Curriculum Vitae
CV Franke 2024
William Franke https://as.vanderbilt.edu/french-italian/faculty/william-franke/
Department of French and Italian email: william.franke@vanderbilt.edu
Vanderbilt University telephone: (615) 322-6900
Nashville, Tennessee fax: (615) 322-6909
ACADEMIC DEGREES:
1988-91 Stanford University, Ph. D. in Comparative Literature
(Thesis: Dante’s Divinatory Hermeneutic: Towards a Poetics of Religious Revelation. Committee: Jeffrey Schnapp, John Freccero, Robert Harrison, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht)
1986-88 University of California at Berkeley, M.A. in Comparative Literature
1978-80 Oxford University, M.A. in Philosophy and Theology
1974-78 Williams College, B.A. in Philosophy, summa cum laude
EMPLOYMENT:
1991 – present Vanderbilt University (USA)
Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian
and Professor of Religious Studies
2012 – 2016 University of Macao (China, SAR) (concurrent with Vanderbilt appointment)
Professor Catedrático and Head of Philosophy and Religious Studies
2012 University of Hong Kong, Professor of European Studies with tenure [declined]
International Visiting Appointments and Teaching Abroad
- Visiting Professor (Profesorado Internacional), University of Navarra (Spain), Departamento de Filosofía (Philosophy Department), Facultad de Filosofía y Letras + research fellow of Instituto Cultura y sociedad (ICS), Proyecto Sociedad Civil y Religión, Spring, 2020
- Philosophy Department, University of Frankfurt, Block-Seminar: “Apophatische Theologie und neuzeitliche Philosophie,” Summer Semester 2016
- Visiting Fellow in Philosophy and Religions, University of Macao (China), Fall 2011
- Research Scholar in Residence, University of Salzburg (Austria), Summer 2008
- Professor of French in Residence, Vanderbilt-in-France, Aix-en-Provence, Spring and Fall 2008
- Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Intercultural Theology and Study of Religion,
University of Salzburg, Center for Intercultural Theology and Study of Religions
(Zentrum Theologie Interkulturell und Studium der Religionen), 2006-07
- Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Hong Kong, Fall 2005
- Faculty, Collegium Phaenomenologicum, Perugia, Italy, Summer, 1992, 1993
ACADEMIC AWARDS AND HONORS:
Fellowships
- Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), University of Navarra, Spring 2020
- Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Full-year research fellowship in Germany, 1994-95
(affiliated with Universität Potsdam, sponsored by Prof. Dr. Helena Harth)
- Bogliasco Foundation (Genova, Italy), Fellow in Philosophy, Spring 2006
- Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France), Residential Research Fellowship, Fall 2000
- Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities (Vanderbilt), Fellow, 1995-96
(year-long weekly seminar on the Millennium, with stipend)
- Stanford Fellowship (in lieu of New Century Fellowship at University of Chicago
and University Fellowship at Yale), 1988-91
- John E. Moody Scholarship, Oxford University, 1978-80
Honors and Awards
- Honorary Professor (Profesore Honoris Causa), 2021
Agora Hermeneutica, The International Institute for Hermeneutics (IIH)
- Hermes Award: Book of the Year in Phenomenological Hermeneutics,
Agora Hermeneutica, The International Institute for Hermeneutics (IIH), 2021
- HolyLit: Religion and Literature, Freie Universität Berlin & Harvard University,
Fellow, 2016-present
- The International Institute for Hermeneutics (IIH), Senior Fellow, 2015-21
- Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, Philippines, Certificate of Appreciation, 2015
- Dante Society Executive Council, by general election of the Dante Society of America, 2007-2010
- Rosenberg Poetry Prize, UC Berkeley, 1987
- Skeat-Whitfield Essay Prize in English, Oxford University, 1979
- John W. Miller Prize in Philosophy, Williams College, 1978
- Phi Beta Kappa, 1977
Grants and Stipends
- Multi-Year Research Grant, Level IV (highest) 1,500,000 MOP (= 152,000 Euros or $188,000 USD) from Macao Government for “Apophatic Paths from Europe to China” research project (2014-17)
- Start-Up Research Grant, 150,000 MOP (=18,800 USD), University of Macao, 2013
- Research Scholar Grant for translation into German of Poetry and Apocalypse,
Vanderbilt University Research Council, Summer 2008-09
- Research Grant for On What Cannot Be Said, Vanderbilt University Research Council, 2002
- Travel Awards from the Istituto Italiano per gli studi filosofici, Naples, 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998
- Direct Research Support Grant, Vanderbilt University Research Council, Summer 1996
- Summer Research Grant, Vanderbilt University Research Council, Italy 1992
PUBLICATIONS:
Books (Single-Authored)
- Dantologies: Theoretical and Theological Turns in Dante Studies
New York: Routledge, 2023 (forthcoming)
Routledge Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture
- The Divine Vision of Dante’s Paradiso: The Metaphysics of Representation
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021 (304 + xx pages)
- Dante’s Vita Nuova and the New Testament:
Hermeneutics and the Poetics of Revelation
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021 (299 + xix pages)
- Dante’s Paradiso and the Theological Origins of Modern Thought:
Toward a Speculative Philosophy of Self-Reflection
New York: Routledge, 2021 (334 + xxii pages)
Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature Series
- On the Universality of What is Not: The Apophatic Turn in Critical Thinking
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020 (450 pages + xii)
- Apophatic Paths from Europe to China: Regions Without Borders
Albany: SUNY (State University of New York) Press, 2018 (246 + xxii pages),
Series on Chinese Philosophy and Culture, edited by Roger Ames
- A Theology of Literature: The Bible as Revelation in the Tradition of the Humanities
Cascade Companions series, Cascade Books Imprint
Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2017 (103 + x pages)
- Secular Scriptures: Modern Theological Poetics in the Wake of Dante
Columbus: The Ohio State University Press: 2016 (256 + xii pages)
Literature, Religion, and Postsecular Studies series, edited by Lori Branch
- The Revelation of Imagination:
From Homer and the Bible through Virgil and Augustine to Dante
Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2015 (424 + xii pages)
- A Philosophy of the Unsayable
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014 (384 + viii pages)
- Dante and the Sense of Transgression: ‘The Trespass of the Sign’
London and New York: Continuum [Bloomsbury Academic], 2013
Invited for New Directions in Religion and Literature Series,
edited by Mark Knight and Emma Mason (200 + xv pages)
- Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language
Stanford: Stanford University Press: 2009 (211 + xiv pages)
Translated into German by Ursula Liebing and Michael Sonntag as:
Dichtung und Apokalypse: Theologische Erschliessungen der dichterischen Sprache
Aus dem Amerikanischen von Ursula Liebing und Michael Sonntag
Salzburger Theologische Studien Band 39 (Interkulturell 6)
Innsbruck: Tyrolia Verlag, 2011 (216 pages)
- On What Cannot Be Said: Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and the Arts
Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
Edited with Theoretical and Critical Essays by William Franke
Vol. I: Classic Formulations (401 + xi pages)
- On What Cannot Be Said: Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and the Arts
Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
Edited with Theoretical and Critical Essays by William Franke
Vol. II: Modern and Contemporary Transformations (480 + viii pages)
- Dante’s Interpretive Journey
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996 (242 + xi pages)
Religion and Postmodernism series, edited by Mark C. Taylor
Edited Volumes
- Sprache der Migration – Migration der Sprache. Sprachidentitäten und transkulturelle Literatur im Zeitalter der Globalisierungsprozesse, XIV. Kongressakten der Internationalen Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG), Palermo 2021 (Bd.7)
Hg. von (edited by) Sandro M. Moraldo, Max Graff und William Franke.
In Wege der Germanistik in transkultureller Perspektive. Akten des XIV. Kongresses der Internationalen Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG), Bd. 7, hg. v. Laura Auteri, Natascia Barrale, Arianna Di Bella u. Sabine Hoffmann (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2022)
- Transcendence, Immanence, and Intercultural Philosophy
Edited by Nahum Brown and William Franke
London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016 (327 pages)
Articles and Essays
(In press or under contract and awaiting publication)
- “Justice and Mercy as Spectacle in the Heaven of Jupiter”
Giustizia e misericordia nell’età di Dante
(Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2023), forthcoming
- “Dante and Islamic Philosophy: The Apophatic Connection at the Source of Modern Thought,”
Dante und Islam, ed. Kyuhee Park and Aurelia Maruggi, Veröffentlichungen des Grabmann-Institutes zur Erforschung der mittelalterlichen Theologie und Philosophie,
forthcoming in 2024
- “Apophatic Paths from Europe to China: Method and Mysticism in Intercultural Philosophy”
The Routledge Handbook of Comparative Mysticism, in series Routledge Handbooks in Religion,
eds. Louise Nelstrop and Saiko Yazaki
- “Paradiso XXVII. Heavenly Glory and Human Misery:
The Compenetration of the Abject and the Exalted”
California Lectura Dantis, eds. Allen Mandelbaum and Anthony Oldcorn (Berkeley: University of
California Press, forthcoming)
- “Not War, nor Peace. Are War and Peace Mutually Exclusive Alternatives?”
War: Hot, Cold… & Tepid? Special Issue of Continental Thought and Theory,
- Cindy Zeiher and Mike Grimshaw
2023
- “Negative Theology and Theophany in Dante’s Paradiso,”
Verbum Vitae 41/1 (2023):
- “Perspective Chapter: Liberal Arts Education Worldwide Ltd. Inc. –
The Unspeakable Basis of Comparative Humanities,”
in Multiculturalism and Interculturalism, ed. Muhammad Mohiuddin,
Sreenivasan Jayashree and Tareque Aziz (IntechOpen, 2023), 1-15
- “Afterword” to A Heart of Flesh: William Desmond and the Bible, ed. Steven E. Knepper, Forward
Cyril O’Regan, Afterward William Franke (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2023)
- “Irony,” commissioned article, major entry
The Chaucer Encyclopedia (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023), eds. Richard Neuhauser, Vincent Gillespie, Jessica Rosenfeld, and Katie Walter
2022
- “Prolegomena to a Speculative Criticism of Literature,”
Analecta Hermeneutica 14/2 (2022): 194-205
Commencement, Continuation, Conversation: Commencement Addresses
- “Theory and Theology as Driving Forces in the Globalization of Dante,”
La mondializzazione di Dante, I Europa, Atti del Convegno Internazionale
(Nancy, 7-8 ottobre 2021), eds. Antonella Braida, Joseph Cadeddu, and Giuseppe
Sangirardi (Ravenna: Longo, 2022), 211-30
- “Muslim Traditions of Learned Ignorance: Apophatic Paths in Islam,”
Critical Muslim 42, Summer (2022): 61-75
Special Issue on Ignorance, ed. Ziauddin Sardar
- “Hamlet and the Philosophical Interpretation of Literature,” Phainomena 120/21 (2022): 213-30
Special Issue on Hermeneutics and Literature
- “Einleitung: Sprache der Migration – Migration der Sprache. Sprachidentitäten und transkulturelle
Literatur im Zeitalter der Globalizierungsprozesse,” with Max Graff and Sandro Moraldo,
Wege der Germanistik in transkultureller Perspektive. Akten des XIV. Kongresses der Internationalen Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG), Bd. 7, hg. v. Laura Auteri, Natascia Barrale, Arianna Di Bella u. Sabine Hoffmann
- “Die Aufgabe der Literatur in der globalisierenden Welt, oder Begegnung mit dem Unvergleichbarem:
Walter Benjamin und die Weltliteratur,”
Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik, Sonderausgabe 7 (2022): 569-80,
Wege der Germanistik in transkultureller Perspektive,
Akten des XIV. Kongresses der Internationalen Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG) (Bd. 7),
- Laura Auteri, Natascia Barrale, Arianna Di Bella, Sabine Hoffmann
- “Il sacro irriconoscibile: Universalità cognitiva tra scienza e discipline umanistiche,”
in Quel che resta del sacro: Tra spiritualità e neuroscienze, eds. Andrea Aguti,
Giorgio Sandrini, Walter Minella, Andrea Loffi, Paolo Mazzarello
(Milan: Mimesis, 2022), 191-232
- “Apophatic Ignorance and its Applications,”
Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies, 2nd ed.
eds. Matthias Gross and Linsey McGoey
(New York: Routledge, 2022), 26-35
- “Revelation: Mallarmé and the Negativity of Prophetic Revelation in Modern Literature,”
in Literature and Religious Experience, ed. Matthew J. Smith and Caleb D. Spencer
(London: Bloomsbury, 2022), 21-38
- “Modernist Re-makings of Prophetic Poetry by Pound and Eliot”
The T. S. Eliot Studies Annual 4 (2022): 105-120,
Special Issue: “The Waste Land at 100,”
eds. Frances Dickey, Julia Daniel
2021
- “Dante’s Theology and Contemporary Thought: Recovering Transcendence?”
Forum Italicum 55/2 (2021): 627-41
Special Issue in honor of the seventh centennial of Dante’s death,
eds. Rachel Jacoff and Lino Pertile.
- “Amphibolies of the Postmodern: Hyper-Secularity or the Return of the Religious?”
Sacred and the Everyday: Comparative Approaches to Literature, Religious and Sacred,
- Stephen Morgan (Macau: University of Saint Joseph Academic Press, 2021), 9-33
- “Tanto onesta, tanto gentile pare,” in Citar Dante: Espressioni dantesche nell’Italiano di oggi, eds.
Irene Chirico, Paolo Dainotti, and Marco Galdi (Athens: ETP Books, 2021), 272-75.
(Lectura Dantis Metelliana, 2021), Saggi e critici 11
- “Representing the Other: Dante, Duns Scotus, and the Crisis of Representation in the Modern Age”
Dante and the Other, ed. Aaron Daniels (New York: Routledge, 2021), pp. 51-71,
Psychology and the Other book series
2020
- “Why an Open or ‘Public’ Sphere is Necessary to Civil Society and its Entanglement with Religion”
Epilogue to Public Sphere and Religion: An Entangled Relationship in History, Education, and Society, ed. Carl Antonius Lemke (Hildesheim: Olmes, 2020), 230-49
- “Poetry as Prophecy: From Anthropological Origins to Postmodern Apocalypses,” in
Prophetic Witness and the Reimagining of the World: Poetry, Theology and Philosophy in Dialogue, eds. Mark S. Burrows, Hilary Davies, Josephine von Zitzewitz,
vol. V of “The Power of the Word” (London: Routledge, 2021), pp. 9-30
(keynote speech for The Power of the Word International Conference V, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, September 2017)
- “Eastern and Western Apophatic Paths between Pre-Modern Divinity and Post-Modern Secularity,”
Tamkang Review: A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies 50/2 (2020): 3-30
(keynote speech for Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies [TACMRS], National Chi Nan University, Taiwan, October 2018)
- “De Dante à Mallarmé à travers l’Hamlet de Shakespeare: Négativité de la révélation poético-
prophétique dans la modernité,” Dante and Shakespeare: Cosmologie, politique, poétique, eds, Pascale Drouet and Isabelle Battesti (Paris: Éditeurs Classiques Garnier, 2020), 65-83
- “The Vision of Language in Paradiso XVIII in Light of Speculative Grammar”
Letteratura italiana antica, XXI, special issue in honor of Antonio Lanza,
eds. Marta Ceci e Marcellina Troncarelli (Rome: Serra, 2020), vol. 2, pp. 215-25.
