Sen McGlinn – a short CV

I became a Bahai in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1974 and was part of the small Bahai community of Kaikoura, a coastal town on New Zealand’s South Island. Later I spent some time as a Bahai ‘pioneer’ on the Chatham Islands, and was part of the Bahai communities in various other towns in New Zealand, and later in the Netherlands.

I have served on Local Spiritual Assemblies, as an ‘assistant,’ and on local and regional Bahai committees. I am currently a moderator for the H-Bahai discussion list, and can usually be found for a chin-wag on the Talisman9 discussion list (talisman9-subscribe@yahoogroups.com). In late 2005 I was removed from the rolls of the Bahai community, following a decision of the Universal House of Justice. The documents and a commentary by Baquia are available here. As for myself, the reasons for the decision and the purpose it intends to achieve are not clear to me, and I would prefer not to say anything I am not sure of. I continue as a believing and practicing unenrolled Bahai. There are some informal reflections on being unenrolled in an email called ‘who belongs.’

I am interested especially in Bahai theology (theology is what Bahais usually call ‘deepening,’ but conducted in a systematic and self-critical way) and, within that, in political theology (which Bahais call ‘the social teachings’). I wrote my MA dissertation on Church and State in Islam and the Bahai Faith, and am now working on a study of the institutions of the Bahai community, which is intended to become a PhD thesis.

Some of my poetry can be found on my old web site.

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Permission to use

All the contents of this blog (so far as I own them) have a creative commons copyright. That means you are free to copy, distribute and remix them, but should cite the source (more details in Dutch and in English).

Sen McGlinn’s blog by Sen McGlinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Netherlands License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://senmcglinn.wordpress.com/about/, which is in fact, this page. You can contact me at sen.sonja [at] casema.nl (August 2009)

Most of the small thumbnail images I use come from wikimedia commons and are free for reuse, but I have the quality set low so that my pages load quickly. You will find better quality images by using the search engine at wikimedia.
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Selected publications

‘Resala-ye Madaniya,’ article in Encyclopaedia Iranica, electronic version (http://www.iranica.com/newsite/ ) 2009

A.A. Seyed-Gohrab & S. McGlinn, The Essence of Modernity: Mirza Yusof Khan Musthashar ad-Dowla Tabrizi’s Treatise on Codified Law (Yak Kaleme) (edition, translation and introduction), Amsterdam, Rozenburg Publ. 2007 (second revised edition 2008)

A.A. Seyed-Gohrab & S. McGlinn (eds), The Treasury of Tabriz: The Great Il-Khanid Compendium, Rozenburg Publishers Amsterdam and Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, 2007

A.A. Seyed-Gohrab, S. McGlinn & F. Doufikar-Aerts (eds), Gog and Magog: The Clans of Chaos in World Literature, Rozenburg Publishers Amsterdam and Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, 2007

‘Bahai meets Globalisation’ in Margit Warburg, Annika Hvithamar and Morten Warmind (eds), Baha’i and Globalisation, Aarhus University Press, 2005 ISBN 87 7934 109 8

Church and State: a postmodern political theology (book 1), dissertation, University of Leiden, the Netherlands, distributed as volume 19 of ‘Studies in the Babi and Bahai Religions’ (Kalimat Press, Los Angeles), 2005

‘A difficult case: Beyer’s categories and the Bahá’í Faith’ in Social Compass 50(2), 2003, 247-255

‘A Sermon on the Art of Governance (Resale-ye Siyasiyyah) by `Abdu’l-Baha,’ Translations of Shaykhi, Babi and Baha’i Texts, vol. 7, no. 1 (March, 2003).

‘Theocratic assumptions in Baha’i literature’ in S. Fazel and J. Danesh (eds) Reason and Revelation, Studies in Babi and Baha’i Religions vol. 13, Los Angeles, Kalimat Press, 2002. Pdf version

‘A theology of the state from the Bahá’í Writings’, Journal of Church and State, Vol. 41, Autumn 1999. Online at the Bahai Library

‘Some considerations relating to the inheritance laws of the Aqdas,’ Bahá’í Studies Review, vol. 5 no. 1, 1995

‘Toward the Enlightened Society,’ in Bahai Studies Review, vol. 4 no. 1, 1994, online at the Bahai-library

Reviews:

‘Inner Limits’ : The Inner Limits of Mankind, by Ervin Laszlo, One World, London, 1989 and Faith and World Economy, a Joint Venture, by Giuseppe Robiati. Published by Gruppo Editoriale Insieme, Recco, Italy, 1991. Review published in Associate, Newsletter of the Association for Baha’i Studies (English-Speaking Europe), Issue 7, January 1993

Notes Postmarked the Mountain of God, by Roger White, New Leaf Publishing, Richmond, British Columbia, Review in World Order, 1992

Emergence, Dimensions of a New World Order, Charles Lerche (ed), BPT London 1991. Review, in The Baha’i Studies Review vol. 3 no. 1, 1993

‘Understanding the Gospels,’ a review of Eric Bowes The Gospels and the Christs (Australia: Bahá’í Publishing Trust Australia) in World Order, 26:4 Summer 1995

The Style of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas: Aspects of the Sublime, by Suheil B. Bushrui, Review in Bahá’í Studies Review, vol. 6, 1996.

‘A Detour on the Path to Prosperity,’ review of Giuseppe Robiati’s Faith and World Economy, a Joint Venture: Bahá’í Perspective, trans. Julio Savi (Recco, Italy: Gruppo Editoriale Insieme, 1991), World Order 29:2 Winter 1997

Juan R.I. Cole. Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of the Baha’i Faith in the Nineteenth Century Middle East. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. ISBN 0 231 11080 4; (paper), ISBN 0 231 110812. Reviewed for H-Bahai and available from H-Bahai Reviews.

Juan R.I. Cole. Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of the Baha’i Faith in the Nineteenth Century Middle East. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Reviewed in Iranian Studies 32:4 1999 580-582

The Ocean of His Words: A reader’s guide to the art of Bahá’u’lláh by John S. Hatcher, Bahá’í Publishing Trust, Wilmette 1997, reviewed in the Bahá’í Studies Review, vol. 9, 1999.