Philosopher Richard Kearney to Speak Oct. 5 on the Sacred and the Poetic in Modern Literature

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Distinguished philosopher and author Richard Kearney will speak at the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College on Wednesday, Oct. 5, at 4:30 p.m. His talk, “Anatheism and the Poetic Imagination,” will explore the relationship between the sacred and the poetic in modern literature, with particular reference to Gerard Manly Hopkins and Virginia Woolf.

Kearney is the author of more than 20 books on European philosophy and literature. His most recent work, Anatheism: Returning to God after God (Columbia University Press, 2009), explores the split between theism and atheism, defining ana-theos as “a moment of creative ‘not knowing’ that signifies a break with former sureties and invites us to forge new meanings from the most ancient of wisdoms.” The New Yorker’s James Wood praised Anatheism as “a heartfelt, pragmatic, and eminently realistic argument” about belief in God in the modern world. “Richard Kearney wants to see what is left of God, in the time after God, and he does so superbly well,” Wood wrote.

Kearney, who holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College, is a Visiting Professor at many prestigious universities throughout the world, including University College Dublin and the Sorbonne. As an important intellectual in Ireland, Kearney was involved in drafting several proposals for a Northern Irish peace agreement in the 1980s and ’90s, as well as serving as a member of the Arts Council of Ireland and the Higher Education Authority of Ireland. He is also the international director of the Guestbook Project, a multimedia investigation of hospitality and connecting to strangers across different religions and cultures. For more on his career, visit his Web site.

“Anatheism and the Poetic Imagination” is sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee and the Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture and is free and open to the public. For more information: http://www.washcoll.edu.