Faith and Imagination: A BYU Humanities Center Podcast

Andrew Silver is the Page Morton Hunter Professor of English at Mercer University, where he has taught since 1998. He is a scholar, playwright, musician, and was named the state of Georgia's Professor of the Year in 2003. I'm talking with Andy today about his late wife, the poet Anya Krugovoy Silver, who died of …

Kelsey Osgood is a graduate of Columbia University and Goucher College's creative nonfiction MFA program. Her work has appeared in New York, The New Yorker, Time, Harper's Magazine, and elsewhere. Her first book, How to Disappear Completely: On Modern Anorexia, was chosen for the Barnes and Noble Discover program. I met Kelsey a few years ago, and spoke with her …

Cassandra Nelson is a Visiting Fellow in literature at the Lumen Center in Madison, Wisconsin, a community of scholars seeking to deepen the dialogue between Christian thought and academic disciplines. She is also an Associate Fellow at the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and has taught previously at the US Military …

We welcome back to our podcast a former guest, Leonard McMahon, who is an assistant professor of pastoral care, spirituality, and political theology at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, and also founder and CEO of Common Ground Dialogue, a political consulting firm specializing in facilitating conversation around complicated social issues, bringing together divergent communities. …

Devon Abts is Research and Operations Director for the Clemente Course in the Humanities, an organization whose mission is to provide transformative educational experiences, in the form of free college courses, for adults who face economic hardship and adverse circumstances. We speak with Devon about her work for this organization. But our primary conversation will …

On this one hundredth episode of the Faith and Imagination podcast, its host, Matthew Wickman, commemorates some key moments from the early seasons of the podcast that captured what he wanted the podcast to be and gave further shape and direction to what he hoped it would become. We hope you enjoy reflecting back on our conversations …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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 …

This week we highlight a past episode of our Faith and Imagination Podcast. Today's highlighted guest, Christina Bieber Lake, sees the novel as an expressly theological exercise. Dr. Lake, the Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English at Wheaton College, is the author of the 2019 book Beyond the Story: American Literary Fiction and the Limits of …

Benjamin Myers is the Crouch-Mathis Professor of Literature and the Director of the Honors Program at Oklahoma Baptist University. A former poet laureate of the state of Oklahoma, Ben is the author of four books of poetry and two books of nonfiction. We discuss two of those books today, a 2020 critical work titled A Poetics …

Tiffany Eberle Kriner is associate professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois. The author of the scholarly book The Future of the Word: An Eschatology of Reading as well as a number of articles and chapters in academic venues, Kriner is more recently the author of the memoir In Thought, Word, and Seed: Reckonings from a Midwest …

Robert Flanagan has served as an Episcopal priest since 2003. He is chaplain at General Theological Seminary in New York and serves as dean's advisor at Virginia Theological Seminary. We speak today about this 2022 book The Letters of an Unexpected Mystic: Encountering the Mystical Theology in First and Second Peter. We attend especially to how …

Abigail Carroll serves as pastor of the arts and spiritual formation at Church of the Well in Burlington, Vermont. She holds a PhD in American Studies from Boston University, and she is an accomplished poet whose third collection of poems, Cup My Days Like Water, a set of meditations on the Psalms, was published just last …

Benedict Shoup is a doctoral candidate in systematic theology at the University of Notre Dame. He is currently writing a dissertation on the pneumatology and contemplative methodology—basically, the spiritual theory and practice—of the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, John of the Cross. I met Benedict this past summer at a conference in Adelaide, Australia, where he gave …

This week we highlight a past episode of our Faith and Imagination Podcast. Norman Wirzba is the Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Christian Theology and Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke Divinity School. The author of several books, he's also the director of a multi-year, Henry Luce Foundation-funded project entitled …

I sat down last spring with Darlene Young, a poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction writer who teaches in the English Department at BYU. We spoke about her two volumes of published poems, Homespun and Angel Feathers (2019) and Here (2023). We also talked about the relationship between poetry and faith, bringing humor to sacred things, …

Christopher Morris is Head of the Department of Pastoral and Spiritual Studies and lecturer in Spirituality at Catholic Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. He is also a spiritual director and has been a Religious Education leader in Catholic education. Much of his scholarship has focused on the notion of “wisdom knowing” and practical ways to …

We speak today with Sally Thomas about her 2020 poetry collection Motherland as well as her novel, Works of Mercy, published in 2022. A former guest on this podcast, she has published poetry, fiction, reviews, and essays in such venues as First Things, Plough Quarterly, and the New Yorker, and she co-edited, with Micah Mattix, the anthology Christian Poetry in America since …

We resume a tradition from the past two seasons, discussing some favorite books we read in 2023. As always, our themes involve religion, spirituality, and the intersection of faith and intellect. And we are privileged, again, to welcome our guest, George Handley, Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at BYU. Dr. Wickman’s Honorable Mentions: Jeffrey A. Vogel, All …

Jill Peláez Baumgaertner is Professor Emerita and former Dean of Humanities and Theological Studies at Wheaton College. The author of several collections of poetry as well as scholarly books on such writers as Flannery O'Connor, she currently serves as poetry editor at The Christian Century. We talk today about a beautiful volume of poems she …

This is the first episode we have released in three months. We were having technological difficulties with the system that distributes the podcasts, and it now seems mostly to be fixed. Thank you for your patience—and for listening to these episodes with our wonderful guests. Mischa Willett is a poet, scholar of nineteenth-century British literature, and assistant …

Diane Glancy is a prolific and acclaimed poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and professor emeritus at Macalester College. Her awards include the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book, the American Book Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' …

We've come to the end of Season 3 of the podcast. I talk with Sophia Snyder, the podcast's producer, and we share a few thoughts about the podcast generally and especially about this season's guests. We also discuss brief clips from a few of this season's episodes and talk about them – a small sampling …

Chad Thralls is a scholar of Christian spirituality and mysticism who teaches at Seton Hall University. His primary area of focus is the contemplative spiritual life, and today we discuss his book Deep Calls to Deep: Mysticism, Scripture, and Contemplation.

