Professor David Jasper
David Jasper is Professor of Literature and Theology in the
University of Glasgow. He has served as Dean of Divinity and
Associate Dean for Postgraduates in the Faculty of Arts.
Prior to being in Glasgow, he was Principal of St. Chad's College
in the University of Durham, where he founded the Centre for the
Study of Literature, Theology and the Arts, which continues to
flourish in Glasgow today. He has lectured world wide in the
field of literature and theology, including serving as Ida Cordelia
Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor in the University of Iowa in
2003. He currently serves as a Visiting Professor at York St
John University and has been invited to be Visiting Professor at
Renmin University of China in Beijing in 2009.
Apart from his service to the academic profession, which
includes acting as lead reviewer for theology in higher
education in Estonia on three occasions, he has published for more
than twenty years in the field of literature and theology, and
his latest monograph, The Sacred Body, will appear in
April 2009. He was founding Editor of the journal
Literature and Theology, and one of three editors of the
recent Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology
(2007). He also founded the series of international conferences on
literature, religion and culture which continue to be held
every two years, and one of which was hosted by York St. John
University. The conferences have been running now for almost
thirty years.
He holds a Doctor of Divinity from Oxford University and a
Doctor of Theology (honoris causa) from Uppsala University.
He has been an ordained Anglican priest for more than thirty years,
and is currently Convenor of the Doctrine Committee of the Scottish
Episcopal Church. He is also President of the
Association of University Departments of Theology and Religious
Studies and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
in 2007.
Recent Publications
The Bible and Literature: A Reader (with Stephen
Prickett), 1999.
Religion and Literature: A Reader (with Robert
Detweiler), 2000.
The Sacred Desert (2004)
A Short Introduction to Hermeneutics (2004)
The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology
(with Andrew Hass and Elizabeth Jay) (2007)