Faith and Imagination: A BYU Humanities Center Podcast
How do we envision our highest ideals and deepest commitments? How do we name and express our most expansive sense of who we are? The Faith and Imagination podcast explores these questions by conversing with scholars and others who address our religious and spiritual lives creatively and insightfully. Sponsored by the BYU Humanities Center.
Ep. 111: Finding our Callings in Every Season of Life, with Karen Swallow Prior, writer and public intellectual
Karen Swallow Prior is the author of several books, among them The Evangelical Imagination, On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books, and Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More. A prominent voice in the Christian public sphere, she is a frequent speaker, a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum, a contributing writer at Dispatch, and …
Ep. 110: The “Mystical Realism” of Catholic Women Writers of the Early 20th Century, with Emma Mason, University of Warwick
Emma Mason is Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Warwick University in England. She’s the author and editor of several books, primarily on nineteenth-century English literature, most recently a study titled Christina Rosetti: Poetry, Ecology, Faith, and she edits, with Mark Knight, the book series New Directions in Religion and Literature for Bloomsbury …
Ep. 109: Imagination’s Visionary Role in Religious and Spiritual Life, with Callid Keefe-Perry, Boston College
Callid Keefe-Perry is assistant professor of contextual education and public theology at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry. A traveling minister within the Religious Society of Friends – the Quakers – he is also the author of two books we discuss today: 2014’s Way to Water: A Theopoetics Primer and 2023’s Sense of the Possible: An Introduction …
Ep. 108: The Writer, the Cross, and the Believing Skeptic, with Darren J. N. Middleton, Baylor University
Darren Middleton is Professor of Literature and Theology at Baylor University, where he is also director of Baylor’s Interdisciplinary Core. This year, he also assumed the editorship of the academic journal Christianity and Literature, a leading journal in the field of literature and religion. A prolific scholar with books on subjects ranging from the novelists Shusaku …
Ep. 107 Season 5 wrap-up: conversation with Faith and Imagination podcast producer Starly Pratt
As is our custom, the podcast’s producer and I spend a few minutes reflecting on this season’s great guests and discussing a few moments from this season’s conversations that stood out to us.
Ep. 106: Highlighted episode: Finding Christ in Poetry, with Paul J. Pastor, poet
Paul J. Pastor recently published a book of poems titled The Locust Years. Recognizing this achievement, and returning to one of our favorite conversations, we highlight this 2022 conversation with Paul after the release of his previous poetry collection, Bower Lodge.
Ep. 105: “Among the Losses”: Remembering the Poet Anya Krugovoy Silver, with Andrew Silver, Mercer University
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 …
Ep. 104: Godstruck: Seven Women’s Unexpected Journeys to Religious Conversion, with Kelsey Osgood, writer
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 …
Ep. 103: A Theology of Fiction, with Cassandra Nelson, Lumen Center
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 …
Ep. 102: Keeping the Faith and Living Together in a Polarized Age, with Leonard McMahon, Pacific School of Religion
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. …
Ep. 101: Hopkins’s Poetry and the Hope – and Rhythms – of New Creation, with Devon Abts
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 …
