Jack Miles

Last updated
Jack Miles
Jack-miles-2016.jpg
BornJohn Russiano Miles
(1942-07-30) July 30, 1942 (age 82)
Chicago, Illinois, US
Pen nameJack
OccupationScholar, Author, Writer, Editor, Professor
LanguageEnglish
Education Xavier University;
Pontifical Gregorian University;
Hebrew University
Alma mater Harvard University
Genresreligion, literature, the Bible, public policy, book reviews, art criticism
Notable awards Guggenheim Fellowship;
Pulitzer Prize;
MacArthur Fellowship.
Website
www.jackmiles.com

John R. Miles (born July 30, 1942) is an American author. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, [1] a Guggenheim Fellowship [2] and the MacArthur Fellowship. [3] His writings on religion, politics, and culture have appeared in numerous national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly , The New York Times , The Boston Globe , The Washington Post , Los Angeles Times , and Commonweal Magazine . [4]

Contents

Miles treats his biblical subjects neither as transcendent deities nor historical figures, but as literary protagonists. His first book, God: A Biography , won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1996, and has been translated into sixteen languages. [5] His second book Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2002. [6] Miles is general editor of the Norton Anthology of World Religions (November 2014). [7] Miles' book God in the Qur'an was published in 2018, the third in his God in Three Classic Scriptures series. [8] Miles' next related book is Religion as We Know It: An Origin Story, (Nov. 12, 2019) which examines when religion became a distinct area of thought. [9]

Miles' most recent book is co-written with Mark C. Taylor, and is titled A Friendship in Twilight: Lockdown Conversations on Death and Life, (July 5, 2022) a series of emails exchanged during the course of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. [10]

Career

Born in Chicago, the eldest child in a Roman Catholic family, Miles was a Jesuit seminarian from 1960 to 1970, studying at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem before completing a doctorate in the Department of Near Eastern Languages at Harvard University. [11] He later left the Catholic Church and became a member of the Episcopal Church. [12] He is fluent in several languages, including French, Italian, German, Hebrew, and Aramaic. [13]

Over a period of more than 35 years (1975–2010), Miles has been an editor at Doubleday, the executive editor at the University of California Press, the literary (book review) editor at the Los Angeles Times, a member of the Times editorial board, and the Senior Adviser to the Getty Trust at the J. Paul Getty Museum. [14]

Miles most recently served on the faculty of the University of California, Irvine, Department of English, teaching religion. [15] Miles was the 2018-2019 Corcoran Visiting Chair in Christian-Jewish Relations at Boston College. [16]

Major works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Frost</span> American poet (1874–1963)

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early 20th century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Revelation</span> Communication with a deity or other supernatural entity

In religion and theology, revelation is the disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity (god) or other supernatural entity or entities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Greenblatt</span> American scholar (born 1943)

Stephen Jay Greenblatt is an American literary historian and author. He has served as the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University since 2000. Greenblatt is the general editor of The Norton Shakespeare (2015) and the general editor and a contributor to The Norton Anthology of English Literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rae Armantrout</span> American poet (born 1947)

Rae Armantrout is an American poet generally associated with the Language poets. She has published more than two dozen books, including both poetry and prose.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rita Dove</span> American poet and author (born 1952)

Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position (1937–86). Dove also received an appointment as "special consultant in poetry" for the Library of Congress's bicentennial year from 1999 to 2000. Dove is the second African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1987, and she served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Since 1989, she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English from 1993 to 2020; as of 2020, she holds the chair of Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanley Hauerwas</span> American theologian

Stanley Martin Hauerwas is an American theologian, ethicist, and public intellectual. Hauerwas originally taught at the University of Notre Dame before moving to Duke University. Hauerwas was a longtime professor at Duke, serving as the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School with a joint appointment at the Duke University School of Law. In the fall of 2014, he also assumed a chair in theological ethics at the University of Aberdeen. Hauerwas is considered by many to be one of the world's most influential living theologians and was named "America's Best Theologian" by Time magazine in 2001. He was also the first American theologian to deliver the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in over forty years. His work is frequently read and debated by scholars in fields outside of religion or ethics, such as political philosophy, sociology, history, and literary theory. Hauerwas has achieved notability outside of academia as a public intellectual, even appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Hahn</span> American theologian

Scott Walker Hahn is an American Catholic theologian and Christian apologist. A former Protestant, Hahn was a Presbyterian minister who converted to Catholicism. Hahn's popular works include Rome Sweet Home and The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth. His lectures have been featured in multiple audio distributions through Lighthouse Catholic Media. Hahn is known for his research on Early Christianity during the Apostolic Age and various theoretical works concerning the early Church Fathers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marilynne Robinson</span> American novelist and essayist (born 1943)

Marilynne Summers Robinson is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson was named in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people. Robinson began teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1991 and retired in the spring of 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Garry Wills</span> American author, political philosopher and historian (born 1934)

Garry Wills is an American author, journalist, political philosopher, and historian, specializing in American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jay Parini</span> American writer and academic (born 1948)

Jay Parini is an American writer and academic. He is known for novels, poetry, biography, screenplays and criticism. He has published novels about Leo Tolstoy, Walter Benjamin, Paul the Apostle, and Herman Melville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas B. Edsall</span> American journalist and academic

Thomas Byrne Edsall is an American journalist and academic. He is best known for his weekly opinion column for The New York Times, Previously, he worked as a reporter for The Providence Journal and for The Baltimore Sun, and as a correspondent for The New Republic. In addition, he spent 25 years covering national politics for the Washington Post. He held the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Chair at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism until 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugene Robinson (journalist)</span> American journalist

Eugene Harold Robinson is an American newspaper columnist and an associate editor of The Washington Post. His columns are syndicated to 262 newspapers by The Washington Post Writers Group. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009, was elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board in 2011 and served as its chair from 2017 to 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Dammen McAuliffe</span> American educator and scholar of Islam (born 1944)

Jane Dammen McAuliffe is an American educator, scholar of Islam and the inaugural director of national and international outreach at the Library of Congress.

<i>The Gospel According to the Son</i> 1997 novel by Norman Mailer

The Gospel According to the Son is a 1997 novel by Norman Mailer. It purports to be the story of Jesus Christ, told autobiographically.

Edmund Maybank Fuller was an American educator, editor, novelist, historian, and literary critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">D. H. Melhem</span> American writer (1926–2013)

Diana M. Vogel, known professionally as D. H. Melhem, was an American poet, novelist, and editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Penchansky</span>

David Penchansky is a professor in the field of Hebrew Bible. In his writing, he applies the methodology of literary criticism to the Old Testament, particularly its Wisdom Literature. Both Marxism and Deconstruction have influenced his approach.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack E. Davis</span> American historian

Jack Emerson Davis is an American author and distinguished professor of history in Florida. He holds the Rothman Family Endowed Chair in the Humanities and teaches environmental history and sustainability studies at the University of Florida. In 2002-2003, he taught on a Fulbright award at the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan.

Thomas O’Conor Sloane III was an American editor, professor, etymologist and career military officer.

References