The T & T Clark Blog

M.D. Goulder

I haven't posted for a while, so it is a shame to begin 2010 with sad news.

Most of you will already know of M.D. Goulder's death early in January. However, I wanted to put a post up recognising it, and him, myself.

I think it is perhaps a rare thing for the prose of an academic book to soar so effortlessly that the reader is moved to laughter. When such brilliance is mixed with penetrating, and original scholarly insight, it takes scholarship to level of true greatness. M.D. Goulder had the rare gift of being able achieve this mix. Whilst not all would agree with everything he wrote, I think few would doubt its originality and value.

I noticed, around the time of Goulder's death, at the SOTS conference in Cambridge, that Sheffield Phoenix publish a volume of his memoirs. Whilst I shouldn't really put in a plug for the competition I for one will be buying a copy, it is sure to provide excellent reading.

Now out: A Theology of Love

This must be the most beautiful cover on our current list: Werner G. Jeanrond's beautiful new book A Theology of Love .

It has just published in the UK and will be available in the US soon. Last week, we had a wonderful book launch in the University of Glasgow, Scotland. This was particularly exciting for a number of reasons: Werner's good friend, Björn Larsson, novelist and professor of French literature at the University of Lund in Sweden gave a fascinating talk on "What is the point of writing and reading love novels" - very inspiring! The place was packed with many people from the faculty of theology and religious studies in Glasgow - and beyond. And then it was the first launch for a T&T Clark book at a Scottish university after many years. A joyful event indeed!

Among other topics, Werner Jeanrond's book deals with the institutions of love. Here is a short excerpt from the beginning of chapter seven:

Love and Learning

Love can be learned. At various stages of our life we subject ourselves to new learning experiences in the vast field of love. Love is not instinctual behaviour, but a praxis resulting from cultural processes in which each human being passively and actively participates. While only few visit specialised schools of love, all women, men and children can be said to be emerging disciples of love in the different “schools of life”. Unlike sex, politics, household management, etc., love is not a subject on the school curriculum, yet it relates to all aspects of our lives and it requires learning. The Christian insistence that love ought to be at the centre of all human relationships implies that no specialised approach to one or the other aspect of our relational existence would ever be able to capture the full extent of the potential and praxis of love.