- “Amphibolies of the Postmodern: Hyper-Secularity or the Return of Religion?”
“houxiandai de hanhun : chaoshisu haishi zongjiao de huigui?”
??现??含混:?世俗还?宗教?回归?》
Translated into Chinese by Gong Kexin
Journal for Christian Culture Studies, 2020
2019
- “Altizer and the Christian Epic Tradition”
Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 19/1 (2019-20): 134-48,
Special Issue: Thomas J. J. Altizer, ed. Lissa McCullough
- “Christliche Offenbarung mittels lyrische Dichtung: Dantes Vita nuova und das Neue Testament,”
in Christlicher Humanismus: Festschrift für Sigmund Bonk, ed. Veit Neumann and Susanna Biber (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2019), 117-138.
- “A Negative Theological Critique of Postmodern Identity Politics”
Religions 10/488 (2019): 1-15, Special Issue on “Christian Literary Imagination: Seeking Transcendence in an Age of Identity,” ed. Christopher Denny
- “Schrift als Theophanie in Dantes Paradiso: Das Medium als Metapher für die göttliche
Unmittelbarkeit” [“Writing as Theophany: Dante’s Scriptural Epiphany and the Medium as Metaphor for Immediacy”], in Schrift und Graphisches im Vergleich. Beiträge zur XVII. Tagung der DGAVL in Bochum vom 06. bis 09. Juni 2017, eds. Monika Schmitz-Emans, Linda Simonis, and Simone Sauer-Kretschmer (Bielefeld, Germany: Aisthesis Verlag, 2019), 59-70
2018
- “Thinking in the Gap between the Cultures of Greece and China”
Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy 47 (2018): 45-49
- “Religion and Representation: Dante Studies After the Theological Turn,”
The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory 26/1 (2018): 86-105
- “World Literature and the Encounter with the Other: A Means or a Menace?”
Tensions in World Literature: Between the Local and the Universal,
- Weigui Fang (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), pp. 113-146
- “Hema de mingxiang yu shensheng de miusi—zuowei chuangzao yu qishi de shishi songge”
荷马的冥想与神圣的缪斯—作为创造与启示的史诗颂歌
(“Homer’s Musings and the Divine Muse: Epic Song as Invention and as Revelation”). Translated into Chinese by Zhaobo, in Kuawenhuayanjiu 跨文化研究 (Transcultural Studies)
(Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2018), Special Issue: Homeric World, pp. 69-98.
- “Tradition” in Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory
(London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), ed. Jeffrey R. Di Leo, pp. 721-23.
- “Unsayability and the Promise of Salvation: An Apophatics of the World to Come”
Ewiges Leben. Ende oder Umbau einer Erlösungsreligion, eds. Günter Thomas and Markus Höfner, Religion und Aufklärung series (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), pp. 303-16
- “A Theology of Human Encounter: Montemaggi’s Professional-Personal Testament”
Literature and Theology 32/4 (2018): 475-496
2017
- “dongya ruxue wenhua de renwen xueke jiaoyu yu bijiao renwenxue jichu”
《东亚儒学文化的人文学科教育与比较人文学基础》(“Study on the Basis of Humanities
Education and Comparative Humanities of Confucian Culture in East Asia”)
Translated into Chinese by Shi Yuanhui
Journal of Jiangnan University (Humanities & Social Sciences Edition) 16/5 (2017): 5-10
- “Paul Celan, Dante’s Manfred, and the Woundedness of Language as our Common Bond”
Compar(a)ison: An International Journal of Comparative Literature 2013/1 (2017): 131-143, Special Issue: Paul Celan Today, edited by Michael Jacob
- “Betwixt and Amidst: Mixed Genres of Sophia,” Chapter 6 in
Contemporary Debates in Negative Theology and Philosophy, eds. J. Aaron Simmons and Nahum Brown (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion Series, pp. 81-106
- “Concluding Responses: New Apophatic Paths in Critical Thinking,” in
Contemporary Debates in Negative Theology and Philosophy, eds. J. Aaron Simmons and Nahum Brown (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion Series, pp. 371-87
- “Apophatic Universalism East and West:
Rethinking Universality Today in the Interstices between Cultures,” chapter 13 in
Contemporary Debates in Negative Theology and Philosophy, eds. J. Aaron Simmons and Nahum Brown (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion Series, pp. 263-292
- “Augustine’s Discovery of Reading as Revelation: Conversion by the Book”
In The Confessions of Augustine, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, vol. 185
(Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2017), pp. 80-90
[Reprinted from The Revelation of Imagination (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2015), chapter 4 (subsection IV: Conversion by the Book), pp. 267-282]
- “Religion and Representation,” with Chance Woods
Sec. 2: “Religious Belief and the Cultural Limits of Representation”
The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory 1/25 (2017): 19-42
- “The Negative Theology of Wallace Stevens’s “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”
Religions 8/4 (2017): 54 (1-9), Special Issue on “English Poetry and Christianity,”
edited by Kevin Hart
- “Shijie wenxue he yutazhe xiangyu : yizhong fangfa haishi yizhong weixie?”
《世界文学和与他者相遇:一种方法还是一种威胁?》
(“World Literature and the Encounter with the Other: A Means or a Menace?”)
Translated into Chinese by Gao Wenchun, in: Sixiang yu fangfa: difangxing yu pushixing zhijian de shijie wenxue 思想與方法:地方性與普世性之間的世界文學 (Ideas and Methods: World Literature Between the Local and the Universal), ed. Fang Weigui 方維規 (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2017), pp. 78-102
2016
- “Betwixt and Amidst: Mixed Genres of Sophia: A Response to Sai Bhatawadekar, W. C. Hackett,
Kevin Hart, J. Aaron Simmons, Stephen Palmquist,” Syndicate Theology 3/2 (2016): 136-48.
- “Classical Chinese Thought and the Sense of Transcendence”
Transcendence, Immanence, and Intercultural Philosophy
Eds. Nahum Brown and William Franke (New York: Palgrave, 2016), pp. 35-66
- “Equivocations of ‘Transcendence’: Responses to Roger Ames”
Transcendence, Immanence, and Intercultural Philosophy
Eds. Nahum Brown and William Franke (New York: Palgrave, 2016), pp. 67-78
- “Nothingness and the Aspiration to Universality in the Poetic ‘Making’ of Sense:
An Essay in Comparative East-West Poetics”
Asian Philosophy: An International Journal of the Philosophical Traditions of the East 26/3 (2016): 241-64
- “Poetry, Prophecy, and Revelation”
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion
Ed. John Barton (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016)
(http://religion.oxfordre.com), 1-25
- “The Philosopher or the Sage: Apophaticism in Europe and China”
In Wisdom and Philosophy: Contemporary and Comparative Approaches
Eds. Hans-Georg Moeller and Andrew Whitehead
(London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), pp. 55-73
- “Saint Paul Among the Theorists: A Genealogy of the New Universalism”
Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion, ed. Mark Knight
(New York: Routledge, 2016), pp. 146-55
- “The Religious Vocation of Secular Literature: Dante and Postmodern Thought,”
In Letteratura Italiana e religione (Religion and Literature in Italian Tradition), ed. Salvatore Bancheri and Francesco Guardini (Florence: Franco Cesati, 2016), pp. 49-68
- “Writings and Revelation: Literary Theology in the Bible,”
Literature and Theology 30/1 (2016): 51-66
2015
- “The Ethical Import of (Negative) Theology in Intercultural Dialogue:
Eine Ausseinandersetzung mit François Jullien,” in Ethik zwischen Vernunft
und Glaube. Brennpunkte und Gegenwartsfragen im interkulturellen Diskurs
[Transcending Boundaries. Practical Philosophy from Intercultural
Perspectives], ed. Walter Schweidler (Eichstätt/Ingoldstadt: Academia Verlag-Sankt Augustine, 2015), series: West-östliche Denkwege, pp. 75-90
- “Involved Knowing: On the Poetic Epistemology of the Humanities”
Humanities 4/4 (2015): 600-22, Special Issue on “The Challenges of the Humanities, Past, Present, and Future,” vol. 2, ed. Albrecht Classen
[reprinted revised from The European Legacy: Towards New Paradigms 16/4 (2011): 447-68]
- “Acknowledging Unknowing:
Stanley Cavell and the Philosophical Criticism of Literature”
Philosophy and Literature 39/1 (2015): 248-258
- “Agamben’s Logic of the Exception and Its Apophatic Roots and Offshoots”
Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 41/2 (2015): 95-120
- “Intercultural Dia-logue and Its Apophatic Interstices”
Bulletin of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, vol. 25, no. 1 (2015/4): 1-23
- “William Franke on Edmond Jabès” in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, vol. 304,
- Lawrence J. Trudeau (Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2015), pp. 202-217
[reprinted from A Philosophy of the Unsayable, chapter 4, section ii]
- 100. “Language and Transcendence in Dante’s Paradiso”
The Poetics of Transcendence,
eds. Elisa Heinämäki, P.M. Mehtonen, and Antti Salminen
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2015), Currents of Encounter series, vol. 38, pp. 107-131
- “Le dia-logue et son au-delà apophatique : avec François Jullien”
Des possibles de la pensée: L’itinéraire philosophique de François Jullien
Eds. Françoise Gaillard and Philippe Ratte with Nathalie Schnur
(Paris: Éditions Hermann, 2015), pp. 277-298
- “Le commencement et la fin de la philosophie dans la mystique apophatique:
De Platon au postmodernisme”
In Philosophie et mystique chez Stanislas Breton : Colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle (août 2011)
Eds. Jean Greisch, Jérôme de Gramont, and Marie-Odile Métral
(Paris: Éditions le Cerf, 2015), pp. 129-43.
- “Learned Ignorance: The Apophatic Tradition of Cultivating the Virtue of Unknowing”
Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies,
eds. Matthias Gross and Linsey McGoey
(New York: Routledge, 2015), pp. 26-35
2014
- “Professional Dantology and the Human Significance of Dante Studies”
Diacritics: A Review of Contemporary Criticism 42/4 (2014): 54-71
- “The New Apophatic Universalism: Deconstructive Critical Theories
and Open Togetherness in the European Tradition”
Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy 21 (2014): 86-101
- “Symbol and Allegory”
The Routledge Companion to Hermeneutics,
eds. Jeff Malpas and Hans-Helmuth Gander (New York: Routledge, 2014)
Chapter 29, pp. 367-77
- “War and Tragedy and the Fate of the Spoken: Virgil’s Secularization of Prophecy”
College Literature: A Journal of Critical Literary Studies 41/4 (2014): 25-40
- “Poetics of Silence in the Post-Holocaust Poetry of Paul Celan”
Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies 2/1-2 (2014): 137-58
- “All or Nothing?—Nature in Chinese Thought and the Apophatic Occident”
Comparative Philosophy 5/2 (2014): 4-24
- “Augustine’s Confessions and the Transcendental Ground of Consciousness:
or How Literary Narrative Becomes Prophetic Revelation”
Philosophy and Literature 38/1 (2014): 204-222
- “Cosmopolitan Conviviality and Negative Theology: Europe’s Vocation to Universalism”
The Journal of European Studies (2014): 44/1 (2014): 30-49
- “Canonicity, Creativity, and the Unlimited Revelation of Literature”
Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 12: 1 (2014): 1-24
2013
- “The Paramount Importance of What Cannot Be Said in Public Theological Discourse”
Contextuality and Intercontextuality in Public Theology, eds. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, Florian Höhne, Tobias Reitmeier (Berlin: LIT-Verlag, 2013), series on “Theology in the Public Square / Theologie in der Öffentlichkeit,” vol. 4., pp. 321-334
- “Dante and the Secularization of Religion through Literature”
Religion and Literature 45/1 (2013): 1-31
- 85. “Paradoxical Prophecy: Dante’s Strategy of Self-Subversion in the Inferno”
Italica 90/3 (2013): 343-64
- “Dante’s Hermeneutic Complicity in Violence and Fraud in Inferno IX-XVII”
University of Toronto Quarterly 82/1 (Winter 2013): 1-19
- “Apophasis as the Common Root of Radically Secular and Radically Orthodox Theology”
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 73/1 (2013): 57-76
- “The Secondariness of Virgilian Epic and its Unprecedented Originality”
College Literature: A Journal of Critical Literary Studies 40/1 (2013): 11-31
- “Negative Theology”
Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions
eds. Anne Runehov, Lluis Oviedo (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), pp. 1443-1450.
Co-authored with Chance Woods.
