Theology and Literature after Postmodernity

This volume deploys theology in a reconstructive approach to contemporary literary criticism, to validate and exemplify theological readings of literary texts as a creative exercise. It engages in a dialogue with interdisciplinary approaches to literature in which theology is alert and responsive to the challenges following postmodernism and postmodern literary criticism. It demonstrates the scope and explanatory power of theological readings across various texts and literary genres. Theology and Literature after Postmodernity explores a reconstructive approach to reading and literary study in the university setting, with contributions from interdisciplinary scholars worldwide.

Zoë Lehmann Imfeld is a researcher at the English department at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Peter Hampson is Visiting Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, UK.

Alison Milbank lectures in Literature and Theology at the University of Nottingham, UK. She was formerly John Rylands Research Institute Fellow at the University of Manchester, UK, and taught at the Universities of Cambridge, UK, Middlesex, UK, and Virginia, USA.

Foreword
Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School, USA
Introduction and Outline of volume: Literary Re-constructions in Reasonable Faith - The Editors
Part One: Readings in Reasonable faith
1. Literature in the Christian university
Susannah Monta, University of Notre Dame, USA
2. Reading theologically in the postmodern English department
Hester Jones, University of Bristol, UK
3. Theology, Literature and Prayer
Vittorio Montemaggi, University of Notre Dame, USA
Part Two: Theological and Literary Reconstructions
4. Postmodern orthodoxy
Graham Ward, University of Oxford, UK
5. Breaking the Spell of the New Atheism: Apologetics through His Dark Materials and Harry Potter - Alison Milbank, University of Nottingham, UK
6. Cusa: the pre-modern postmodern
Johannes Hoff, Heythrop College, UK and Peter Hampson, University of Oxford, UK
7. Love Among the Ruins: Hermeneutics of Theology and Literature after the 20th century
Jeffrey Keuss, Seattle Pacific University, USA
8. Sacred Texts/Secular Words: Towards a Post-Secular Hermeneutic of Literature and Theology - Jeffrey Keuss, Seattle Pacific University, USA
9. Drama as Liturgy
Aaron Riches, University of Nottingham, USA
10.Kevin's Theodicy: Notions of Evil in 'We Need to Talk about Kevin'
Zoë Lehmann, University of Bern, Switzerland
11.'The One Life within Us and Abroad': Pathetic Fallacy Reconsidered
Gavin Hopps, University of St Andrews, UK
12. Fictioning Things: Gift and Narrative
John Milbank, University of Nottingham, UK
Index