Warden launches Terry Eagleton's new book
Friday 7 December 2007
Professor Andrew McGowan (left) and Professor Terry Eagleton at the launch. (Photo: Andrew Murdoch)
In launching Terry Eagleton Presents Jesus Christ: The Gospels (Verso, 2007) at the University Law School this evening, Associate Professor Andrew McGowan described the book as 'a piece of work about Jesus that is intellectually sound and scholarly, lively and accessible, and likely to sell some copies'.
'Although the book sets out to ask the question of whether Jesus was a revolutionary, Professor Eagleton's Jesus is not "more or less a revolutionary" but "both more and less"', Professor McGowan said. 'Eagleton tells us this is because he did not seek an overthrow of political structures ... yet envisaged a reign of peace and joy more radical than that of Marxism and more discontented with any pretended substitute.'
A Visiting Scholar at Trinity College, Professor Terry Eagleton is a Fellow of the British Academy, has five honorary doctorates from universities throughout the world, has been a member of five Oxford and Cambridge colleges and, before taking up his post as Professor of Cultural Theory at Manchester, was Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford.
Professor Andrew McGowan launches the book. (Photo: Andrew Murdoch)
Professor Eagleton has previously published almost 40 works of cultural theory and literary criticism, which have been translated into some 17 languages.
Preceding the book launch, Professor Eagleton delivered a public lecture entitled ‘Trouble with Strangers: Ethics, Politics and Psychoanalysis’, presented jointly by the School of Culture and Communication and Trinity College as part of the Dean's Lecture Series, Faculty of Arts.