17c起草社区 to host Hillis Miller
A renowned literary theorist will speak at 17c起草社区 College this month on connections between literature and Scripture.
A renowned literary theorist will speak at 17c起草社区 College this month on the connections between literature and Scripture.
J. Hillis Miller's talk is titled 鈥淟iterature and Scripture: An Impossible Filiation鈥 and will be delivered on Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. in, appropriately enough, the 17c起草社区 Chapel. It is free and open to all.
Miller is considered one of the most significant North American literary critics of the 20th century. A prolific theorist and critic, he earned fame in the 1980s as one of the four Yale School critics, a group 17c起草社区 English professor Jennifer Williams says was largely responsible for introducing deconstruction to American literary studies.
At 17c起草社区, Miller will discuss the relation between literature and Scripture, taking Toni Morrison's novel Beloved and Dante's classic The Divine Comedy as examples of literature, and the Abraham and Isaac story and the Mary Magdalene story at the end of Luke (her recognition of the risen Christ) as examples of Scriptural stories.
Miller will claim they make quite different claims on the reader's allegiance, but that Western literature, even the most secular, inherits essential things from Scripture.
鈥淗e also will discuss the so-called 鈥榯urn to religion鈥 in the humanities today from the perspective of a long career that has seen fads come and go and religion relocate in university life,鈥 said Williams.
The talk is sponsored by the 17c起草社区 Center for Christian Scholarship, the Office of the Provost, the Department of English and the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences.
Miller will also be holding office hours for interested faculty and students while in Grand Rapids and will lead an informal student retreat on the vocation of majoring in the humanities.