Terryl Givens was born in upstate New York and did his graduate work at Cornell and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Intellectual History and in Comparative Literature. Currently he is Professor of Literature and Religion and holds the James A. Bostwick Chair of English at the University of Richmond, in Virginia, where he teaches nineteenth century literature and cultural studies. Professor Givens has published articles on Greek aesthetics, literary theory, and European Romanticism. His books in religious studies and intellectual history include Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy; By the Hand of Mormon: the American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (which the New York Times called “provocative reading,”), and People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture, More recently, he has published The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2009) and When Souls had Wings: Premortal Existence in Western Thought (Oxford, 2010). A biography of Parley P. Pratt, co-authored with Matthew Grow, will be released next year. He is currently at work on a history of Mormon theology. Professor Givens resides in Montpelier, Virginia.
It may simplify matters to state at the outset the…
It is doubtless true that some disciples are prepared to…
It has become popular for people of faith to seek…
A discussion between Ralph Hancock and Terryl Givens on subjects…
This is Part 2 of a conversation about Terryl L.…
Only a God whose love is not metaphorical and whose…
Certainty is a term that frequently appears in the ministry…
Surely one of the most remarkably photographs in church history-and…
The exhilarating recognition that the human may have a kinship…
Even in a modern, secularized world, scientists and philosophers continue…
Latter-day Saints usually think of pre-existence as a doctrine unique…