Disciples Divinity House

While Emily Dickinson's posthumously published poetry and letters "contain many explicitly religious themes and concepts, throughout her life she resisted joining her local church and rarely attended services." Clark Gilpin's new book, Religion Around Emily Dickinson, begins with this seeming paradox. He proposes, "first, that understanding the religious aspect of the surrounding culture enhances our appreciation of Emily Dickinson's poetry and, second, that her poetry casts light on features of religion in nineteenth-century America that might otherwise escape our attention. Religion, especially Protestant Christianity, was "around" Emily Dickinson not only in explicitly religious practices, literature, architecture, and ideas but also as an embedded influence on normative patterns of social organization in the era, including gender roles, education, and ideals of personal intimacy and fulfillment. Through her poetry, Dickinson imaginatively reshaped this richly textured religious inheritance to create her own personal perspective on what it might mean to be religious in the nineteenth century." This perspective proved to be far more than "merely" personal: "Dickinson's creative engagement with the religion around her has stimulated and challenged successive generations of readers in the United States and around the world." Listen to an interview with Clark Gilpin about his new book here.

W. Clark Gilpin is the Margaret E. Burton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Christianity and Theology in the University of Chicago Divinity School and the Interim Director of the Martin E. Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion. He is also the former Dean of the Disciples Divinity House, where he serves on the Board of Trustees and leads an ongoing seminar on Disciples History and Thought.