Denys Turner, a noted theologian currently at the University of Cambridge, will join the Yale faculty on July 1, with a joint appointment at the Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies.
Turner, a Roman Catholic, will fill the senior position in historical theology at Yale, held previously by distinguished intellectual historians such as George Lindbeck and, most recently, Marilyn McCord Adams. His appointment marks the end of a two-year international search.
The theologian's area of concentration is the study of the traditions of Western Christian mysticism, with special emphasis on doctrines of religious language and of selfhood and on the links between the classical traditions of spirituality and mysticism and the social and political commitments of Christianity. Earlier, Turner focused his research on the relations between Christianity and political and social theory, particularly between Marxism and Christianity.
"I look forward to having him as a productive colleague," says Divinity School Dean Harold Attridge, noting that Turner has "an ambitious research program" and the skills to elucidate the relevance of the theology of the Middle Ages for contemporary constructive theology and religious studies.
Turner has written numerous books and articles. His books include "Faith Seeking," "The Darkness of God," "Eros and Allegory," "Marxism and Christianity," "On the Philosophy of Karl Marx" and the forthcoming "Faith, Reason and the Existence of God."
Since 1999, Turner has been the Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge and a fellow of Peterhouse. From 1995 to 1999 he was a member of the Department of Theology at the University of Birmingham. Previously, he taught at the University of Bristol and at University College, Dublin, and was a visiting lecturer at Manhattanville College in New York. He has taught on a wide range of subjects, including contemporary philosophy of religion, metaphysics, ethics, political and social theory, medieval philosophy and theology, and the history of medieval mysticism.
Turner earned his doctorate at the University of Oxford, and his B.A. and M.A. at University College, Dublin.
He has served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Catholic Institute for International Relations, the Committee for the World of Work of the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops of England and Wales, the Laity Commission of the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops of England and Wales, and the Anglican Roman Catholic Commission for England.
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