quakers and “the world”: religious freedom and citizenship’ in Skeie, G. and  Aarek, H. E., eds, Religious Freedom as seen from a Minority Perspective. Stavanger, Norway: University of Stavanger 2015, pp.21-32.
• With Frederick Martin, ‘ “Outcasts of Israel”: the apocalyptic theology of Edward Burrough and Francis Howgill’ in Angell, S. W. and Dandelion, P. Early Quakers and Their Theological Thought 1647 – 1723.  Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, pp. 118 – 36.
• ‘The Layered Theoscape of Philadelphia: the Quaker experiment as a religious crucible.’ in Eric Nelson and Jon Wright eds  Sacred Landcsapes, London: Routledge, 2017, pp.150 – 66.
• ‘Revelation 3:20’ in Timotheos Tsohantaridis and John S. Knox, eds, God in the Details: a biblical survey of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt,   2018, pp. 349 – 51.
• With Timothy Burdick, ‘Global Quakerism 1920 – 2000’ in Angell, S.W. and Dandelion, P., eds, The Cambridge Companion to Quakerism: CUP,  2018, pp. 49-65.
• ‘The Quakers’ in Possami, A. and Blasi, A. eds. The Sage Encyclopaedia of the Sociology of Religion, Volume 2: Sage, 2020.
• ‘Testimony as Consequence: the reinvention of tradition’ in Daniels, W and Grant, R, eds, The Quaker World.  London: Routledge, 2022.
• ‘Introduction: the remapping of Quakerism 1830-1937.’ in Angell, S.W., Dandelion, P., and Watt, D.H., eds,  The Quakers 1830 – 1937, New Garden, PA: Penn State Press, 2023.
• ‘Time Journeys in Quakerism: Itinerance and the Spiritual Search’ in Brunn, S., ed., Time Journeys.  Waco, Tx: Baylor Press, forthcoming.