Jeffrey Kosky

Professor Kosky’s courses study religion and humanistic inquiry, secularity and Christianity. His research interests include spirituality and contemporary art, the question of happiness, and the borders of philosophy and religion.

Jeffrey Kosky

Jeffrey Kosky

Head of the Department, Professor of Religion

Education

  • Ph.D. University of Chicago Divinity School, 1997‎
  • B.A. Williams College, 1989

Research

  • Religion and Inquiry in the Humanities
  • Secularity and religion
  • Religion, spirituality, and contemporary art
  • Philosophy, religion, and the question of happiness
  • Phenomenology and religion

Teaching

  • Religion and Inquiry in the Humanities
  • Secularity and religion
  • Religion and Philosophy
  • History of Christian Thought

Selected Publications

Books

  • From the Heart: A Memoir and a Meditation – On a Vital Organ. New York: Columbia University Press, 2025. 

  • Arts of Wonder: Enchanting Secularity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013.

  • Levinas and the Philosophy of Religion, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.

 Essays and Articles

  • “Hoping to Be There When the End Comes: Jeffrey L. Kosky considers Mark C. Taylor’s After the Human,” in Los Angeles Review of Books (August 15, 2025).

  •  “Counter-Virtue and the Work of Art in Wolfgang Laib,” in CrossCurrents 24.2 (2025).

  • “Believing Critics: Roland Barthes looks at photographs,” in Literature and Belief 42.2 (2024).

  • “Refusing the choice: Neither academic nor novelist, an experiment in writing” for SSRC The Immanent Frame (June 28, 2024).

  • “The Question of Criticism: What to do with our revelations?” in Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord, Rachel Smith and Ronald Bernier, eds. (Routledge Press, 2023).

  • “A Touching Phrase” for Noli me tangere (Touch me not) (January, 2022)

  • “Enchanting Secularity: In Praise of...” in The Arts & Ecumenism: What Theology Risks in Artistic Creation, Msgr. Timothy Verdon, ed. (Paraclete Press, 2019).

  • “An Excess of Happiness: The Approach of Jean-Luc Marion” in Breached Horizons, Stephen Lofts and Anthony Calcagno, eds. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).

  • “For a Phenomenology of Happiness: John Keats and the Practice of Épochè” in Archivio di Filosofia 83, 1/2 (2015).

  • “Learning to Live on the Spiral Jetty” in Image 84 (March 2015).

  • “Contemplative Recovery: The Artwork of James Turrell” in CrossCurrents 63.1 (March 2013).

  • "Metaphysical Certainty and Confessing Desire for the Blessed Life: The Evidence of Self in Jean-Luc Marion’s Reading of St. Augustine” in Gott denken - Ohne Metaphysik? Zu einer aktuellen Kontroverse in Theologie und Philosophie, Andreas Hunziker and Ingolf Dalferth, eds. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2014.

  • "Recalling our Vocation: A Conversation about Teaching with Mark C. Taylor” in Pedagogical Exercises and Theories of Practice, a special issue of Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory < www.jcrt.org  >, 2012.

  • "Vedere la luce: la contemplazione e le opere di James Turrell” in La promessa immaginata. Proposte per una teologia fondamentale, Stefanie Knauss and Davide Zordan, eds. Bologna: Edezione Dehoniane, 2011.

  • "World Loss and the Liberation of Man: Levinas’ Praise of Disenchantment and De-sacralization” in MonoKL International Idea and Art Magazine, Volkan Celebi, ed., Istanbul, 2011.

  • "The Human in Question: Augustinian Dimensions in Jean-Luc Marion,” in Words of Life: New Theological Turns in French Phenomenology, Norman Wirzba and Bruce Ellis Benson, eds. New York: Fordham University Press, 2009.

  • "Love Strong as Death: Levinas and Heidegger” in The Exorbitant: Emmanuel Levinas Between Jews and Christians, Kevin Hart, ed. New York: Fordham University Press, 2009.

  • "La libération de l’otage” in Rodolphe Calin, ed. Etudes philosophiques. Emmanuel Levinas, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2006.

  • "Iconic Revisions of the Modern World Picture,” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, 4/1 (2002). <www.jcrt.org> 

Additional essays and articles can be noted upon request

 Selected Translated Books

  • Marion, Jean-Luc, [Au lieu de soi. L’approche de Saint Augustin] In the Self’s Place: The Approach of St. Augustine. ‎Stanford: Stanford University Press (2012).‎

  • Marion, Jean-Luc, [Etant donné] Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, Stanford: ‎Stanford University Press, 2002.‎

  • Marion, Jean-Luc, [Sur le prisme métaphysique de Descartes] On Descartes’ Metaphysical Prism: ‎The Constitution and Limits of Onto-theo-logy in Cartesian Thought, Chicago: University of ‎Chicago Press, 1999.‎