This fall, the Divinity School will offer two courses in theology and the arts. Thomas Pfau, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of English at Duke, with secondary appointments in Germanic Languages & Literatures and at the Divinity School, will be offering a course on theology and aesthetics, titled “Incomprehensible Certainty: Iconic Vision and Theological Aesthetics.” This new course will follow the evolving aesthetics of the image, from Plato to St. Theodore, and then trace poetic certitude and theological conviction through the poetry of William Blake and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Daniel Train, post-doctoral associate with Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts, will teach “An Introduction to Christianity and Literature.” The goal of this course is to offer a broad survey of pivotal texts that have characterized Christianity’s often symbiotic engagement with the Western literary imagination. The class will examine the relationship between Christian theology and classical works of Western literature from Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine to David Foster Wallace and the short stories of Raymond Carver.

Rev. Dr. Malcolm Guite, the school's first visiting artist-in-residence, will also be giving lectures throughout the semester. Find events on the DITA calendar »