The 2022 Cole Lecture with Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

In a world tragically wounded by many crises old and new, endemic and fiercely emerging just now, why would a 21st century Christian theologian take the time to translate medieval Hindu poetry from the Tamil language? This lecture ventures an answer to this honest question, reflecting on poetry and its forms and meanings, the possibility of encountering a religion other than one’s own by learning the forms and meanings of poetry, and the promise and risks of trying to make sense of such poetry in English. Artful translations intrigue and invite, disrupt settled patterns of learning, and in the end reveal (illumine by revelation) what God is like when heard and read in words heard and sung in religious cultures far away in time and place. “Hindu Poetry and Christian Particularity” draws on Francis X. Clooney’s many years of attempting to translate the poetry of the Hindu saints known as the alvars (“those immersed in God”).

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Benton Chapel at Vanderbilt University, 411 21st Avenue South, Nashville, United States