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Loftus Lecture

Thomas J. and Mary H. Loftus Lecture on Catholic Thought and Action

Speaker Series

 

Headshot of Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

Hinduism and Me: A Catholic Priest’s 50 Years of Hindu Studies.

7 P.M., Thursday, April 25, 2024
Mary, Seat of Wisdom Chapel

Featuring:
Francis X. Clooney, S.J.
Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology, Harvard University

Francis X. Clooney, S.J., joined the Harvard Divinity School faculty in 2005, where he is the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology. After earning his doctorate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations (University of Chicago, 1984), he taught at Boston College for 21 years before coming to Harvard. From 2010 to 2017, he was the Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard.

His primary areas of Indological scholarship are theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India. He is also a leading figure globally in the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological learning deepened through the study of traditions other than one’s own. He has also written on the Jesuit missionary tradition, particularly in India, on the early Jesuit pan-Asian discourse on reincarnation, and on the dynamics of dialogue and interreligious learning in the contemporary world.His primary areas of Indological scholarship are theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India. He is also a leading figure globally in the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological learning deepened through the study of traditions other than one’s own. He has also written on the Jesuit missionary tradition, particularly in India, on the early Jesuit pan-Asian discourse on reincarnation, and on the dynamics of dialogue and interreligious learning in the contemporary world.

Clooney is the author of numerous articles and books, including Thinking Ritually: Retrieving the Purva Mimamsa of Jaimini (Vienna, 1990), Theology after Vedanta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology (State University of New York Press, 1993), Comparative Theology: Deep Learning across Religious Borders(Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and His Hiding Place Is Darkness: A Hindu-Catholic Theopoetics of Divine Absence (Stanford University Press, 2013). His translation of the Hindu theologian Ramanuja’s Manual of Daily Worship (Nityagrantham) appeared in the International Journal of Hindu Studies in 2020.

His most recent books include Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics: Why and How It Matters (University of Virgina Press, 2019), Western Jesuit Scholars in India: Tracing Their Paths, Reassessing Their Goals (Brill, 2020), and most recently, St. Joseph in South India: Poetry, Mission and Theology in Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi's Tempavani (Vienna, 2022). His memoir, Priest and Scholar, Catholic and Hindu: A Love Story will appear in 2024, published by T&T Clark/Bloomsbury. He is currently working on a new translation of the first four 膩lv膩rs, Vai峁a箛ava poet saints of Tamil Nadu.  was published by Wiley Blackwell in 2023.

In July 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and has served as a Professorial Research Fellow at the Australian Catholic University. His most recent honorary doctorate was awarded in September 2023 by the University of Scranton. During 2022-23 he was the President of the Catholic Theological Society of America.