Poet Christian Wiman to Present on “The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art” on March 5
During his presentation titled, “The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art,” Wiman, a Clement-Muhl Professor of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School, will explore the relationship between art and faith, drawing from his 2018 book, He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art. Wiman will address such topics as the relationship between poetry and prayer, reading secular literature as a person of faith, and what it means to read and live “poetically.”
Wiman is the author, editor or translator of nearly a dozen books, including Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair, Hammer is the Prayer: Selected Poems, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer and Stolen Air: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam.
Wiman has served as a Jones Lecturer in Poetry at Stanford University and a visiting assistant professor of English at Northwestern University. He served as Visiting Scholar at Lynchburg College in Virginia for three years, and from 2003-13 he was the editor of Poetry magazine.
Pulitzer-Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson writes, “Wiman’s poetry and his scholarship have a purifying urgency that is rare in this world. That puts him at the very source of theology and enables him to say new things in timeless language, so that the reader’s surprise and assent are one and the same.”
Wiman’s honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ruth Lilly Fellowship, Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and honorary doctorate of humane letters from North Central College.
The discussion will take place in Weyerhaeuser Hall’s Robinson Teaching Theatre. It is free and open to the public.
About Whitworth University:
Located in Spokane, Wash., Whitworth is a private liberal arts university affiliated with the Presbyterian church. The university, which has an enrollment of about 2,500 students, offers more than 100 undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
Contacts:
Trisha Coder, media relations manager, Whitworth University, (509) 777-4703 or tcoder@whitworth.edu.