2012
- “La teologia negativa come critica dell’idolatria”
Hermeneutica, Nuova Serie (2012): 315-332
Annuario di Filosofia e Teologia fondato da Italo Mancini
- 79. “The Place of the Proper Name in the Topographies of the Paradiso”
Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 87/4 (2012): 1089-1124
- “From the Bible as Literature to Literature as Theology:
A Theological Reading of Genesis as a Humanities Text”
Interdisciplinary Humanities 29/2 (Summer 2012): 28-45
- “Total Forgetting as the Moment of Truth at the Climax of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Christian
Epic Tradition,” in Erfahren, Erzählen, Erinnern: Narrative Konstruktionen von Gedächtnis und Generation in Antike und Mittelalter / Record, Relate, Remember: Narrative Constructions of Memory and Generation in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, eds. Benjamin Pohl, Maurice Sprague and Linda Hörl (Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press, 2012), pp. 299-326
- “Dante’s Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Prophetic Voice and Vision
in the Malebolge (Inferno XVIII-XXV)
Philosophy and Literature 36/1 (2012): 111-121
- “Apophatic Paths: Modern and Contemporary Poetics and Aesthetics of Nothing”
Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 17/3 (2012): 7-18
Special Issue: “Nothing,” eds. Antti Salminen and Sami Sjöberg
- “Un díptico apofatíco: Juan de la Cruz y Samuel Beckett”
[“An Apophatic Dyptich: John of the Cross and Samuel Beckett”]
Despalabro. Ensayos de Humanidades 6 (2012): 179-88
- 73. “The Origin of Philosophy in Theological Critique of Idolatry and its Consummation
in Negative Theological Critique of Conceptual Idolatry”
Hermeneutica, Nuova serie (2012): 315-32
- 72. “Dante’s Hermeneutic Rite of Passage: Inferno IX”
Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism on Dante, vol. 142,
Ed. Laurence J. Trudeau
(Detroit/New York: Gale/Cengage Learning, 2012), pp. 238-56
Reprinted from Dante’s Interpretive Journey, pp. 82-118
2011
- “Dante’s New Life and the New Testament: An Essay on the Hermeneutics of Revelation”
The Italianist 31 (2011): 335-66
- “Gospel as Personal Knowing: Theological Reflections on not Just a Literary Genre”
Theology Today 68/4 (2011): 413-23
- “On Doing the Truth in Time: The Aeneid’s Invention of Poetic Prophecy”
Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 19/1 (2011): 53-63
- “Prophecy as a Genre of Revelation: Synergisms of Inspiration and Imagination in the Book of Isaiah”
Theology 114/5 (2011): 340-52
- “Involved Knowing: On the Poetic Epistemology of the Humanities”
The European Legacy: Towards New Paradigms 16/4 (2011): 447-68
- “Homer’s Musings and the Divine Muse: Epic Song as Invention and as Revelation”
Religion and Literature 43/1 (2011): 1-28
- “The Canon Question and the Value of Theory: Towards a New (Non-)Concept of Universality”
The Canonical Debate Today. Crossing Disciplinary and Cultural Boundaries, eds. Liviu Papadima, David Damrosch, and Theo D’haen (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011), pp. 55-71.
2010
- “‘The Missing All’: Emily Dickinson’s Apophatic Poetics,” Poetry for Students, vol. 35
(Kennedale, TX: Gale Group, 2010)
[Reprinted from Christianity and Literature 58/1 (2008): 61-80]
- “Sulla verità poetica che è superiore alla Storia: Porfirio e la critica filosofica della letteratura,”
Italian translation of “On the Poetic Truth that is Higher than History . . .” (#61)
with critical introduction (“Per una Critica Speculativa”) by Laura Lucia Rossi
Enthymema: Rivista di teoria, critica e filosofia della letteratura 1 (2010): 1-17
- “On the Poetic Truth that is Higher than History:
Porphyry and the Philosophical Interpretation of Literature”
International Philosophical Quarterly 50/4 (2010): 415-430
[Reprinted in Acts of ISSEI (International Society for the Study of European Ideas)
2010 International Conference on “Thought in Science and Fiction”]
- “The Death and Damnation of Poetry in Inferno XXXI-XXXIV:
Ugolino and Narrative as an Instrument of Revenge”
Romance Studies 28/1 (2010): 27-35
- “Alighieri, Dante,” “Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite,” and “Petrarch, Francesco.”
Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity, ed. Daniel Patte
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2010)
2009
- 59. “Dante’s Inferno as Poetic Revelation of Prophetic Truth,”
Philosophy and Literature 33/2 (2009): 252-66
- 58. “Existentialism: An Atheistic or a Christian Philosophy?”
In Phenomenology and Existentialism in the Twentieth Century, Chapter 22
Analecta Husserliana 103 (2009): 371-94
- “Equivocations of Metaphysics:
A Debate with Christian Moevs’s The Metaphysics of Dante’s Comedy”
Philosophy and Theology 20/1-2 (2009): 29-52
- 56. “Beyond the Limits of Reason Alone: A Critical Approach to the Religious Inspiration of Literature”
Position Statement in forum of invited contributions to a Special Issue on the discipline:
Religion and Literature 41/2 (2009): 69-78
- 55. “James Joyce and the Bible”
The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature, chapter 46
Eds. Rebecca Lemon, Emma Mason, Jonathan Roberts, Christopher Rowland,
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), pp. 642-53.
2008
- 54. “Edmond Jabès, or the Endless Self-Emptying of Language in the Name of God”
Literature and Theology 22/1 (2008): 1-17
- 53. “‘The Missing All’: Emily Dickinson’s Apophatic Poetics”
Christianity and Literature 58/1 (2008): 61-80
- 52. “The Coincidence of Reason and Revelation in Communicative Openness:
A Critical Negative Theology of Dialogue”
Journal of Religion 88/3 (2008): 365-92
- 51. “Le Nom de Dieu comme vanité du langage au fond de tout mot selon Edmond Jabès,”
[“The Name of God as the Vanity of Language in the Heart of Every Word”],
trans. by Martine Prieto and Geoffrey Obin, Edmond Jabès : L’éclosion des énigmes,
eds. Daniel Lançon et Catherine Mayaux (Vincennes: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 2007), pp. 249-60 (Paris: Littérature Hors Frontières, 2008).
2007
- 50. “Eine kritische Negative Theologie des Dialogs: Die Koinzidenz von Vernunft und Offenbarung in
kommunikativer Offenheit“ [ “A Critical Negative Theology of Dialogue: The Coincidence of
Reason and Revelation in Communicative Openness”], translated by Michael Sonntag
Salzburger Theologishe Zeitschrift 11/2 (2007): 217-49.
- 49. “The Ethical Vision of Dante’s Paradiso in Light of Levinas”
Comparative Literature 59/3 (2007): 209-27
- “The Ethical Posture of Anti-Colonial Discourse in Said and in Gandhi”
Journal of Contemporary Thought 25 (Summer, 2007): 5-24
- 47. “Poetic Language, Apocalypse, and the Premises for Dialogue
Between a Secular West and Radical Islam”
Reconstructing Realities: Occident-Orient Engagements
eds. Ganakumaran Subramaniam, Shanthini Pillai and Hafriza Burhanudeen
(Kuala Lumpur: Pearson Longman, 2007), pp. 41-52
- 46. “The Deaths of God in Hegel and Nietzsche and the Crisis of Values
in Secular Modernity and Post-Secular Postmodernity”
Religion and the Arts 11/2 (2007): 214-41
- 45. “Scripture as Theophany in Dante’s Paradiso”
Religion and Literature 39/2 (Spring 2007): 1-32
(2006 Annual Religion and Literature Lecture, University of Notre Dame)
- 44. “Hermeneutics, Historicity, and Poetry as Theological Revelation in Dante’s Divine Comedy”
In Art and Time, ed. Jan Lloyd Jones et al. (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2007),
- 39-56
- 43. “The Rhetorical-Theological Presence of Romans in Dante:
A Comparison of Methods in Philosophical Perspective”
In Medieval Readings of Romans, eds. William S. Campbell, Peter S. Hawkins, Brenda Dean Schildgen (New York: T & T Clark International, 2007), pp. 142-52
2006
- 42. “Primordial Sacrifice, Typology, and the Theological Vocation of Literature:
Extending Gian Balsamo’s Interpretation of Joyce and Christian Epic”
Literature and Theology 20/3 (2006): 251-68
- 41. “Praising the Unsayable: An Apophatic Defense of Metaphysics
Based on the Neoplatonic Parmenides Commentaries”
Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 11/1 (2006): 143-73
- 40. “Apophasis and the Turn of Philosophy to Religion: From Neoplatonic Negative Theology to
Postmodern Negation of Theology”
In Self and Other: Essays in Continental Philosophy of Religion, ed. Eugene Long,
Special issue of International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 60/ 1-3 (2006): 61-76
- 39. “Linguistic Repetition as Theological Revelation in Christian Epic Tradition:
The Case of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake”
Neophilologus 90/1 (2006): 155-172
2005
- 38. “The Singular and the Other at the Limits of Language in the Post-Holocaust Poetry
of Edmond Jabès and Paul Celan”
New Literary History 36/4 (2005): 621-38
- 37. “Varieties and Valences of Unsayability in Literature”
Philosophy and Literature 29/2 (2005): 489-97
- “The Linguistic Turning of the Symbol: Baudelaire and his French Symbolist Heirs”
In Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism, ed. Russel Whitaker
(Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005),
vol. 144: French Symbolist Poetry, pp. 40-47
[Reprinted from Baudelaire and the Poetics of Modernity, volume in Honor of Claude Pichois,
- Patricia Ward (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000), pp. 28-40.]
- “Franz Rosenzweig and the Emergence of a Post-Secular Philosophy of the Unsayable”
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 58/3 (2005): 161-80
- “Virgil, History, and Prophecy”
Philosophy and Literature 29/1 (2005): 73-88
2004
- “Damascius. Of the Ineffable: Aporetics of the Notion of an Absolute Principle”
Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 12/1 (2004): 111-31.
(Introduction with original translation from the Greek of De principiis, Part I, cc 3-8)
- “A Philosophy of the Unsayable: Apophasis and the Experience of Truth and Totality”
In Imaginatio Creatrix: The Pivotal Force of the Genesis/Ontopoiesis of Human Life and Reality, ed. A.-T. Tymieniecka, Analecta Husserliana LXXXIII (2004): 65-83.
- “Truth and Interpretation in the Divine Comedy”
In Dante Modern Critical Views, ed. Harold Bloom (Philadelphia: Chelsea, 2004), pp. 287-305.
[Excerpt reprinted from Dante’s Interpretive Journey, pp. 5-23]
- “The Dialectical Logic of Yeats’s Byzantium Poems”
In Poetry Criticism, vol. 51, ed. Carol Ullman (Kennedale, TX: Gale Group, 2004), pp. 146-52
[Reprinted from Yeats-Eliot Review 15, no. 3: 23-32]
2002
- “The Exodus Epic: Universalization of History Through Ritual”
In Universality and History: The Foundations of Core, ed. Don Thompson, Darrel Colson, and J.
Scott Lee (Lanham-New York-Oxford: University Press of America, 2002), pp. 59-70
- “The Interpretive Journey and the Allegory of Reading: Introduction to the Inferno as a Humanities
Text,” in Uniting the Liberal Arts: Core and Context, ed. Bainard Cowen and J. Scott Lee
(Lanham-New York-Oxford: University Press of America, 2002), pp 75-82
- “Literature as Liturgy and the Interpretive Revolution of Literary Criticism”
Preface to Gian Balsamo, Scriptural Poetics in Finnegans Wake
(Lewisburg, New York: Edwin Mellin Press, 2002), pp. v-xiii
- “Il significato teologico del paesaggio di san Benedetto nel Paradiso di Dante”
[“The Theological Significance of the Landscape around Saint Benedict in Dante’s Paradiso”]
Lo Speco CVII, no. 4 (2002): 80-82
2001 – 2000
- “William Franke on Post-Structuralist Interpretation”
In Italo Calvino: Modern Critical Views, ed. Harold Bloom (Philadelphia: Chelsea, 2001).
- 28-30. [Reprinted from “The Deconstructive Anti-Logic of Italo Calvino’s Le città invisibili,” Italian Quarterly 30 (1989)].
- “Dante’s Address to the Reader in Face of Derrida’s Critique of Ontology”
The Poetry of Life in Literature. Annalecta Husserliana: The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research LXIX (2000): 119-31.
- “Prophecy Eclipsed: Hamlet as a Tragedy of Knowledge”
In Core Texts in Conversation, eds. Jane Kelley Rodeheffer, David Sokolowski, and J. Scott Lee
(Lanham-New York-Oxford: University Press of America, 2000), pp. 149-54
- “Metaphor and the Making of Sense: The Contemporary Metaphor Renaissance”
Philosophy and Rhetoric 33/2 (2000): 137-154
- “Apocalypse and the Breaking-Open of Dialogue: A Negatively Theological Perspective”
International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 47/2 (2000): 65-86
- “The Linguistic Turning of the Symbol: Baudelaire and his French Symbolist Heirs”
In Baudelaire and the Poetics of Modernity, volume in Honor of Claude Pichois, - Patricia Ward (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000), pp. 28-40
- “Figuralism,” “Albert the Great,” “Constantine,” “Israel,” “William II of Sicily”
In The Dante Encyclopedia (New York-London: Garland Publishing, 2000),
- Richard Lansing, pp. 376-79, 11, 216-17, 524-525, 885-86.
1990s
- “Eine Kontextbestimmung der Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft–das Beispiel Vanderbilt”
In Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft. Konturen und Profile im Pluralismus, pp. 181-92
With John McCarthy, ed. Carsten Zelle (Opladen/Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1999)
- “Apocalyptic Poetry Between Metaphysics and Negative Theology: From Dante to Celan and Stevens”
Literature and Belief 19/1,2 (1999): 261-284
- “‘Enditynges of Worldly Vanitees’: Truth and Poetry in Chaucer as Compared with Dante”
The Chaucer Review 34, no. 1 (1999): 87-106
- “The Dialectical Logic of Yeats’s Byzantium Poems”
Yeats-Eliot Review 15, no. 3 (Summer 1998): 23-32
- “Psychoanalysis as a Hermeneutics of the Subject: Freud, Ricoeur, Lacan”
Dialogue: The Canadian Philosophical Review 38 (1998): 65-81
- “Reader’s Application and the Moment of Truth”
In Dante: Contemporary Perspectives,
- Amilcare Iannucci (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 59-80.
