Category Archives: Events

In March 2019, Thomas Pfau (Duke) and I convened a four-day colloquium gathering a small group of theologians, philosophers, literary scholars and poets to read R.M. Rilke’s Duino Elegies and T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets together and discuss their theological and philosophical dimensions.

Left to right: Kevin Hart (Virginia), David Wellbery (Chicago), Malcolm Guite (Cambridge), Judith Wolfe (St Andrews), Rowan Williams (Cambridge), Thomas Pfau (Duke). Not pictured: Christoph Schwöbel (St Andrews), Gavin Hopps (St Andrews)

On Saturday, 16 April 2016, the School of Divinity at St Andrews is hosting a one-day colloquium on the Doctrine of God in conversation with Paul Fiddes.

In conversation with Paul Fiddes, we will discuss pre-circulated papers by

Steve Holmes (St Andrews)
Ian McFarland (Cambridge)
Andrew Moore (Oxford)
John Webster (St Andrews)
Judith Wolfe (St Andrews)

If you would like to participate, please email me (my address can be found on the staff page linked to in the right-hand menu).

Full information is available at the School website.

From April to June, John Perry and I are convening a reading group on C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man for graduates and faculty in theology, philosophy and literature at the University of St Andrews.

We will meet once per week, and read through the book critically, drawing in parallel or supplementary sources such as Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein as appropriate.

After last year’s reading group on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method, this is the second series of Readings in Modern Theology & Philosophy. Next year, I hope to read Edith Stein or Gillian Rose.

Everyone is warmly invited to a podium discussion on science, poetry and theology in conversation, featuring Micheal O’Siadhail (poet), N.T. Wright (biblical scholar), Eric Priest (physicist), and Judith Wolfe (theologian).

The popular image of the scientist in the laboratory is of white-coated boffins dispassionately testing hypotheses and recording data in order to dissolve the mysteries of the world and so grant us mastery over it. The poet, on the other hand, is often portrayed as someone essentially playful in his or her engagement with the world, allowing imagination to run riot, taking liberties with truth and so offering us a pleasurable diversion from reality rather than immersing us more fully in it. What ought we to make of such caricatures? Might science and poetry actually prove to have much more in common than we typically suppose? And what, if anything, have either got to do with the sorts of claims which religious faith typically makes about the world? Scientist Eric Priest, poet Micheal O’Siadhail, biblical scholar Tom Wright and theologian Judith Wolfe will be discussing these questions and others like them in live conversation. All are welcome to come and hear them, and admission is free!

Saturday 10th October, 7pm

Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Queens Terrace, St Andrews, Scotland

I’m speaking at the Telegraph Ways with Words Literary Festival at Dartington Hall on 6 July, on our new book on C.S. Lewis — C.S. Lewis and His Circle — and on Lewis more generally.

The book took seven years to complete, and comprises essays and memoirs by former Inklings, their friends and family members, as well as by scholars including Elizabeth Anscombe, Malcolm Guite, Walter Hooper, Alister McGrath, Tom Shippey, and Rowan Williams.

You can download the festival programme here.

My speaking schedule for 2015 is available here.

If you’re planning to be at Dartingon, please come and say hi!