THE UNIVERSITY
O F CH I C AG O
DIVINITY SCHOOL
Religion and
Literature
Faculty
Sarah Hammerschlag, Assistant Professor
of Religion and Literature
Karin Krause, Assistant Professor of
Byzantine Theology and Visual Culture
Richard A. Rosengarten, Associate
Professor of Religion and Literature (MA,
PhD, University of Chicago)
Associated Faculty
Robert Bird, Associate Professor in the
Department of Slavic Languages and
Literatures (PhD, Yale University)
Philip Bohlman, Mary Werkman
Distinguished Service Professor of Music
and the Humanities in the College (PhD,
University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign)
Jaś Elsner, Visiting Professor of Art History
and Humfrey Payne Senior Research
Fellow in Classical Archaeology and Art,
Corpus Christi College, Oxford (PhD, King’s
College, Cambridge)
Christopher J. Wild, Associate Professor
in the Department of Germanic Studies
and the College; Director of Undergraduate
Studies, Department of Germanic Studies
(PhD, Johns Hopkins University)
R
eligion and Literature uses the tools of poetics and literary theory,
aesthetics, and hermeneutics to study the ways that religions
harness the human imagination, and the ways that human recourse
to imaginative expression often—some would say always—engages
religion. Students who concentrate in the area pursue intensive work in
criticism, usually via study of particular historical periods and genres;
they supplement this work with studies in the history and philosophy
of interpretive theory. Students in the area also complete significant
work in at least one other area of study in the Divinity School, and
are strongly encouraged to develop a curriculum in a department or
division of the University that is relevant to their program.
For more information, contact
Teresa Hord Owens
Dean of Students
[email protected]
773.702.8217
UChicago Divinity School
For more information, visit divinity.uchicago.edu
Recent Graduates
Recent Courses
Joel Harter, PhD 2008
This is merely a sample of coursework available
“The Word Made Flesh and the Mazy Page: Symbol
at the Divinity School. Our faculty teach over
And Allegory in Coleridge`s Philosophy of Faith”
100 courses each year in the academic study
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I nteractions Between Jewish Philosophy and
Literature During the Middle Ages (Robinson)
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he Other and the ‘Exotic’ in Postwar Jewish
Writing (Hammerschlag)
of religion. Please visit us online for full lists of
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utobiography (Wedemeyer and Rosengarten)
Project Director, Urban Dolorosa
current and past course offerings.
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heory of Literature: The Twentieth Century
Zhange Ni, PhD 2009
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ewish Liturgical Poetry (Fishbane)
“The Pagan Writes Back: Religion and Literature
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evinas and Derrida on Religion and Literature
Lilly Pastoral Resident, Hyde Park Union Church;
(Hammerschlag)
in Four Contemporary Novels”
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Assistant Professor, Department of Religion and
Culture, Virginia Tech University
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Christendom (Elsner)
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(Hammerschlag)
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“T.S. Eliot’s Skilful Means: Indian Upaya, Ascetic
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C
omparative Mystical Literature: Islamic,
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in The Waste Land”
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rt and Religion in Late Antiquity (Elsner)
Lecturer in Humanities, Christ College (the
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he Citation in Jewish Religious Culture
Honors College), Valparaiso University
History Between 1900 and 1960 (Elsner)
P
oetics of Midrash (Fishbane)
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B
yzantine Art: Special Topics in Iconography
(Krause)
I lluminating the Bible in Byzantium (Krause)
Graduate Workshops
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rt and Ritual in Byzantium (Krause)
The Council on Advanced Studies (CAS) sponsors
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rabic Sufi Poetry (Sells)
interdisciplinary graduate research workshops
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he Narration of America in Literature and Film
in the humanities, social sciences, and divinity,
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he Veneration of Icons in Byzantium: History,
Theory, and Practice (Krause)
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(Fishbane)
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etween Vienna and Hamburg: From
Deutschland to America: The Writing of Art
(Rosengarten)
Cultivation, and the Struggle Against Pessimism
H
istory of Criticism: 16th-19th Centuries
(Rosengarten)
S
tyles of Catholicism: Kahlo, O’Connor, Weil
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nimal Spirituality in the Middle Ages
(Robinson)
I rony (Hammerschlag and Rosengarten)
Jewish, and Christian (Sells)
Ed Upton, PhD 2010
P
ilgrimmage in Antiquity and the Early
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errida’s ‘Of Grammatology’ (Hammerschlag)
(Rosengarten and Howell)
designed to bring together faculty and graduate
students from the University of Chicago and the
wider Chicago area to create scholarly dialogue,
to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration,
and to foster the exchange of ideas. Workshops
include Middle East History and Theory, Medieval
Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Religions in
America, Early Christian Studies, Jewish Studies,
and Hebrew Bible. For more information, visit
http://grad.uchicago.edu/academic_resources/
council_on_advanced_studies/. In addition, the
Divinity Students Association offers a range of
workshops and clubs: one for each area and others
according to student interest. Groups include
Buddhist Studies, Feminist Theories and the Study
of Religion, and Pedagogy and Professionalization.
To learn more, visit http://divinity.uchicago.edu/
clubs-and-workshops-0.
The University of Chicago Library
of the areas of study in the Divinity School. The
The University of Chicago Library is one of the
Library has a full-time Bibliographer for Religion
largest and richest research collections (both in
and Philosophy who holds workshops specifically
print and online formats) in the world. Religious
designed for those studying religion.
To learn more about library resources at the
Studies has been a core component of the
University of Chicago, visit library.uchicago.edu.
collection since the University’s founding and
its current strengths match the research needs
DIV 13 637
1025 East 58th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60637
T 773.702.8200
F 773.702.6048
divinity.uchicago.edu