@timhowles
Research Fellow, University of Oxford Theology, philosophy, ethics, politics, environmental humanities Associate Director @LSRIOxford Anglican Priest https://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/people/revd-dr-timothy-howles
Currently reading:
New publication:
"Girard is a hedgehog; Serres is a fox" (Cynthia Haven)
New publication:
Three volumes of Leibniz' writings are about to be published by Oxford University Press.
300+ texts in a new translation. global.oup.com/academic/pro...
forthcoming:
A reminder that our research seminar meets today at 15.00 - we will be discussing the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo and its relevance to ecotheology with the amazing Professor Jan-Olav Henriksen. DM me if you can make it.
Ecologies of Ecstasy: Mysticism, Philosophy, and Vegetal Life
Book by Simone Kotva
cup.columbia.edu/book/ecologi...
5. In this sense, Golding is rather theological.
youtube.com/watch?v=4lyx...
4. But, as I have argued in this interview (linked below), Golding is also inheritor of a tradition of metaphysics that sees "flashes of being" (à la Virginia Wolfe) in everyday life that can interrupt or break the monotony of solepcism and inherent or original sin.
3. This was a function of Golding's upbringing and wartime experience, and was linked to a complex and misanthropic character.
2. Golding was an author with a very bleak and negative anthropology, where individual psychology is often quite hard to discern - his work does not really invite us to trace a behaviour back to a cause, rather, we are required merely to observe the evil that lies inexorably within all human beings.
1. It has been fun to watch the new BBC "Lord of the Flies" with my ten-year old son. However, this adaptation does not really manage to convey the dread of the original novel (published in 1954).
Honoured to be speaking with a couple of wonderful guests on the topic of "wisdom from the bees", 26 February at Campion Hall, University of Oxford. This is an in-person event only, but we *may* have a couple of spaces. If this might be of interest to you, do please DM. Thanks
A little article from me on Port Meadow, Oxford in this new book:
Sex, death and parrots: Julian Barnes’s best fiction – ranked!
www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
Cody Staton, “Kant’s Critical Imagination. The Logic of Schematism” (Edinburgh University Press)
I have been binging on twentieth-century novels recently. "Scaffolding", by Lauren Elkin, "The Overstory" (again) by Richard Powers, "Lime Works" by Thomas Bernhard, and just now "White Noise" by Delillo, which I am actually enjoying:
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
THE INSTRUCTOR
GREEK-ENGLISH EDITION
Translated by W. L. Alexander
luxpatrum.com/clement-of-a...
"Two Rivers Entangled: An Ecological History of the Tigris and Euphrates in the Twentieth Century"
Dale J. Stahl
www.sup.org/books/middle...
"The Origins of Modern Japanese Philosophy: Nishida Kitaro and the Meiji Period"
Richard Stone
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/origins-o...
"Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away." (Hosea 4:3)
The Shadows of German Thought: Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Eric Voegelin in Hannah Arendt’s Political Philosophy
voegelinview.com/the-shadows-...
Delighted to have the opportunity to respond to Dr Tim Middleton's important new book on 26 January at Regent's Park, University of Oxford:
"Witnessing a Wounded World: A Theology of Ecological Trauma"
www.ticketsource.co.uk/witnessing-a...
Here is my latest journal article on a novel by twentieth-century write William Golding: "Darkness Visible".
academic.oup.com/eic/article/...
Salisbury. Not the most consistent, nor the most niche, the most variegated - but for me, raw Gothic power. And forever associated with the themes of the greatest novel of the 20th century, Golding's "The Spire".
My favourite English cathedral:
One of the great films of all time:
An important new forthcoming translation:
Kierkegaard: