The New Year promises to be especially enriching and productive. Two ongoing seminars at Harvard University will feature an exciting series of talks devoted to a broad range of topics and themes relating to the study of Religion and Literature. My seminar on “Classical Traditions,” held at the Mahindra Humanities Center, will feature lectures from Brooke Holmes (Princeton), Emily Apter (New York), Michèle Lowrie (Chicago) and Victoria Rimell (Rome); and the “Harvard Buddhist Studies Forum” will feature talks by Shayne Clarke (McMaster), Nancy Lin (Vanderbilt), Elizabeth Wilson (Miami), and Christian Lammerts (Rutgers). Please stay posted for detailed information.
In addition, on February 7, I shall give the annual Rodig Memorial Lecture at Rutgers University. The title of the talk is “Philology of the Flesh: Benjamin’s Collection and Kafka’s Penal Colony,” dealing with persistent metaphors of the book that derive from theological distinctions of embodiment, possession and incarnation.
Benjamin provocatively interpreted Kafka’s work by means of the geometric figure of an ellipse with two foci: the mystical tradition and modern urban experience—a fitting emblem for HolyLit. May the resulting orbit continue to generate intriguing reflections on the multiple gravitational forces that motivate our research, individually and collectively!
With warmest wishes,
John Hamilton
Holylit - AG Religion & Literature 