[reprint, revised, of “Dante and Modern Hermeneutic Thought,”
Lectura Dantis: A Forum for Dante Research and Interpretation 12 (1993): 34-52]
- “Blind Prophecy: Milton’s Figurative Mode in Paradise Lost”
In Through a Glass Darkly: Essays in the Religious Imagination,
- John Hawley (New York: Fordham University Press, 1996), pp. 87-103
- “Resurrected Tradition and Revealed Truth: Dante’s Statius”
Quaderni d’italianistica 15/1-2 (1994): 7-34
- “Dante and the Poetics of Religious Revelation”
Symploke: A Journal for the Intermingling of Literary, Cultural and Theoretical Scholarship
2/2 (1994): 103-116
- “Dante’s Hermeneutic Rite of Passage: Inferno IX”
Religion and Literature 26/2 (1994): 1-26
- “In the Interstices Between Symbol and Allegory: Montale’s Figurative Mode”
Comparative Literature Studies 31/4 (1994): 370-89
- “Dante’s Address to the Reader and its Ontological Significance”
MLN (Modern Language Notes) 109 (1994): 117-27
- “Hermeneutic Catastrophe in Racine: The Epistemological Predicament of 17th Century Tragedy”
Romanische Forschungen 105 (1993): 315-31
- “Poetics and Apocalypse in Manzoni’s Interpretation of History”
Esperienze letterarie Anno XVIII – n. 4 (1993): 17-38
- “Dante and Modern Hermeneutic Thought”
Lectura Dantis: A Forum for Dante Research and Interpretation 12 (1993): 34-52
- “The Logic of Infinity: European Romanticism and the Question of Giacomo Leopardi”
Comparatio: Revue Internationale de Littérature Comparée 1 (1990): 69-82
- “The Deconstructive Anti-Logic of Italo Calvino’s Le città invisibili”
Italian Quarterly 30 (1989): 31-41
- “Note on Robert Harrison’s The Body of Beatrice”
Rivista di studi italiani 6/2 (1988): 78-82
Critical Reviews and Appreciations
Review of Andrew W. Hass, ed., Sacred Modes of Being in a Postsecular World (Cambridge University Press, 2021) in Literature and Theology 36/3 (2022) (Oxford University Press), 342-45
Review of Donald Phillip Verene, The Philosophy of Literature: Four Studies (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2018) in American Academy of Religion forum: Reading Religion The Philosophy of Literature – Reading Religion (2019)
Review of Marco Maggi, Walter Benjamin e Dante: Una costellazione nello spazio delle immagini (Rome: Donzelli, 2017) in Speculum 93/3 (2018): 873-74
Review of James Robinson, Joyce’s Dante: Exile, Memory, and Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016) in James Joyce Quarterly 53/3-4 (2016):
Review of Peter Hawkins, Dante: A Brief History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), in Christianity and Literature: 471-72
Review of Massimo Verdicchio, Of Dissimulation: Allegory and Irony in Dante’s Commedia + Naming Things: Aesthetics, Philosophy and History in Benedetto Croce in Canadian Review of Comparative Literature = Revue canadienne de littérature comparée 32, no. 2 (2005): 225-228
Review of Warren Ginsberg, Dante and the Aesthetics of Being in Speculum 76/3 (July 2001), 727-29
“Dante and Modernism.” On David Pike’s Passage through Hell: Modernist Descents, Medieval Underworlds, review article in Speculum 74/3 (1999): 808-11
“Diecimila quadri ed anche qualcuno di più,” L’arte illustrata 5, November 1985
“Poesia e politica si mescolano,” Tempi di fraternità, August 1985
“Due poeti e un libro,” Tempi di fraternità, September 1986
Poetry
“The Automocrat,” Only Poetry, Spring 1982
“Invocation of Campion,” “Jenny Arranging Herself to Play Violin: An Appreciation by Her Pianist,”
“Passing the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square,” California State Poetry Quarterly, Volume IX,
No. 1, 1982
“Contemporaries,” California State Poetry Quarterly, Volume X, No. 2, Summer 1983
“Dance of the Shirts,” The Writer, November 1984
“Letter to a Friend,” “March,” SEAMS: The Cultural Art Journal, Volume 2 No. 1, Fall 1985
“Free Riding I-IV,” SEAMS: The Cultural Arts Journal, Volume 2, No. 2 Winter-Spring 1986
“Glimpses I-IV,” SEAMS: The Cultural Arts Journal, Volume 2, No. 3, Summer-Fall 1986
“Limbo,” “Faring Well in Arms,” “Lightspot,” SEAMS: The Cultural Arts Journal, Volume 2, No. 4,
Winter-Spring 1987
“Original Lyric,” “Outsight,” BERKELEY POETS 1987 (Rosenberg Prize)
PUBLIC LECTURES, CONFERENCES, SEMINARS:
(* for keynote, plenary, named, or featured lectures)
2024
*“Dante, Duns Scotus, and the Crisis of Representation in the Modern Age”
Research Methods Workshop for Early-Career Graduate Students
Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies, The Newberry Library,
Chicago, December 10, 2024
*Five “Great Works” lectures on Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe, and Mallarmé, Lecture series for Renmin University in Beijing (to be scheduled after Covid crisis)
*“On the Universality of What is Not” or “Dante and the Foundations of Modern Western Culture”
Distinguished Lecture Series “BOI” University of North Bengal, India
Raja Rammohanpur, Siliguri, India, 2024
2023
*“La kénose et le wokeism: Comment ne pas faire bouc émissaire au nom de la justice social”
[“Kenosis and the Woke: An Alternative to the Weaponizing of Social Justice”]
Symposium on René Girard and the Bible: « Girard, Lecteur de la Bible »
Collège des Bernardins, Paris, France, December 15, 2023
*“Ineffability and Revelation in Dante’s Paradiso”
Keynote Speaker for the Dante Salon at 2021 Psychology and the Other Conference
Boston College, October 6-8, 2023
“A Theological Reading of Dante’s Lyrical Language as Self-reflection”
Congresso Dantesco Internazionale,
Ravenna, May 17-20, 2023
“Transmedial Transmissions: Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Cult of the Vita nuova”
International Seminar in Philosophy, Architecture, Education, and Legislation:
The Truth of/in Painting, Philosophy Department, University of Warsaw [via Google meet]
Warsaw, Poland, May 11, 2023
*“Pandemics and Apocalypse in World Literature and Indigenous Salvation”
KEYNOTE SPEECH for Symposium on “Processing the Pandemic III: Hope,”
Interdisciplinary Approaches to Emotions in the Wake of COVID19,
Center for Renaissance Studies, University of Warwick (cosponsored by Center for Renaissance Studies and the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library)
Warwick, England, April 13-14, 2023
*“Unsaying Wokeism, or the Role of Self-Critique in Judging Others”
KEYNOTE SPEECH for Global Studies Center conference on “Tracking Global Wokeism”
Gulf University of Science and Technology,
Mubarak Al-Abdullah, Kuwait, February 8, 2023
2022
www.crono.news Podcast, “Divine Comedy and Bhagavad Gita with William Franke and Jayashankar Krishnamurthy,” Crono News: international Italian web magazine dedicated to art, multiculturalism, spirituality, music, literature, history. https://soundcloud.com/cosmic-dancer-talk/divine-comedy-and-bhagavad-gita-with-william-franke-and-jayashankar-krishnamurty-episode-93
“Revolution in Poetic Language: Dante’s Use of the Vernacular as Vehicle for Theological Revelation,” 2022 Virtual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America (RSA), December 2, 2022
*“Dante’s New Life for Poetic Language as Theological Revelation in a Modern Secular Key,”
Inaugural Lecture for Annual Dante Lecture Series, Vanderbilt University,
November 29, 2022, Nashville, Tennessee
*“Self-Reflection and Reduction in the Language of Lyric,”
Reduction Lecture Series, ICI (Institute for Cultural Inquiry)
Berlin, May 16, 2022
[“Revolution in Poetic Language: Dante’s Use of the Vernacular as Vehicle for Theological Revelation,”
Renaissance Society of America (RSA) Annual Convention, special session co-sponsored by Dante Society of America (DSA), Dublin, March 21-April 2, 2022 POSTPONED]
2021
*“Dante and East Asia: The Apophatic Connection”
PLENARY ADDRESS for Symposium: “Afterlives: Dante in Dialogue with East Asian Buddhism”
UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS)
November 13, 2021
*Invited as Participant in Symposium on “Apophatic Thinking, Aesthetics and Humanism”
University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht,
The Netherlands, October 27-28, 2021
[*“My Interpretive Journey with Dante: From Existential Hermeneutics in Hell to Virtual Reality in Paradise,” presentation for International Seminar in Philosophy of Education: “An Imaginary Space of the Future: A Hermeneutic Reading of Dwelling in Dante’s Divine Comedy,” International Institute for Hermeneutics, University of Warsaw, October 21, 2021] POSTPONED
“Justice and Mercy as Spectacle in the Heaven of Jupiter,” International Conference: Giustizia e misericordia nell’età di Dante. Riflessioni, espressioni, rappresentazioni e pratiche,
University of Lyon, October 18-19, 2021
“Transcendence, Immanence, and Transdescendence in Modern Art from Dante to Mallarmé”
JIS (Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies) International Symposium:
“The Arts & Transcendence: In Search of Beauty, Truth & Goodness”
Pasadena, California, October 17, 2021
“Vita nuova: The New Life for Poetic Language as Theological Revelation in a Modern Secular Key”
International Conference “La modernità di Dante,”
Complutense University of Madrid, October 15, 2021
“Dante’s Relevance to and Impact on Postmodern Thought”
Colloque International: “La mondialisation de Dante”
Société française de littérature générale et comparée
University of Lorraine, Nancy, France, October 7-8, 2021
*“Self-reflection and the Other in Dante’s Paradiso”
Keynote Speaker for the Dante Salon at 2021 Psychology and the Other Conference
Boston College, September 17-19, 2021
[“A Theological Reading of Dante’s Lyrical Language as Self-reflection”
Congresso Dantesco Internazionale,
Ravenna, September 15-18, 2021] POSTPONED
“Die Aufgabe der Literatur in der sich globalisierenden Welt, oder: Begegnung mit dem Unvergleichbaren. Walter Benjamin und die Weltliteratur”
Internationale Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG), XIV. Kongress:
Wege der Germanistik in transkulturellen Perspektiven,
Palermo 26 July – 2 August 2020
Public Debate on Dante’s Paradiso and the Theological Origins of Modern Thought
With critique by Francesco Giusti, Moderator Christine Ott, Comparative Literature
University of Frankfurt, Germany, June 25, 2021
“¿Porque la revelación teológica tiene que expresarse en la vernáculo? La Vita nuova de Dante y el Nueve Testamento” [Why Theological Revelation Needs to Express itself in the Vernacular: Dante’s Vita nuova and the New Testament]. Conference on: El diálogo de las lenguas: la emergencia del pensamiento en vernáculo (siglos XIII-XVI), Complutense University, Madrid, Spain, May 26, 2021
“Warrior Saints and Scripture as Theophany: Paradiso XVIII”
A Lectura Dantis with Jakob Abell for Dante Society of America, podcast
May 20, 2021
Presentation online for seminar “Lirica & Teoria”
Hosts Christine Ott and Francesco Giusti, Comparative Literature
University of Frankfurt, Germany, March 26, 2021
2020
“La Vita nuova entre poésie et prose: renouvellement de vie et révélation théologique”
Centre d’Études et de Recherches sur la Littérature Italienne
du Moyen Âge (CERLIM),
Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3), November 14, 2020
[*“Four Lectures: Dante’s Vita nuova, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Goethe’s Faust, Mallarmé’s Coup de dés”
Renmin University, Beijing, November, 2020 POSTPONED TO 2022
[“Dante’s Relevance to and Impact on Postmodern Thought”
International Colloquium, Le mondialisation de Dante
University of Lorraine, Nancy, FRANCE
15-16 October, 2020 POSTPONED TO 2021
[*“Selbst-Reflexion auf der Schwelle zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit: eine theologische Genealogie des Zeitalters der Vorstellung,” lecture for the Alfred Magnum Forum
University of Regensburg, October 2020 POSTPONED TO 2021
[“Walter Benjamin und die Weltliteratur, ”
Internationale Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG), XIV. Kongress:
Wege der Germanistik in transkulturellen Perspektiven,
Palermo 26 July – 2 August 2020] POSTPONED TO 2021
[*“La Vita nuova entre poésie et prose: renouvellement de vie et révélation théologique”
Centre d’Études et de Recherches sur la Littérature Italienne
du Moyen Âge (CERLIM),
Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3), May 16, 2020] POSTPONED TO 2021
[“¿Porque la revelación teológica tiene que expresarse en la vernáculo? La Vita nuova de Dante y el Nueve Testamento” (Why Theological Revelation Needs to Express itself in the Vernacular: Dante’s Vita nuova and the New Testament). Conference on: El diálogo de las lenguas: la emergencia del pensamiento en vernáculo (siglos XIII-XVI), Complutense University, Madrid, Spain, May 11-13, 2020]
POSTPONED TO 2021
*“Much Virtue in Vagueness: Premonition of the Eternal and Encountering the Other”
Keynote Speech for Literary Workshop on: “Obsession with Eternity and Challenges of the Other,”
Departments of Arabic and English, College of Arts, University of Anbar, Iraq
May 11, 2020 (online)
*“La rappresentazione scientifica versus rappresentazione simbolica del reale: Duns Scoto e Dante”
Seminario de Dantología: Spring 2020: Modernidad de Dante (Dante y la naturaleza humana: Mentalidad científica, mentalidad simbólica)
La Asociación Complutense de Dantología
Universidad Complutense, Madrid, March 6, 2020
“The Discourse of Social Justice in a Negative Theological Perspective”
Lecture Series: “Lecturas sobre religión y sociedad civil,”
Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), University of Navarra,
Pamplona, Spain, January 21, 2020
2019
*“The Birth of Modernity and its Crisis in Dante’s Phenomenology of the Self-Reflective Subject”
PLENARY LECTURE WITH RESPONDENT (Aaron Daniels) for “Psychology and the Other 2019 Conference,” section on “Dante and Phenomenology”
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, October 4, 2019
*“Religion, Culture, and Art: Their Common Matrix”
KEYNOTE SPEECH for ICRCA International Conference on Religion, Culture, and Art
MIGCCA (Modern International Green Culture Communication Association)
(Co-Organizers: University of Zagreb, Yun Tech, University of Glasgow)
Xi’an, Xianxi, China, September 21-22, 2019
*“Speculative Philology: From Ancient Theological Hermeneutics to Modern Linguistic Epistemologies”
Presenter at Yale-NUS and Princeton “Comparative Antiquities” workshop on “Global Classicism,” a Humanities Council Global initiative, Princeton University,
National University of Singapore, August 1-5, 2019
*“Technological Transformation and Postmodern Re-enchantment of the Everyday”
Comparative Literature and Religious Studies Round Table on “Sacredness and the Everyday,”
jointly hosted by Renmin University of China and the University of Saint Joseph,
XXII Congress of ICLA (International Comparative Literature Association),
University of St. Joseph, Macao, China, July 29-31, 2019
“Dante’s New Life and the New Testament: Hermeneutics of Revelation in the Vita Nuova,”
Session on “Rereading Dante’s ‘Vita Nuova’ – Modes of Interpretation”
Congresso Dantesco Internazionale: “Alma Dante 2019”
Ravenna, May 31, 2019
*“The Fate of Philology in a Logo-decentered Culture: The Challenge of Media Studies,”
Gastvortrag (Guest Lecture), Lehrstuhl für Medienwissenschaften (Institute for Media Studies) in Fakultät für Sprach-, Literatur-, und Kulturwissenschaften (Faculty of Language, Literature and Cultural Studies), University of Regensburg, May 9, 2019
*“De Dante à Mallarmé à travers l’Hamlet de Shakespeare: Négativité de la révélation prophétique-poétique dans la modernité” (“From Dante to Mallarmé via Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Negativities of Prophetic Revelation in Modernity”), International Conference: « Dante et Shakespeare: Cosmologie, Politique et Poetique », University of Poitiers / Centre d’Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale, FRANCE, 4-6 April 2019
*“Apophasis und die Achsenzeit: Transzendente Ursprünge des kritischen Bewusstseins”
(“Apophasis and the Axial Age: Transcendent Origins of Critical Consciousness”)
FEATURED LECTURE for “Negation und Wissen. Zur Kategorie der Negativität in Theologie, Anthropologie und Ästhetik der Vormoderne” (Negativity and Knowledge: On the category of negativity in theology, anthropology and aesthetics in the pre-modern period), Interdisciplinary Conference under auspices of SFB: Sonderforschungsbereich: Episteme in Bewegung,
Freie Universität, Berlin, April, 4-5, 2019
2018
* “From Blake’s ‘Eternal Great Humanity Divine’ to Confucian Jūnzǐ 君子 as Consummate Humanity:
Apophatic Paths between Post-Modern Secularity and Pre-Modern Divinity”
KEYNOTE SPEECH for the Conference “Between Humanity and Divinity: In Literature, Art, Religion and Culture” of the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies (TACMRS)
National Chi Nan University, Taiwan, October 20, 2018
“Dante between Philosophy and Philology (After the Theological Turn)”
Research Methods Workshop for Early-Career Graduate Students
Co-led with Prof. Justin Steinberg, University of Chicago
Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies, The Newberry Library,
Chicago, September 8, 2018
“Dante in Context”
Panel discussion with Zyg Baranski, Ted Cachey, Justin Steinberg, Gary Cestaro, and Anne Leone
Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies, The Newberry Library,
Chicago, September 7, 2018. Cancelled.
