British Critic Terry Eagleton To Speak on “Faith and Fundamentalism” at Yale

New Haven, Conn. — Acclaimed and controversial literary critic Terry Eagleton will deliver a series of lectures at Yale in early April on fundamentalism and religious faith as part of the Dwight H. Terry Lectureship.

The lectures — titled “Faith and Fundamentalism: Is Belief in Richard Dawkins Necessary for Salvation?” — are free and open to the public. They will take place on April 1, 3, 8, and 10 at 4:15 p.m. in Room 102 of Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 63 High St.

One of the most often cited and widely published literary critics, Eagleton is currently the John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester. He has been a fellow of four Oxford and Cambridge colleges and held the Thomas Warton Chair of English Literature at the University of Oxford. He has authored scores of studies of literary, cultural and political criticism, and has written plays for stage and television in Britain and Ireland. He is a fellow of the British Academy.

In reviewing Dawkins’s popular “The God Delusion,” which argues that a supernatural creator does not exist, Eagleton — a self-proclaimed Marxist — publicly chided its author for his “ill-informed” caricatures of religious faith.

The titles of individual lectures are as follows:
April 1, “Christianity Fair and Foul”
April 3, “The Limits of Liberalism”
April 8, “Faith and Reason”
April 10, “Culture and Barbarism”

The Terry Lectureship was established in 1905 from a gift by Dwight H. Terry to invite “preeminent scholars in religion, the sciences, and philosophy to address issues concerning the ways in which science and philosophy inform religion and religion’s application to human welfare.”

For more information, visit the Dwight H. Terry Lectureship web site or call Lauralee Field, 203-432-2317.