Zachary Davis is the Executive Director of the Faith Matters Foundation, the host of the Ministry of Ideas, Writ Large, and Making Meaning podcasts, and the editor of Wayfare Magazine. We discuss the article he published in the inaugural issue of Wayfare, a beautiful piece on the history of pilgrimage that doubles as a story about his personal faith journey.

Stephanie Paulsell is Susan Shallcross Swarz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies at Harvard Divinity School and Faculty Dean of Eliot House at Harvard College. The author of a book on Virginia Woolf, the editor of a book on Toni Morrison, and writer of articles on many other literary figures as well as on …

Richard McLauchlan is an independent scholar, a professional biographer, and the author of Saturday's Silence: R.S. Thomas and Paschal Reading. With Easter approaching, we wanted to re-release this 2021 conversation with McLauchlan about how Thomas's poetry captures the meaning of the day between Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, a day of suffering and silence that speaks to …

Daniel Train is the associate director of Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts at Duke Divinity School, where he directs the Certificate in Theology and the Arts program. He is the coeditor of The Saint John's Bible and Its Tradition: Illuminating Beauty in the Twenty-First Century (2018) and also of a 2022 collection we …

Leonard McMahon is an assistant professor of pastoral care, spirituality, and political theology at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, and also founder and CEO of Common Ground Dialogue, a political consulting firm specializing in facilitating conversation around complicated social issues, bringing together divergent communities. We speak about his work addressing such issues, exploring what …

The Reverend Douglas S. Hardy is Professor of Spiritual Formation at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City. Doug has earned degrees in psychology as well as theology, he is a practicing minister and spiritual director, and he recently completed a term as President of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality. We're speaking today …

Jennifer Frey is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina, a faculty fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America, and a Newbigin Interfaith Fellow with the Carver Project. She works extensively in moral philosophy and is particularly interested in matters of …

This week we highlight a past episode of our Faith and Imagination Podcast. Kelsey Osgood is a freelance writer and the author of “How to Disappear Completely: On Modern Anorexia.” Her work has appeared in such venues as The New Yorker's Culture Desk Blog, Time, Harper's, the New York Times, and Salon. Recently, in Plough Quarterly, she published “The Yahrzeit of Ernest …

Sally Read is an acclaimed poet whose work has been translated into five languages. She recounts her 2010 conversion to Catholicism in Night's Bright Darkness, published in 2016, with further reflections on coming of age as a person of faith in her 2019 book Annunciation: A Call to Faith in a Broken World. We speak with her …

Barbara Quinn RSCJ is a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart, United States-Canada province, and a President Emeritus of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, or SSCS. She is also Associate Director of Spiritual Formation at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. We speak today about the lecture she …

Russ Ramsey is a pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, and is the author of several books, including Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death. We speak today about his latest book, Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith, published in 2022 by Zondervan Press. I'm Matthew Wickman …

Joshua Hren is founder of Wiseblood Books and co-founder of the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. His essays and poems have appeared in such venues as First Things, Catholic World Report, New Oxford Review, and LOGOS. His books include the novel Infinite Regress and a volume of poems titled Last Things, First Things, and Other …

As the door closes on 2022, reflecting upon what we’ve learned, where we’ve been, and what we’ve read proves to be a thoughtful and important experience. In this episode, Matthew Wickman and George Handley rejoin to discuss a few of the insights and learning experiences they’ll be taking into this upcoming year coming from some of their …

This week we highlight a past episode of our Faith and Imagination Podcast. Robyn Wrigley-Carr is Associate Professor in Theology and Spirituality at Alphacrucis College in Sydney, Australia. She serves on the editorial board and is Book Review Editor for the Journal for the Study of Spirituality. She's written extensively about the 20th century Anglo-Catholic …

Micah Mattix is poetry editor at First Things and professor of English at Regent University in Virginia. He has published a book of essays on poetry titled The Soul is a Stranger in This World, and his criticism has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and The National Review. Sally Thomas is the author of the poetry …

Douglas E. Christie is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. His books include The Insurmountable Darkness of Love: Mysticism, Loss, and the Common Life and The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology. His work explores the early foundations of Christianity and connects its spiritual traditions to important issues in our modern world. …

This week we highlight a past episode of our Faith and Imagination Podcast. Katie Kresser is a Professor of Art History at Seattle Pacific University and author of the 2019 book Bezalel's Body: The Death of God and the Birth of Art. On this episode, Matthew Wickman, founding director of the BYU Humanities Center, speaks with …

Denise Levertov was an outstanding poet who became one of the finest religious poets of the twentieth century, or any century. Cristina Gámez-Fernández is an outstanding scholar of Levertov's work, and she joins the podcast to discuss Levertov's religious poetry in the context of her distinguished career. Gámez-Fernández teaches at the University of Córdoba in …

Matthew Wickman is a professor of English at Brigham Young University. He served as the founding director of the BYU Humanities Center the past 10 years and is currently the host of this podcast, while also being the associate coordinator of BYU's Faith and Imagination Institute. Matthew published an evocative book this year entitled “Life …