“Outline of an Apophatic Approach to an Intercultural Philosophy of Universalism”
24th World Congress of Philosophy, Section 19: Intercultural Philosophy
Beijing, August 13-20, 2018
* “Voice and the Taking Place of Language: Disrupting the Reflexive Cohesion of Tradition”
Invited Theology and Poetry Workshop on “Theology, Poetry, and Disruptive Voices”
St. Peter’s College, Adelaide, Australia, June 18-20, 2018
* “Philosophy, Theology, Poetry,” Podcast Conversation with Kevin Hart and the Dean of St. John’s Cathedral, Brisbane for “On The Way,” with OMNY Studios, June 15, 2018
* “At the Creative Source of the Arts: Poetry as Prophecy in a Negative Theological Key”
KEYNOTE SPEECH for “Tell it Slant: A Symposium on Theology and the Arts”
Centre for Public and Contextual Theology
St. Francis Theological College of Charles Sturt University,
Brisbane, Australia, June 15-17, 2018
* “Paths Beyond Words: The Ways of Unsaying in Early Modernity” KEYNOTE SPEECH for Conference “Beyond Words: The Unknowable and Unutterable in Early Modernity,” Centre for Research on Early Modern Studies (CREMS) and Humanities Research Centre (HRC), University of York, UK, June 1, 2018
* “Negative Theology, Poetic Prophecy, and the Religious Bonding of Society”
Lecture Series: “Lecturas sobre Religión y sociedad civil,” Institute for Culture and Society
Department of Philosophy, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, May 15, 2018
“Dante and the Crisis of Representation in the Modern Age”
MLA Panel on Crisis in Dante,
Modern Language Association National Convention,
New York City, January 7, 2018
2017
* “How to Read the Bible: Can Fundamentalists and Secularists be Brought into Dialogue?”
Presentation of A Theology of Literature: The Bible as Revelation in the Tradition of the Humanities
Ecumenical Chaplaincy, Lake Forest Place,
Lake Forest, Illinois, December 21, 2017
* “Contemporary Apophatic Thinking and its Fields of Application”
Guest Lecture for Critical Religion Research Group + Stirling Students Critical Religion Association,
University of Sterling, Scotland, November 8, 2017 (via webcam)
* “The Other Italian Renaissance between Religion and Humanism: Dante to Vico”
Interdisciplinary Graduate Research Workshop co-led with Prof. Rocco Rubini
Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies, The Newberry Library, Chicago, October 13, 2017
* “Poetry as Prophecy: From Anthropological Origins to Postmodern Apocalypses”
KEYNOTE SPEECH for The Prophetic Word: Poetry, Philosophy and Theology in Conversation,
The Power of the Word International Conference V,
Heythrop Institute for Religion and Society (Heythrop College, University of London) and the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture (Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford)
Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, England, September 13-16, 2017
*“Traum-Epistemologie und religiöse Offenbarung in Dantes Vita nuova”
[“Dream Epistemology and Religious Revelation in Dante’s Vita nuova”]
Lecture for Graduiertenkolleg „Europäische Traumkulturen“
Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, Germany, June 13, 2017
“Writing as Theophany: Dante’s Scriptural Epiphany and the Medium as Metaphor for Immediacy”
“Schrift und Graphisches im Vergleich,” XVII. Tagung der DGAVL (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Vergleichende und Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft),
University of Bochum, Germany, June 6, 2017
2016
*“Apophatic Paths from Europe to China: Method and Mysticism in Intercultural Philosophy”
KEYNOTE SPEECH for Comparative Mysticism: Renewing a Neglected Project,
Annual Conference of the Mystical Theology Network,
University of Glasgow, Scotland, December 15, 2016
*“Religious Tradition and Interdisciplinary Humanities Studies in a (Post)Secular World”
Beijing Capitol University of Business and Economics (CUEB), Beijing, October 17, 2016
*“Liberal Arts Education as Learned Ignorance: From an East-Asian Vantage Point”
60th ANNIVERSARY LECTURE, Beijing Capitol University of Business and Economics (CUEB),
Beijing, October 14, 2016
* “Apophatische Theologie und ihre Wirkung auf die neuzeitliche Philosophie”
[Apophatic Theology and its History of Effect in Modern Philosophy] Summer Semester Block-Seminar,
co-taught with Prof. Wilhelm Essler, Philosophy Department,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main, August 2-6, 2016
“Die vielen Sprachen der Literaturwissenschaft”
ICLA 2016 – Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée/International Comparative Literature Association – XXI. Kongress, 21. Juli – 27. Juli 2016 – University of Vienna, Austria
* “Universality of Knowledge and Specialization at the University: A Path from France to China”
KEYNOTE SPEECH for International Academic Conference to Inaugurate the School of Foreign Studies,
Beijing Capitol University of Business and Economics (CUEB), Beijing, May 26, 2016
“Imagining Otherness as an Aporia for Comparative Philosophy: In Debate with François Jullien”
21st Symposium: Imagination East and West
Académie du Midi, Alet-les-bains, France, May 15-21
* “Books, Bread, and Bubbles:
or How to Read Dante Backwards and Forwards in Time on the Way to China”
William Franke places his recent books in the context of an integrated philosophy of the humanities,
Followed by a Critical Response to The Revelation of Imagination by Lenn Goodman, Andrew W. Mellon Prof. of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, April 6, 2016
* “The Apotheosis of Self-Reflection: Dante and the Inauguration of the Modern Era”
ANNUAL DANTE LECTURE at the Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies,
co-sponsored by the Devers Program in Dante Studies, University of Notre Dame,
and the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago
Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies, Chicago, February 27, 2016
* “Poetry as Theology: New Theoretical Approaches to Dante”
Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshop co-led with Prof. Vittorio Montemaggi
Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies, The Newberry Library, Chicago, February 26, 2016
2015
*“Negative Theology”
Philippine Academy of Philosophical Research
University of Santo Tomas (“The Catholic University of the Philippines”),
Manila, Philippines, December 6, 2015
*“Theological Revelation and Secular Reason: Critical Proposals for a Meeting of Minds and Cultures,”
Invited Lecture in Department of Philosophy, Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas
Manila, Philippines, December 5, 2015
*“The Tradition of the Chinese Classics and the Idea of World Literature Today”
KEYNOTE SPEECH (with simultaneous translation into Chinese) at International Symposium on “The Orient vs. The Occident: Cultural Exchanges and Influences,” sponsored by Foreign Language Department of Capital University of Economics and Business, jointly organized by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Capital International Culture Research Center of Beijing Language and Culture University, and the Comparative Literature Studies Center of Soochow University.
Beijing, November 27-29, 2015
*Invited Speaker and Panelist for Session on “Negative Theologies and Apophaticism”
American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting
Atlanta, November 22, 2015
Host and Moderator (with Xavier Garnier, Director of L’Alliance Française, Macao)
“Universality and Cultural Difference between East and West”
Philosophy Café (public lecture/discussion): Rui Cunha Foundation, Macao, February 11, 2015
*Invited Speaker and Panelist on “Liberal Arts Education in the East-Asian University:
The Unspeakable Basis of Comparative Humanities”
Symposium on “Liberal Arts in the Age of Globalization,”
10th Anniversary Celebration of Underwood International College
Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, October 28, 2015
* “Apophatic Paths from Europe to Asia: A Personal Philosophical Journey”
Invited Lecture for Center for Zhouyi and Ancient Chinese Philosophy,
Philosophy Department, Shandong University, China, October 20, 2015
* “Nothingness and the Aspiration to Universality in the Poetic ‘Making’ of Sense:
An Essay in Comparative East-West Poetics”
What Is World Literature? Tension between the Local and the Universal
An International Summit Dialogue and Forum
School of Chinese Language and Literature, Beijing Normal University, October 16-17, 2015
*“From the Globalism of Nature to the Universality of Thought: Bringing Universalist Ethics and Politics back into Ecological Harmony by the Apophatic Way”
27th International Conference of Philosophy (IAGP): Global Ethics and Politics (Invited Speaker)
Vouliagmeni (Athens metropolitan coast), July 10-16, 2015
* “Die Apophase als Paradigma der belehrten Unwissenheit”
[“Apophasis as Paradigm of Learned Ignorance”]
Cusanus-Tagung zur Thematik des Idiota bei Cusanus
University of Tübingen, Germany, June 5-6, 2015
“Cognitive Universality between Science and the Humanities”
PhilHist’15: History of Philosophy Conference on “Interactions”
DAKAM (Eastern Mediterranean Research Centre)
Istanbul, Turkey, May 14-16, 2015
“Classical Chinese Thought and the Sense of Transcendence”
International Colloquium: Transcendence and Immanence in Intercultural Philosophy
Program of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Macao, March 20- 21, 2015
Introduction and Roundtable for: “What is Apophatic Thinking and Why is it Relevant Today?
Discussions around William Franke’s A Philosophy of the Unsayable”
International Philosophy Colloquium,
Program of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Macao, March 7, 2015
*“Philosophical Universalism and the Role of China in the World Today”
Philosophy Café (public lecture/discussion): Rui Cunha Foundation, Macao, February 11, 2015
* “Natural Cognition, Universals, and the Nothing of Religion”
KEYNOTE ADDRESS for “Cognition, Religion, and Science”: A Conference of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), co-sponsored by the Toronto Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion and the Philosophy and Religious Studies Program, University of Macao, January 13-14, 2015
2014
* “Immanence versus Transcendence–A Key Controversy in Comparative Philosophy”
Invited Lecture in Philosophy Colloquium series, Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, October 13, 2014
* “Dante’s Apophatic Vision and Classical Daoist and Confucian Wisdom: Methodological Reflections on Comparative Philosophy, Religion, and Literature”
Dante and East Asia, Devers Program in Dante Studies
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, August 27-28, 2014
* “Self-Reflection and the Theological Apotheosis of Lyric in the Paradiso”
Lecture at NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Summer Institute:
“Dante’s Divine Comedy, poetry, philosophy, and the city of Florence”
Florence, July 21, 2014
Seminar on Paradiso VI-X and XI-XVIII
NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Summer Institute:
“Dante’s Divine Comedy, poetry, philosophy, and the city of Florence”
(Institute Leader, with Brenda Schildgen, et al.)
Florence, July 18-22, 2014
“Identity and the Undefinable: What Escapes all Social Categorizations?”
