Jeffrey Kosky Professor of Religion
Tucker 203
koskyj@wlu.edu
Education
Ph.D. University of Chicago Divinity School, 1997
B.A. Williams College, 1989
Research
Religion and Inquiry in the Humanities; Secularity and religion; Religion, spirituality, and contemporary art; Philosophy, religion, and the question of happiness; Phenomenology and religion.
Teaching
Religion and Inquiry in the Humanities; Secularity and religion; Religion and Philosophy; History of Christian Thought.
Selected Publications
Books:
From the Heart: A Memoir and a Meditation – On a Vital Organ. New York: Columbia University Press, 2025.
Arts of Wonder: Enchanting Secularity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
Essays and articles:
“Counter-Virtue and the Work of Art in Wolfgang Laib,” in CrossCurrents (Forthcoming).
“Believing Critics: Roland Barthes looks at photographs,” in Literature and Belief 42.2 (2024).
“Refusing the choice: Neither academic nor novelist, an experiment in writing” for SSRC The Immanent Frame (June 28, 2024).
“The Question of Criticism: What to do with our revelations?” in Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord, Rachel Smith and Ronald Bernier, eds. (Routledge Press, 2023).
“A Touching Phrase” for Noli me tangere (Touch me not) (January, 2022)
“Enchanting Secularity: In Praise of...” in The Arts & Ecumenism: What Theology Risks in Artistic Creation, Msgr. Timothy Verdon, ed. (Mandragora, forthcoming).
“An Excess of Happiness: The Approach of Jean-Luc Marion” in Breached Horizons, Stephen Lofts and Anthony Calcagno, eds. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
“For a Phenomenology of Happiness: John Keats and the Practice of Épochè” in Archivio di Filosofia 83, 1/2 (2015).
“Learning to Live on the Spiral Jetty” in Image 84 (March 2015).
“Contemplative Recovery: The Artwork of James Turrell” in CrossCurrents 63.1 (March 2013).
"Metaphysical Certainty and Confessing Desire for the Blessed Life: The Evidence of Self in Jean-Luc Marion's Reading of St. Augustine" in Gott denken - Ohne Metaphysik? Zu einer aktuellen Kontroverse in Theologie und Philosophie, Andreas Hunziker and Ingolf Dalferth, eds. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014.
"Recalling our Vocation: A Conversation about Teaching with Mark C. Taylor" in Pedagogical Exercises and Theories of Practice, a special issue of Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory < www.jcrt.org >, 2012.
"Vedere la luce: la contemplazione e le opere di James Turrell" in La promessa immaginata. Proposte per una teologia fondamentale, Stefanie Knauss and Davide Zordan, eds. Bologna: Edezione Dehoniane, 2011.
"World Loss and the Liberation of Man: Levinas' Praise of Disenchantment and De-sacralization" in MonoKL International Idea and Art Magazine, Volkan Celebi, ed., Istanbul, 2011.
"The Human in Question: Augustinian Dimensions in Jean-Luc Marion," in Words of Life: New Theological Turns in French Phenomenology, Norman Wirzba and Bruce Ellis Benson, eds. New York: Fordham University Press, 2009.
"Love Strong as Death: Levinas and Heidegger" in The Exorbitant: Emmanuel Levinas Between Jews and Christians, Kevin Hart, ed. New York: Fordham University Press, 2009.
"La libération de l'otage" in Rodolphe Calin, ed. Etudes philosophiques. Emmanuel Levinas, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2006.
"Iconic Revisions of the Modern World Picture," Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, 4/1 (2002). <www.jcrt.org>
Additional essays and articles can be noted upon request
Selected translated books:
Marion, Jean-Luc, [Au lieu de soi. L'approche de Saint Augustin] In the Self's Place: The Approach of St. Augustine. Stanford: Stanford University Press (2012).
Marion, Jean-Luc, [Etant donné] Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
Marion, Jean-Luc, [Sur le prisme métaphysique de Descartes] On Descartes' Metaphysical Prism: The Constitution and Limits of Onto-theo-logy in Cartesian Thought, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.