Scott Cairns is Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri. A librettist, essayist, translator, and author of a dozen poetry collections, he has long been a distinguished voice in American religious poetry and an influence on many of the poets we have featured on this podcast. We’re talking today about his latest collection, Correspondence …
Ep. 98: Deep Space, Deep Sea, and the Deep Heart of God, with Laura Reece Hogan, poet
We welcome back to our podcast the award-winning poet and theologian Laura Reece Hogan. Laura is the author of a study of Paul’s theology, I Live, No Longer I: Paul’s Spirituality of Suffering, Transformation, and Joy, published in 2017, and of the poetry collections Litany of Flights and Butterfly Nebula. It is that latter collection, published in 2023, we …
Ep. 97: Faith and Wonder, with Steven E. Knepper, Virginia Military Institute
Steven Knepper is Associate Professor of English and Bruce C. Gottwald, Jr. ’81 Chair for Academic Excellence at Virginia Military Institute. A scholar as well as a poet, Steve is the collaborative author of a book on the work of the South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han, the editor of a volume on the Irish philosopher …
Ep. 96: Contemplative – and Transformative – Reading, with Stephanie Paulsell, Harvard Divinity School
In Season 3, Matthew Wickman spoke with Stephanie Paulsell, who was Susan Shallcross Swarz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies at Harvard Divinity School and Faculty Dean of Eliot House at Harvard College. Paulsell, author of books on Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison, as well as articles on other literary figures and Biblical texts, …
Ep. 95: God’s Risk in Creation, with Jane Clark Scharl, Poet
The concluding poem from Jane Clark Scharl’s 2024 debut collection Ponds addresses the risk God takes in creating a world that can be almost mesmerizingly beautiful – a risk, Scharl writes, that “entices [us] to look / no further than” the world itself, to miss perceiving God through the radiance of what strikes our senses. Scharl is …
Ep. 94 On Deepening Our Religious Experience: An Invitation to Poetry for the Church, with Abram Van Engen, St. Louis University
Abram Van Engen is the Stanley Elkin Professor in the Humanities and Chair of the Department of English at Washington University in St. Louis. He specializes in American literature, and is the author of City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism. We talk with him about his latest book, Word Made Fresh: An Invitation to …
Season 4 wrap-up: conversation with Faith and Imagination podcast producers Sophia Snyder and Starly Pratt
As is traditional for this podcast, we conclude this season of episodes by reflecting together as a production team on the podcast as a whole, on our extraordinary guests, and on some moments in conversation with these guests that made a particular impression on us.
“I Was in Prison and You Visited Me,” with Andrew Skotnicki, Manhattan College
Andrew Skotnicki is Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College. He has been a devoted minister to people in prison for more than a half century, and we discuss some of the lessons that ministry has taught him, problems he perceives with our system of criminal justice, and the blessings he has received from heeding …
Healing in a Time of Division, with Vanessa White, Catholic Theological Union
Vanessa White is Associate Professor of Spirituality and Ministry, and Director of the Certificate in Black Theology and Ministry, at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. She holds a dual appointment at Xavier University of Louisiana’s Institute for Black Catholic Studies. She belongs to several academic societies, among them the National Black Storyteller Association, the American …
On Suffering, Heaven, and Experiencing a Life Renewed, with Jeffrey Vogel, Hampden-Sydney College
Jeffrey Vogel is Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. An expert thinker and writer on topics like divine silence and apophatic theology—or theology of what lies beyond saying—he is also the author of a beautiful new book, All Manner of Things: Meditations on Suffering, Death, and Eternal Life, which we …