14th International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities and Nations
Vienna, July 9-11, 2014
“The Philosopher or the Sage? Apophaticism in Europe and China”
Symposium: Wisdom East and West
Académie du Midi, Alet-les-bains, France, June 8-14
* “Paul Among the Theorists: A Genealogy of the New Universalism”
2014 Symposium of contributors to Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion
University of Toronto, June 4-6, 2014
Invited participant in Jungcusaner Symposium (“Wissensformen bei Nicolaus Cusanus”)
Kueser Akademie für Europäische Geistesgeschichte
Berncastle-Kues, Germany, May 26-28, 2014
“Universalism and Transcendentality East and West: The Theological Anomaly”
Critical Theory and the Way: Kantian Paradigms and Prospects in East Asia
International Philosophy Symposium, University of Macao, May 8-10, 2014
*“Knowledge and the Humanities”
(With Dean Martin Montgommery, Chair Professor of English)
Faculty Seminar for Faculty of Arts and Sciences,
University of Macao, April 30, 2014
*“Religion and Literature: Method and Meaning or
Porphyry’s Hermeneutics of Revelation and the Philosophical Criticism of Literature”
Humanities Research Seminar in Religion and Literature
Chinese University of Hong Kong, April 11, 2014
“Rethinking Cultural Universality Today”
The International Institute of Knowledge Management
Colombo, Sri Lanka (2014), April 3, 2014
“Rethinking Cultural Universality Today and the Question of Theological Transcendence”
International Conference on “Cultural Spaces, Cultures of Difference” Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, Andrha Pradesh, India, 27-29 January, 2014
2013
“From Epic Wholeness to Anamorphic Imagination: A Poetic Epistemology of the Humanities”
International Colloquium on “The Force of Imagination”
University of Macao, December 14, 2013
“Natural Cognition and its Cultural A Prioris: Macau as the Double Swinging Door between Cultures”
Introductory Address for International Conference on “Natural Cognition: Logic, Evolution, Organisms”
Program in Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Macau, December 14, 2013
“Amphibolies of the Postmodern: Hyper-Secularity or the Return of Religion”
Annual International Conference on Advances in Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCS)
Singapore, December 9-10, 2013
* “The New Apophatic Universalism: Deconstructive Critical Theories and Open Togetherness in the European Tradition”
ASCP (Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy) Annual Conference
Response Session to my paper, with respondent (Prof. Chris Hackett)
University of Western Sydney, Paramatta, Australia, December 3-5, 2013
* “Des pistes apophatiques menant de l’Europe en Chine: En cheminant avec François Jullien”
Bilingual (French-Chinese) Conference-Workshop with François Jullien
(with simultaneous translation into Chinese)
Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, November 7-8, 2013
*INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON DANTE AND THE SENSE OF TRANSGRESSION
“Transgression and Transcendence: What Makes Religion Radical? A two-day symposium to discuss Prof. William Franke’s book Dante and the Sense of Transgression: ‘The Trespass of the Sign’”
Institute for Christianity and Culture,
International Christian University (ICU), Tokyo, Japan, October 11-12, 2013
* “The Humanities and the Ideal of Wholeness—Epic Pasts, Partisan Presents, Plural Futures”
International Speakers Series on “The Future of the Humanities”
International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan, October 12, 2013
* “L’éloge de la fadeur et la litote du neutre: Entre François Jullien, Maurice Blanchot et Roland Barthes” [The Eulogy of Blandness and the Litotes of the Neutral:
Between François Jullien, Maurice Blanchot, and Roland Barthes]
Colloquium: “Des possibles de la pensée : Autour des travaux de François Jullien”
CERISY-la-Salle (France), September 14-21, 2013
“Thinking in the Gap between the Cultures of Greece and China: Apophatic Universalism”
23rd World Congress of Philosophy: Philosophy as Inquiry and as Way of Life
School of Philosophy, University of Athens, Greece, August 2-11, 2013
“Agamben’s Logic of Exception and its Apophatic Roots and Offshoots”
International Conference “Except Asia: Agamben’s Work in Transcultural Perspective”
Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University,
Taipei, Taiwan, June 25-27, 2013
* “Dante’s Theology and Contemporary Thought,” featured lecture-workshop at:
International Seminar “Dante’s Theology” sponsored by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, the Leeds Center for Dante Studies, and the Devers Program for Dante Studies, University of Notre Dame,
Tantur Ecumenical Institute, Jerusalem, Israel, June 21, 2013
* “All or Nothing? The Question of Nature as Bond between the Chinese Classic Past and the Global Future,” Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung sponsored Philosophy Colloquium: “Nature-Time-Responsibility,” University of Macao (China), April 14, 2013
“Postmodern Identity Politics and the Social Tyranny of the Definable”
Third Asian Conference on Ethics, Religion, and Philosophy, IAFOR
“Connectedness and Alienation: The 21st Century Enigma”
Osaka, Japan, March 30, 2013
“François Jullien and the Notion of Immanence: Chinese compared with Western Thought and Culture”
Asian Studies Association of Hong Kong (ASAHK), 8th Annual Conference: “Transformations, Development and Culture in Asia: Multidisciplinary Perspectives”
University of Hong Kong, March 9, 2013
2012
“Religious Literature’s Secular Vocation: Dante and Postmodern Thought”
Conference on Italian Literature and Religion
Department of Italian Studies, University of Toronto, October 11, 2012
* “Trauma and Silence in the Post-Holocaust Poetry of Paul Celan”
International Forum for Advanced Research in English:
“Suffering in Literature and Trauma Studies”
English Department, University of Macao, August 23-26, 2012
* “Der Übergang zum ‚anderen Zustand‘ als literarisches Motiv“
Invited Research Conference: “Ende oder Umbau einer Erlösungsreligion? Verschiebungen in der Vorstellung eines nicht nur endlichen, sondern ‘ewigen’ Lebens”
Evangelisch-Theologisch Fakultät, Ruhr University of Bochum, Germany, July 12-15, 2012
“The New Apophatic Universalism: Deconstruction, Negative Theology, and Open Togetherness in the European Tradition”
International Conference on Interrogating Cosmopolitan Conviviality:
New Dimensions of the European in Literature
University of Bamberg, May 24, 2012
* “The Art of Memory or the Forgetting of Art? The Visionary Moment in Dante and Blanchot”
KEYNOTE SPEECH for International Conference: “Memory: Impressions, Expressions, Reflections: An Interdisciplinary Conference,” The Department of English Studies at the University of South Africa (UNISA), Pretoria, March 28, 2012
“The Apophatic Experiential Grounds of Philosophy of Religion”
Wesleyan Philosophical Society, annual meeting on Philosophy and Religious Experience
Trevecca Nazarene University, Nashville, March 1, 2012
* “Christian Figuralism and Kenosis: From Otherworldliness to the Becoming Worldly of Otherness”
MLA National Convention, Religion and Literature Section, Panel on “Secularism”
Seattle, Washington, January 6, 2012
2011
* “The Holistic Ideal of the Humanities and Religious Revelation:
Linguistic-Cultural Diaspora or a New Universality?”
Lecture for the School of Modern Languages and Cultures,
University of Hong Kong, November 7, 2011
* “Epic Imagination and the Unlimited Vision of Literature”
Distinguished Lecture Series, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Macao, October 27, 2011
* “Reading Emily Dickinson: Three Approaches to One of her Poems,”
with linguist Martin Montgomery and translator Zhang Meifang, Department of English Seminar Series,
University of Macao, October 21, 2011
* “L’itinéraire du corps dans la Divine comédie de Dante”
(“The Itinerary of the Body in Dante’s Divine Comedy”)
Lecture and seminar for the Faculty of Philosophy, Catholic Institute of Paris, September 23, 2011
* “Le commencement et la fin de la philosophie dans le mysticisme apophatique:
de Platon au postmodernisme”
(“The Beginning and the End of Philosophy in Apophatic Mysticism: From Plato to Postmodernism”)
Lecture at colloquium on “Philosophie et Mystique: Autour de Stanislas Breton,”
CERISY-la-Salle (France), August 27, 2011
* “Dante e la teologia negativa” [Dante and Negative Theology]
ISSR (Istituto Superiore di Scienze Religiose),
University of Urbino Carlo Bo, August 18, 2011
“Canonicity, Creativity, and the Total Revelation of Literature”
The Hospitable Text Conference: New Approaches to Religion and Literature,
London, July 14-17, 2011
“The Paramount Importance of What Cannot Be Said in Public Theological Discourse”
International Conference on Contextuality and Intercontextuality in Public Theology
GNPT (Global Network for Public Theology)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Research Center for Public Theology
University of Bamberg, June 24, 2011
* “A Philosophy of the Humanities: Their Classical Roots and Contemporary Relevance”
Lecture sponsored by Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Macao, May 5, 2011
* KEYNOTE ADDRESS: “Letargo and the Argo: Total Forgetting as the Moment of Truth at the Climax of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Christian Epic Tradition”
- Internationale Nachwuchstagung des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs: Generationenbewußtsein und Generationenkonflikte in Antike und Mittelalter: “Erfahren, Erzählen, Errinern: Narrative Konstruktionen von Gedächtnis und Generation in Antike und Mittelalter”
[4th International Postgraduate Colloquium, DFG [German Research Foundation]: “Record, Relate, Remember: Narrative Constructions of Memory and Generation in Antiquity and the Middle Ages”]
Otto-Friedrich University of Bamberg, March 2- 4, 2011
2010
Response to Mary Watt lecture, “Dante, Columbus, and Stigliani’s Mondo Nuovo: Literary construction and spiritual imperialism.” Religious History Colloquium.
Vanderbilt Divinity School, September 15, 2010
“Don’t Mention It: Emily Dickinson’s Poetics of ‘Still Appreciation’” (read by Gary Stonum)
Emily Dickinson International Society (EDIS) International Conference
Oxford University, August 8, 2010
* PLENARY ADDRESS: “The Scientific Paradigm and the Poetic Epistemology of the Humanities”
12th International Conference of ISSEI (International Society for the Study of European Ideas):
“Thought in Science and Fiction”
Cankaya University, Ankara, Turkey, August 4, 2010
“Porphyry and the Philosophical Interpretation of Literature”
Session on Literary Philosophy and Philosophical Literature
ISSEI (International Society for the Study of European Ideas)
Cankaya University, Ankara, Turkey, August 3, 2010
“Poetic Revelation: Between Language and Apocalypse”
Tools of the Sacred, Techniques of the Secular: Awakening, Epiphany, Apocalypse and Doubt in Contemporary English-Language Verse
Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Brussels, Belgium, May 7, 2010
2009
* KEYNOTE SPEECH: “‘Il Trapassar del Segno’: Language and Transcendence in Dante’s Paradiso”
The Fourth Interdisciplinary Conference of the Nordic Dante Network: “Dante and Transgression”
University of Tampere, Finland, August 20, 2009
2008
“The Canon Question and the Value of Theory: Towards a New Concept of Universality”
Conference on National Literatures in the Age of Globalization: The Issue of Canon
University of Bucharest, November 1, 2008
“Existentialism: A Christian Philosophy or the Ultimate Atheism?”
The Fourth World Congress of Phenomenology:
The Phenomenology and Existentialism of the Twentieth Century
Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, August 18, 2008
* “Le Paradis de Dante et les conceptions monastiques du ciel au moyen âge”
Abbaye Saint-Wandrille, Normandy, France, July 22, 2008
+ “Lecture du Ciel de Jupiter dans le Paradis de Dante,” July 23, 2008
“Acknowledging Unknowing: Stanley Cavell and the Philosophical Criticism of Literature”
Conference on Stanley Cavell and Literary Criticism
Edinburgh University, May 11, 2008
2007
“Poetics of Silence in the Post-Holocaust Poetry of Paul Celan”
Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Annual Conference,
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington November 2, 2007
* “Porphyry and the Philosophical Criticism of Literature”
Invited Lecture in the Institute for Classical Philology
University of Salzburg, May 14, 2007
* “A Critical Negative Theology of Dialogue:
The Coincidence of Reason and Revelation in Communicative Openness”
(Vorlesung auf Englisch abgehalten mit anschliesender Diskussion auf Deutsch)
University of Salzburg, May 9, 2007
”Postmodern Identity Politics and the Social Tyranny of the Definable”
Annual Florida State University Conference on Literature and Film
Tallahassee, Florida, February 3, 2007
2006
“The Ethical Posture of Post-Colonial Discourse in Edward Said and in Mahatma Gandhi”
9th International Conference of the Forum on Contemporary Theory,
Udaipur, Rajasthan (India), December 16, 2006
* “Scripture as Theophany in Dante’s Paradiso”
2006 Annual Lecture in Religion and Literature,
University of Notre Dame, October 30, 2006
“Habermas’s Critical Reflexive Philosophy versus Premodern Poetic and Theological Reflexivity”
12th International Philosophy Colloquium: The Structure of Reflection—Self-Conscioiusnes and Critique
Evian, France, July 16-22, 2006
“’The Missing All’: Emily Dickinson’s Apophatic Poetics”
College English Association 37th Annual Conference,
San Antonio, Texas, April 7, 2006
“Edmond Jabès, or the Name of God as the Vanity of Language in the Heart of Every Word”
XVIIth Southeast Conference on Foreign Languages and Literatures
Stetson University, Deland, Florida, March 3, 2006
2005
* “Primordial Sacrifice, Typology, and the Theological Vocation of Literature in Finnegans Wake”
Lecture for Department of Comparative Literature Seminar Series, University of Hong Kong
December 5, 2005
“Poetic Language, Apocalypse, and the Premises for Dialogue: How a Secular West Can Face Radical Islam.” Worlds in Discourse: Representations of Realities, International Conference,
Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia, November 21, 2005
* “’Shadowy Prefaces’: Literature, Theology, and the Philosophy of Unsaying”
Lecture for Department of Comparative Literature, University of Hong Kong,
November 8, 2005
“The Truth of Art in Time and in Eternity: Dante’s Divine Commedy”
Conference on Art and Time, Australian National University, November 3, 2005
* “The Death of God and the Crisis of Values in Secular Modernity and Post-secular Postmodernity”
Lecture Series on Culture, Value, and the Meaning of Life
Department of Philosophy, University of Hong Kong, September 28, 2005
“A Heideggerian Reading of Prophetic Temporality in the Aeneid”
ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) Annual Convention
Penn State University, March 11, 2005
“An Epistemology of the Humanities as Involved Knowing”
National Assocation for Humanities Education 2005 Convention
Richmond, February 25, 2005
“What Philosophical Criticism of Literature Can Do”
Seventh Annual Comparative Literature Conference: “Thinking on the Boundaries: The Availability of Philosophy in Film and Literature,” University of South Carolina, February 11, 2005
2004
“The Place of the Proper Name in the Italian Topographies of the Paradiso”
MLA (Modern Language Association) National Convention, Philadelphia, December 28, 2004
“Apophasis and the Neoplatonic Interpretation of Religious Revelation”
AAR (American Academy of Religion) National Convention. Platonism and Neoplatonism Group.
San Antonio, November 21, 2004.
“Proper Names, Singularities, and the Unnameable in the Topographies of Dante’s Paradiso”
Names and the Unnameable: Literary Art and Spiritual Vision: 2004-05 Midwest Regional Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature, Notre Dame University September 17, 2004
“Typological Re-Origination and the Theological Vocation of Poetry”
Bloomsday 100: 19th International James Joyce Symposium
Dublin, Ireland, June 14, 2004
“Christian Epic Tradition and Theological Revelation in ‘Finnegans Wake’”
Conference on Christianity and Literature
Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, March 27, 2004
“Negative Theology in Dante’s Paradiso after Derrida and Levinas”
Medieval and Postmodern Intersections: NJCEA 27th Annual Conference
Seton Hall University, March 20, 2004
“New Interpretations of Joyce and Christian Epic”
Miami Joyce Conference, January 30, 2004
2003
“Primary Metaphorization and the Origin of Language: Vico’s Heritage”
Session on Italian Literature between Religion and Philosophy from Baroque Culture to Romanticism
MLA national convention, San Diego, December 28, 2003
“Dante and the Secularization of Religion through Literature”
Division on Literature and Religion: Religion and the Rise of Literary Studies
MLA national convention, San Diego, December 27, 2003
Response to papers on “The Letter to the Romans Through the Ages”
Society for Biblical Literature at the AAR (American Academy of Religion) national convention
Atlanta, Georgia, November 22, 2003
“Dante’s Ugolino, or Narrative as the Instrument of Sin”
Session on Ethics and Narrative
PAMLA (Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Assoc.),
Claremont College, November 8, 2003
“Le nom de Dieu comme vanité du langage au fond de tout mot selon Edmond Jabès”
(“The Name of God as the Vanity of Language at the Bottom of Every Word according to Edmond Jabès”)
Colloque Jabès at CERISY (Centre Internationale de Culture)
Cerisy-la-Salle, France, August 19, 2003
“Mystical Rhetorics of Silence: Medieval to Modern”
Sixth International Literature and Humanities Conference: “Inscriptions in the Sand,”
Eastern Mediterranean University in Famagusta, Cyprus, June 1, 2003
“Paul Celan’s Immemorial Silence”
ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) annual convention: “Crossing Over”
San Marcos, California, April 5, 2003
“Negative Theology in the Neoplatonic Parmenides-Commentary Tradition
and as Revived in Contemporary Apophatic Forms of Thinking”
Society for the Contemporary Assessment of Platonism (SCAP)
American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, San Francisco, March 31, 2003
“Virgil’s Invention of History as Prophecy”
Comparative Literature Conference: “Imagining Rome”
California State University, Long Beach, March 15, 2003
“Dante: Prophet and Pioneer of Secular Humanism”
Conference on Humanism, SUNY Stony Brook, February 28, 2003
2002
“A Philosophy of the Unsayable: Apophatic Discourses from Plato to the Postmodern”
Vanderbilt Philosophy Colloquium, October 11, 2002
“Joyce’s Typology and the Theological Vocation of Poetry”
International James Joyce Symposium, session on Joyce and the Bible
Trieste, Italy, June 21, 2002
“The Writing of Silence in Post-Holocaust Poetry of Paul Celan and Edmond Jabès”
Phenomenology and Literature Conference: Aesthetics of Mystery in Poetry, Novel, Drama and Film
Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 9, 2002
“Virgil’s Invention of History as Prophecy”
Classical Association of the Atlantic States, session on Augustan Latin Poetry
Cherry Hill, New Jersey, April 27, 2002
2001
“Singularity, Alterity, and the Unspeakable: Apophasis in Post-Holocaust Poetry and
Thought.” International Phenomenological Symposium: “Singularity-Subjectivity-The Other”
Perugia, Italy, July 17, 2001
“On What Cannot Be Said: Significances of Silence in Society, Philosophy, Religion, Literature and
the Arts,” McGill Philosophy Discussion Hour
Vanderbilt, April 2, 2001
2000
* “Dante’s Paradiso and the Poetics of Unsayability”
Presentation at the Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France, November 18, 2000
“Topografie italiane come metafore dell’altro mondo nel Paradiso dantesco”
(“Italian Topographies as Metaphors for the Other World in the Paradiso”)
XVII Conference of A.I.S.L.L.I. (Associazione Internationale per gli Studi di Lingua e Letteratura Italiana) on the topic “Le Dimore della Poesia” (“The Dwellings of Poetry”)
Gardone Riviera (Brescia), Italy, June 3, 2000
“Dante’s Poetics of Exile”
International Dante Seminar, invited as “discussant” by Società Dantesca Italiana
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, June 9-11, 2000
“The Exodus Epic: History and Ritual”
2000 Association for Core Texts and Curriculums (ACTC) Sixth Annual Conference
San Francisco, April 15, 2000
“Theological Apocalypse and the Breaking-Open of Dialogue in Literature: Some Political and Poetic Proposals for the New Millennium,” Comparative Literature Colloquium,
Vanderbilt, January 25, 2000
1999
“The Lyric Poetics of the Paradiso”
1999 South Atlantic MLA Convention, Atlanta, November 6, 1999
“Inferno as a Humanities Text: The Interpretive Journey and the Allegory of Reading”
1999 Association for Core Texts and Curriculums (ACTC) Fifth Annual Conference
New Orleans, April 11, 1999.
* “Poetry as Apocalypse and as Negative Theology: Dante to Paul Celan and Wallace Stevens”
Lecture for the Department of French and Italian and Committe on Graduate Studies
Louisiana State Universtiy, March 19, 1999
“Language as Exile: The Poetics of Ineffability”
(French Graduate Conference on “Exile,” read for me in absentia by Prof. Patricia Ward)
Vanderbilt University, February 26, 1999
1998
“Joyce and Christian Epic Tradition: Linguistic Repetition and Theological Revelation”
XVI International James Joyce Symposium
Rome, June 18, 1998
“Prophecy Eclipsed: Hamlet as a Tragedy of Knowledge”
1998 Association for Core Texts and Curriculums (ACTC) Fourth Annual Conference
University of North Carolina, April 19, 1998.
“Dante’s Address to the Reader en face Derrida’s Critique of Ontology”
XXII Annual Phenomenology and Literature Congress,
The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning
Harvard University, April 16, 1998
“Theory of the Symbol in French Symbolist Poetry: Baudelaire’s Heirs”
L’ère de Baudelaire: Symposium Honoring Claude Pichois
W.T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire Studies, Vanderbilt University, April 4, 1998
“Dante and Derrida: Ontology and Hermeneutics”
Philosophy Colloquia Series, Department of Philosophy
Vanderbilt University, February 20, 1998
1997
“Dante’s Vision of Scripture in the Heaven of Jove”
1997 MLA Conference: Medieval/Renaissance Italian Division
Toronto, December 30, 1997
“Apocalypse and the Breaking-Open of Dialogue”
Colloquium for History and Critical Theories of Religion Program,
The Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities
Vanderbilt University, 3 December, 1997
“Poetry Between Metaphysics and Negative Theology: From Dante to Celan”
Symposium on The Tradition of Metaphysical Poetry and Belief, November 1, 1997
Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature, Brigham Young University
“Dante’s Comet: Apocalyptic Poetry and its After-Sparks”
Symposium on History, Apocalypse and the Secular Imagination
University of British Columbia, September 19, 1997
“An Evening Around William Franke and his Dante’s Interpretive Journey”
Religious Studies Department, Vanderbilt University, September 8, 1997.
“Humanities Knowledge and the Bible”
1997 Association for Core Texts and Curriculums (ACTC) Third Annual Conference
Temple University, April 11, 1997
1996
“Dante’s Address to the Reader and Derrida on Address”
1996 American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Conference on “Literature Between Philosophy and Cultural Studies,” University of Notre Dame, April 12, 1996
“Petrarch, Bocaccio, and the Waning of Dante’s Hermeneutic Horizon”
Tenth Biennial New College Conference on Medieval -Renaissance Studies,
Sarasota, March 14, 1996. Session Chair: Lee Patterson
1995
* “Resurrection and the Like: Historical Tradition and Revelation According to Dante Alighieri.”
Lecture at the Graduate Center for Medieval Studies, Medieval History Series,
University of Reading, England, May 26, 1995.
1994
“Truth and Interpretation in the Divine Comedy”
Ninth Biennial New College Conference on Medieval -Renaissance Studies,
Sarasota, Florida, March 11, 1994
1993
“Dante and the Poetics of Religious Revelation”
MLA Special Session on “Literature and the Concern for Truth”
Toronto, December 28, 1993
“Heidegger and the Greeks”
Seminar at Collegium Phaenomenologicum
Perugia, Italy, August 1993
“Dante, Gadamer and the Question of Suprahistorical Truth”
International Hermeneutics Symposium
Heidelberg, July 2-4, 1993
1992
“Heidegger on Heraclitus’ Logos Fragment”
Workshop in program of the Collegium Phaenomenologicum,
Perugia, Italy, August 1992
“The Divine Comedy as Prophetic Poem”
Pair of lectures in Great Works Series at Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities
Vanderbilt University, April 10, 1992
“Dante’s Address to the Reader and its Resonance with Contemporary Theories of Interpretation”
Symposium in Comparative Literature on Dante and Modernism
University of Tulsa, March 27, 1992
1991
“The Sign of the Swan and the Polysemous Dove: Incarnational Poetics in Dante and Mallarmé”
Lecture sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature
Stanford University, June 10, 1991
“Historical Sense and Reader’s Historicity in the Divine Comedy”
Lecture for the Medieval Studies Forum
Stanford University, May 29, 1991
“Blind Prophecy: Milton’s Figurative Mode in Paradise Lost”
Conference on Christianity and Literature
Santa Clara University, May 3, 1991
“The Polysemous Dove: Truth and Interpretation in the Divine Comedy”
Lecture for The Program in Comparative Literature, Vanderbilt University, January 25, 1991
LANGUAGES:
Modern
Italian (perfectly fluent)
French (perfectly fluent)
German (perfectly fluent)
Spanish (fluent)
Ancient
Greek
Latin
Medieval
Middle English
Old French
Occitan (Langue d’oc)
Middle High German
Asian
Mandarin Chinese (basic speaking)
(University-level experience teaching in German, French, and Italian, as well as in English, for courses in philosophy, literature, and theology. Ancient and Medieval and Asian languages listed are ones used in published research.)
EDITORIAL BOARDS:
International Journal of Philosophy (2022-)
Hermeneutics in Enactment: International Research in Hermeneutics and Phenomenology, Brill (2021-)
Journal of Al-Anbar University for Language and Literature (2021- )
Journal of Critical Studies in Language and Literature (Editor-in-chief, 2020- )
Culture and Religious Studies (2018- )
International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies (Editor-in-chief, 2013-14)
Exégèse: Journal of Contemporary Studies in Applied Literary Theory (2013- )
Enthymema: Rivista di teoria, critica e filosofia della letteratura (2011- )
Hermeneutica (2012- )
Advances in Literary Study (2013- )
Linguistics, Culture, and Education (2013- )
Philosophy Study (2013- )
Global Journals (2016- )
Kritike: Journal of Philosophy (2016- )
ADVISORY BOARD:
Australian International Academic Centre (2013)
External Collaborator for the University of Navarra’s Institute for Culture and Society in the Research Group “Religión y Sociedad civil” directed by Monserrat Herrero
ADMINISTRATIVE:
Subject Convener and Program Coordinator, Philosophy and Religious Studies Program,
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
University of Macao, 2013-15
Member of the Faculty Executive Committee
Head of a principal academic unit of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Faculty Senate committee for library management, 2014-15
Interim Chair of Comparative Literature Program, Vanderbilt, 2004-2005
Director of Graduate Studies in French, Vanderbilt, 2003
TEACHING-RELATED ACTIVITIES:
New Courses Introduced
French 2700. French Great Works in English
Italian 2700. Italian Great Works in English
Italian 3242. Dante and the Foundations of Modern Western Civilization (Fall 2016)
Divinity 5492. Dante and Theology (Spring 2017)
French 7060. French Theory and Apophatics (Fall 2016)
At University of Macao, China (2013-2015):
English Grad Special Topics. Philosophy and Literature (Spring 2013)
English Grad Special Topics. Criticism as Philosophy (Fall 2013)
English Grad Special Topics. Religion and Literature (Spring 2014)
Philosophy Ph.D Special Topics. Self-Reflexivity (Fall 2014)
Philosophy Ph.D Special Topics. Universals and Universalism (Spring 2015)
Philosophy Ph.D Special Topics. Comparative Literature and Philosophy (Fall 2015)
DIV 3910-01 / RLST 243 Paul and Postmodern Political Theologies (Spring 2010)
DIV 3910-01 / REL 3910-01 / RLST 294 Apophatic Theology and Culture (Fall 2009)
FR 256. Existentialisme en Philosophie, Littérature et Théologie
(At Vanderbilt-in-France, Fall 2008)
VORLESUNG. Postmodernreligionsphilosophien
[Postmodern Philosophies of Religion] (At University of Salzburg, Spring 2007)
CONVERSATORIUM. Apophatische oder negative Theologie in der Kultur
[Apophatic or Negative Theology in Culture] (At University of Salzburg, Spring 2007)
CONVERSATORIUM. Dantes Paradiso im theologischen Hinblick
[Theology Perspectives on Dante’s Paradiso] (At University of Salzburg, Spring 2007)
DIV 388/FR Post-Modern Theory: In the Wake of the Death of God (Fall 2006)
LECTURE COURSE. Postmodernism
(At University of Hong Kong, Department of Comparative Literature, Fall 2005)
CLT 360 Philosophy and Literature: Philosophical Criticism of Literature (Spring 2005)
CLT 341 Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism: Current Trends (Fall 2003, 2004)
CLT 355 The Writing of Silence (Spring 2002)
CLT 355 Mystical Rhetorics of Silence from Plotinus to John of the Cross (Fall 2001)
CLT 355 Poetics and Politics of the Origin of Language (Spring 1999)
CLT/French 355 The Unnameable and the Sublime (Fall 1999)
CLT/English 355 Metaphor (Spring 1998)
CLT 327 The Structuralist Paradigm and its Transformations (Spring 1997)
CLT / Philosophy 345 Hermeneutics (repeated 1992-1997)
MAEA 38 Philosophy and Literature (MA seminar at University of Macao)
MAEA 39 Religion and Literature (MA seminar at University of Macao)
PhD. Dissertations Directed:
Peter Kline (Divinity): “Passion for Nothing: Kierkegaard’s Apophatic Theology” (2016)
David Dark (Religious Studies): “Insert Soul Here: The Witness Sacramental Poetics as Apocalyptic for the People” (2011)
Yong Chen (Religious Studies): “On the Rhetoric of Defining Confucianism as a ‘Religion’: A Hermeneutic Reading of the Controversy on Confucian Religiosity and its Significance to the Understanding of Chinese Tradition and Modernity” (2005)
Donald Holman (Comparative Literature): “The Death of Dionysos: Formative Experience and Human Autonomy in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre” (2004)
Heather Garrett (French): “Nothing to Say. Disclosures of Silence in 20th Century French Narrative” (2004)
Robert Scott Hubbard (Comparative Literature): “Original Sins: Philosophical Appropriations of Agency and Meaning in the Greek Tragedians” (2002)
