Jens Zimmermann Ph.D.

Professor of English; Canada Research Chair in Interpretation, Religion and Culture

Department: English; MAIH

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Area of Expertise: European literature; literary theory; philosophical theology; interpretation theory; (Individual thinkers) Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Emmanuel Levinas, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hans-Urs von Balthasar.

Spoken Languages: German; English; French

Education: B. A. English, M.A., Ph.D (University of British Columbia).

Jens Zimmermann has recently written on Radical Orthodoxy, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Heidegger and Levinas and theologians Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans Urs von Balthasar. He grounds the department’s theoretical sensitivities in the primary sources of the continental philosophical tradition. His essay on the future of literary theory won the Lionel Basney Award. His book Recovering Theological Hermeneutics: An Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation is published by Baker Academic.

Selected publications:

  • The Passionate Intellect: Incarnational Humanism and the Future of University Education, (co-authored with Norm Klassen). Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006.
  • Recovering Theological Hermeneutics. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004.
  • "Quo Vadis? Literary Theory Beyond Postmodernism." Christianity And Literature. 53 August 2004. (Basney Literary Award)
  • "Ignoramus: Gadamer's 'Religious Turn.'" Symposium. Journal for Hermeneutics and Postmodern Thought. January 2003

Areas of interest and research:

  • Reformation and Puritanism and Pietism; Literary Theory; Philosophical Hermeneutics/Biblical Hermeneutics; Heidegger, Gadamer, Levinas, Ethics and Literature , Theology/Religion and Literature.