Harvard Divinity School

Dr. Tyler Roberts presents the 2017 Dudleian Lecture. Dr. Tyler Roberts, Professor of Religious Studies at Grinnell College, presents the 2017 Dudleian Lecture. Marx’s claim that premise of all criticism is the criticism of religion continues to shape critical projects today. It enables scholars of religion such as Bruce Lincoln to distinguish the study of religion from theology and other religious discourses and literary critics such as Stathis Gourgouris to distinguish the secular from the religious. But we are left, consequently, with impoverished notions of critique and of religion. Starting instead from Foucault, who dreamt of a criticism that “would multiply not judgments but signs of life,” and with special attention to Ted Smith’s political theology, “Signs of Life” considers how we might rethink the critical project with and not against at least certain forms of “religion.” Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.