University of Macao, supervision of PhD students:
Francesco Carpanini
Paul Man
Nicolas Le Jeune
Liui Yue
University of Macao, supervision of post-doc fellows and senior research fellows:
Karl-Heinz Pohl
Nahum Brown
Dvir Melnik
Ph.D. Dissertation Committees:
Megs Webster (English and Creative Writing, Murdock University, Western Australia): “‘Words fail but meanings still exist’: Exploring the relationship of apophasis to poetic practice” (2020)
Jacob Abell (French): (2020)
Jason Smith (Divinity): “Eucharist as the Gift of Political Language” (2018)
Belkis E. Barrios (Spanish and Portuguese, Vanderbilt): “Literatura y cine hispánicos del siglo XXI: La
diáspora y el desengaño en el Bildungsroman del nuevo milenio” [“Hispanic Literature and Film of the Twenty-First Century: Diaspora and Disillusion in the latest versions of the Bildungsroman”] (2018)
Chance Woods (English): “The Elusive Corpus: Reading the Catholic Mystical Body in Seventeenth-Century England” (2017)
Edward Eh (University of Macao, Philosophy): “Aquinas, Confucius, and Intellectual Virtue: A Comparative Account of Prudentia and Cheng” (2015)
Guan Beibei (Hong Kong University, European Studies), “The Dandy and the Historical Ragpicker: A Study of Contrary Responses to Modernity of Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin” (2014)
Menghun Goh (Religious Studies): “The Middle Voice of Love in 1 Corinthians: Reading Singularity and Plurality from Different Cultures” (2014)
Alexandra Campana (German): “Violent Black Oceans: Literary Border Crossings in a Global Age, 1990-2005” (2014)
David Dault (Divinity): “The Covert Magisterium: Theology, Textuality and the Question of Scripture” (2008)
Claudia Schlee (German): “Poetry as Compass: Chaos, Complexity and the Creative Voice” (2007)
Rachel Bauer (Spanish): “Madness and Laughter: Cervantes’s Comic Vision in Don Quixote” (2007)
James Burt Fulmer (Religious Studies): “Identities Bought and Sold, Identity Received as Grace: A Theological Criticism of and Alternative to Consumerist Understanding of the Self” (2006)
Brian McGinnis (German): “Reading the Moral Code: Theories of Mind and Body in Eighteenth-Century Germany” (2006)
Joshua Braley (Religious Studies): “Bringing God to Mind: Christian Theology in Light of the Critical Study of Religion” (2006)
Justine Van Meter (Comparative Literature): “Writing the Dying and the Dead: Irishness, Jewishness and Gender” (2006)
André Sousan (Divinity): “The Woman in the Garden of Eden: A Rhetorical-Critical Study of Genesis 2:4b-3:24 (2006)
Azucena Garcia-Marcos (Facultad de Psicologia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid): “Una Approximacion psychoanalytica a la obra de Francisco de Goya” (2006)
Shirin Edwin (French): “Négocier pour survivre: La représentation de l’islam dans les productions romanesques francophones de l’Afrique de l”Ouest (1950-2002)” (2005)
Apel Ygrek (Philosophy): “Virile Expenditure: A Study of Bataille’s Transgressive Erotics” (2004)
Kathleen Costales (Spanish): “No Hay Cosa Como Callar: Una Edicíon Critica” (2004)
Deborah Barnard (French): “Marginality and Mixed Marriages in the Works of Albert Memmi” (2003)
R. Philip O’Hara (Divinity): “Economics of the Basileia Tou Theou in Mark” (2002)
Cécile Guillard (French): “Baudelaire malgré tout: La présence de Baudelaire dans l’oeuvre de Ives Bonnefoy” (2002)
Terresa Stricklen (Divinity): “Preaching and Theology in Light of Theological Education: The Early History of a Troubled Marriage or What Went Wrong How” (2001)
Brett Davis (Philosophy): “On the Way to Gelassenheit: The Problem of the Will and the Possibility of Non-Willing in Heidegger’s Thought” (2001)
Ken Himmelman (Comparative Literature): “‘Beyond the Compass of Time’: The Fragmented Universe and the Rise of Modern Science Fiction, 1600-1740” (1998)
Darren Hutchinson (Philosophy): “A Song of Solipsism: Wittgenstein and the End of the World” (1996)
Greg Carey (Religious Studies): “Elusive Apocalypse: Reading Authority in the Revelation of John” (1996)
Gian Balsamo (Comparative Literature): “Legitimate Filiation and Gender Segragation: Law and Fiction in Texts by Derrida, Hegel, Joyce, Pirandello and Vico” (1994)
MA Theses directed (or co-directed):
Hunter Bragg (Divinity): “Kierkegaard, Indirect Communication and Performativity” (2017)
Jason Moore (Divinity): “Jean-Luc Nancy’s Material Ontology: Disenclosure, Apophasis, and the World of Bodies” (2013)
Wong Kar Kei Jenny, “The Challenge of Modernity and Italo Calvino’s Literary Responses: An Examination of the Relationship between Humanity and the World and Literature as a Reconciling Force,” External Examiner, University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Arts, School of Humanities (2012)
Lauren Smelser (Master Theological Studies): “Christian Hermeneutics in the ‘Now’ and the ‘Not Yet’ of God’s Logos: Embodying Christ through Kenosis in Comparative Theological Readership” (2010)
Andrea Thornton (Religious Studies): “Job and Philosophy” (2010)
Zachery Gershom (Divinity): “Orthodox Akatathan Liturgy and Apophasis” (2010)
Eric Froom (Philosophy): “Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and Philosophical Doubt” (2007)
Burt Fulmer (Interdisciplinary Studies): “Rene Girard and the Exorcism of the Possessed Consumer” (2006)
Natalia Mikailovitch (Comparative Literature): “Transforming the Language: Translation as Exile and Hermeneutic Dialogue” (2005)
Robert Nasatir (Comparative Literature): “Burning Shadow: The Poetic Image of Federico García Lorca in English-Language Poetry” (2000)
Laura Matter Fukeshima (Comparative Literature): “Reproducing Catullus: Translation and the Polymetrics” (2001)
Matt Burleson (Comparative Literature): “Traces of Heidegger in Crista Wolf’s Cassandra” (2000)
Michel Le Grand (Comparative Literature): “Modernist Poetics of Paul Valery, Pedro Salinas” (1995)
SERVICE (current and representative activities)
Principal Administrative Positions:
Program Head of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Macao, 2013-15
Faculty Executive Committee, University of Macao, 2013-15
Dante Society of America, Executive Council, 2007-2010
Interim Chair of Comparative Literature Program, Vanderbilt, 2004-2005
Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) in French, Vanderbilt, 2003
To Department:
Hiring committee for lecturer in Italian, 2022
Designing generic Great Works courses for French and for Italian, F 2021
Observing and evaluating courses in Italian, F 2021
Organized Fireside Chat of poet Béatrice Machet at McTyeire, October 13, 2009
Invited Zygmunt Baranski, Serena Professor of Italian at Cambridge, for two lectures:
“Pasolini’s Uccellini e Uccellacci: Histories of Italy/Histories of Cinema” 9-30-2010
“What’s so New about the Vita Nova?” 10-1-2010
McTyeire faculty advisor for French, 2015-2017 + recruiting for French 2017
French and Italian department futures committee 2015-2016, 2016-2017
French Graduate Examinations Committee, 2016, 2017
Italian Curriculum Committee, 2017
To College:
McTyeire International House language-learning residential education program direction as the live-in French Hall coordinator. Entailed daily activities with students in target language and organizing dorm-wide events including international deserts night and parties for foreign-culture holidays. Fall 2021
Advisory Board of the Max Kade Center for German and European Studies
Committee for Promotion to tenure of Prof. Richard McGregor
To University:
Together with a new colleague in Italian (Anna Marra) I conceived and organized a new lecture series (Annual Dante Lecture Series, Vanderbilt University) and gave the inaugural lecture, November .
Faculty-in-residence at McTyeire International Hall (for Italian, German, French, and
Spanish) 1992-2012. Faculty Advisor for French Hall 2016-17
Principal Organizer for international conferences at University of Macao:
“What is Apophatic Philosophy and Why is it Relevant Today” (2015).
“Immanence and Transcendence in Intercultural Philosophy” (2015)
“Critical Philosophy and the Way: A Symposium on Kantian Paradigms and Prospects in East Asia” (2014)
Faculty reviewer for the 2017 GEO (Global Education Office) Scholarship Review Committee
Faculty reviewer for the 2018 GEO (Global Education Office) Scholarship Review Committee
To Profession:
Reviews for Brill, Poetics Today, Literature and Theology (2022)
co-leader/convener for
Internationale Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG)
XIV. Kongress
Wege der Germanistik in transkulturellen Perspektiven
Palermo 26.07.-02.08.2021
Review of fellowship application for the American Academy in Berlin (2016-17)
External Assessor for Promotion to full professor of philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University (2017)
Tenure Review Committee & Promotion to Associate Professor of Italian, University of Notre Dame
Consultant for Thomas Riggs & Company and The Gale Group
For Dante’s Vita Nuova in Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism (CMLC) series
Consultant for Thomas Riggs & Company and The Gale Group
For Augustine’s Confessions, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism (CMLC) series
External Reviewer for internal transfers of staff to Philosophy within Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Macao, for Dr. Wan, Dr. Jia, and Dr. Chen
Executive Board Member of Dante Society Council of the Dante Society of America
Tenure Review Committee for Promotion to Associate Professor of Italian, Notre Dame University
Referee for Promotion to Full Professor of Italian, University of Chicago
Referee for Promotion to Full Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University
Tenure Review Committee & Promotion to Associate Professor of Italian, Wayne State University
Tenure Review Committee for Promotion to Associate Professor of Italian, Princeton University
Referee for the Dante Prize (undergraduate essay contest) and Grandgent Prize (graduate essay
contest)
Referee of Grant Proposals for American Philosophical Association and Louisiana State
Member of advisory board of Enthymema: Rivista di teoria, critica e filosofia della letteratura;
and of Hermeneutica
Reader of manuscripts for Oxford University Press, Columbia University Press, Routledge, University of Toronto Press, SUNY Press, Fordham University Press, Modern Theology, Philosophy of Rhetoric, Christianity and Literature, PMLA, Journal of Religion, Acta Academica, Swiss National Science Foundation, Sage Publications, Gale’s Literature of Society series, Journal of European Studies, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Analysis (OUP)
Consultant for Thomas Riggs & Company and The Gale Group
for Manifesto in Literature, Literature of Propaganda, Literature of Autobiography
for Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, vol. 179: Dante, Vita Nuova
for Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, vol. 186: Augustine, Confessions
and for Edmond Jabès in the Twentieth Century Literary Criticism series
Cover endorsements for:
Johannes Aakjær Steenbuch, Negative Theology: A Short Introduction
(Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2022)
John Van Dyke, Poetic Creation: Language and the Unsayable in the Late Poetry of Robert Penn
Warren (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2021)
Jordan Silversmith, Redshift Blueshift (Gival Press, 2021)
Paolo A. Bolaños, Nietzsche and Adorno on Philosophical Praxis, Language, and Reconciliation:
Towards an Ethics of Thinking (Lexington Books, 2020),
Contemporary Studies in Idealism series
Denis Turner, God, Mystery and Mystification (Notre Dame University Press, 2019)
Giambattista Vico, The New Science, trans. Jason Taylor and Robert Miner, introduced by
Giuseppe Mazzotta (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019)
Beibei Guan and Wayne Cristaudo, Baudelaire Contra Benjamin: A Critique of Politicized
Aesthetics and Cultural Marxism (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019)
Elliot R. Wolfson, The Duplicity of Philosophy’s Shadow: Heidegger, Nazism,
and the Jewish Other (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018)
William D. Melaney, Alterity and Criticism: Tracing Time in Modern Literature
(New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017)
Peter Kline, Passion for Nothing: Kierkegaard’s Apophatic Theology
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017)
Thomas J. J. Altizer, Satan and Apocalypse: And Other Essays in Political Theology
(New York: SUNY Press, 2017)
William Desmond, The Intimate Universal: The Hidden Porosity Among Religion, Art,
Philosophy, and Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016)
Jeremiah L. Alberg, Beneath the Veil of the Strange Verses: Reading Scandalous Texts (East
Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2012)
Wayne Cristaudo, A Philosophical History of Love (New Brunswick: Transaction, 2012)
Gian Balsamo, Il libro del respiro (Italy: Robin Edizioni, 2012)
http://www.ultimabooks.it/the-book-of-breathing
Virginia Burrus, Mark D. Jordan, Karmen MacKendrick, Seducing Augustine: Bodies, Desires, Confessions (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010)
Christine O’Connel Bauer, Dante’s Hermeneutics of Salvation: Passages to Freedom in the Divine Comedy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007).
Francis J. Ambrosio, Dante and Derrida: Face to Face (New York: SUNY Press, 2007)
Co-Organizer:
Co-Organizer for Internationale Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG), XIV. Kongress
Wege der Germanistik in transkulturellen Perspektiven, Palermo 26.07.-02.08.2020
Co-Organization of invited lecture at Vanderbilt University by Federico Canaccini (Princeton
University): “Guelf and Ghibelline in the Age of Dante,” November 15, 2016
Co-Organizer of Group session of ICLA (International Comparative Literature Association) triennial Congress at University of Vienna, 21-27 July, 2016. Stream: Sprache der Migration. Migration der Sprache. Transkulturelle Literatur im Zeitalter der Globalisierung.
Philosophy Symposium, “What is Apophatic Thinking and Why is it Relevant Today?
Discussions around William Franke’s A Philosophy of the Unsayable”
International Philosophy Symposium, University of Macao, March 7-8, 2015
Principal Organizer:
“Critical Theory and the Way: Kantian Paradigms in East Asia”
International Philosophy Symposium, University of Macao, May 8-10, 2014
“Transcendence in Immanence in Intercultural Philosophy”
International Philosophy Symposium, University of Macao, April, 2015
(co-organized with Nahum Brown, my postdoctoral fellow)
To Community: Member of artistic team for poetry workshops (ateliers d’écriture) of the Scriptorium at
L’Isle-sur-Sorgue (May 10); the Festival Poétique des Petits Toits du Monde (May 29-30), Noyer-sur-Gabron; and Festival Ex-Poésie at Perigueux on June 30.
Philosophy Café: Rui Cunha Foundation, Macao
1) “Philosophical Universalism and the Role of China in the World Today,” February 11, 2015
2) “Universality and Cultural Difference Between West and East” with Xavier Garnier,
Director of Alliance Française de Macao, November 11, 2015
« Conférence sur poésie » at Soirée Poésie, Writers’ Forum, Opède, Lubéron, July 18, 2016
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