Sarah Irving-Stonebraker: re-enchanting the ahistorical age

In our age of self-invention, we are profoundly disconnected from the history that once gave us identity.

Nick Jones

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

A woman sitting in an empty church talks to the camera and gestures with one hand.

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Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is an Australian historian whose new book Priests of History: stewarding the past in an ahistoric age, says that, in our age of self-invention, modern people are profoundly disconnected from the stories, practises and history that once gave them their identity.

Justin and Belle talk to Sarah about re-enchanting an ahistorical age and about her own journey from atheism to Christianity as a young academic at Cambridge and Oxford in the early 2000s.

Visit Sarah Irving-Stonebraker's web site. https://www.stonebraker.com.au/

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Seen & Unseen Aloud

7 April 2025

1 min read

Seen & Unseen Aloud, by Seen & Unseen

A weekly editor's pick of the best of Seen & Unseen magazine.

Nick Jones

Nick is the senior editor of Seen & Unseen.

About Seen & Unseen Aloud

Listen to a curated short selection of the Seen & Unseen editor's top picks from the online magazine.

Episodes usually consist of three or four articles and go live on Mondays.

We also release themed boxsets from time to time.

About the host

Natalie Garrett, who also writes for Seen & Unseen, narrates and produces episodes. Find out more about Natalie and her writing.

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