Terry Lecture

The Dwight H. Terry Lectureship, also known as the Terry Lectures, was established at Yale University in 1905 by a gift from Dwight H. Terry of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Its purpose is to engage both scholars and the public in a consideration of religion from a humanitarian point of view, in the light of modern science and philosophy. The subject matter has historically been similar to that of the Gifford Lectures in Scotland, and several lecturers have participated in both series.

Establishment of the Lectureship

The 1905 deed of gift establishing the lectureship states:

Although commitment to the gift was made in 1905 it did not mature until 1923, which is when the first Terry lectures were held.

Lecture format

The lectures are free and open to the public. A single installment generally consists of four lectures by the same visiting scholar, given over the course of a month or less. Many of the lectures have been edited into books published by the Yale University Press, and remain in print to this day (see below). From 1999 to 2009 the lectures were recorded and posted on th
Terry Lectures website
as audio and/or video streams. Starting in 2008, recordings of the lectures have been made available via Yale's YouTube channel and
Terry Lectures playlist

Past Terry Lectureships

*2019 Karen Barad
*2018 Thomas E. Lovejoy ''The World of the Born and the World of the Made: A New Vision of Our Emerald Planet''
*2017 Judith Farquhar ''Reality, Reason, and Action In and Beyond Chinese Medicine''
*2016-17 Kwame Anthony Appiah ''The Anatomy of Religion''
*2015 Janet Browne ''Becoming Darwin: History, Memory, and Biography''
*2014 Wendy Doniger ''The Manipulation of Religion by the Sciences of Politics and Pleasure in Ancient India''
*2013 Philip Kitcher ''Secular Humanism''
*2012 Keith Stewart Thomson ''Jefferson and Darwin: Science and Religion in Troubled Times''
*2010 Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams ''Cosmic Society: The New Universe and the Human Future'' :
*2009 Marilynne Robinson ''Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self'' :
*2008 Donald S. Lopez, Jr. ''The Scientific Buddha: Past, Present, Future'' :
*2008 Terry Eagleton ''Faith and Fundamentalism: Is Belief in Richard Dawkins Necessary for Salvation?'' :
*2007 Ahmad Dallal ''Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History'' :
*2006 Barbara Herrnstein Smith ''Natural Reflections: Human Cognition at the Nexus of Science and Religion'' "
*2006 (Centennial Conference) Robert Wuthnow ''No Contradictions Here: Science, Religion, and the Culture of All Reasonable Possibilities''
*2006 (Centennial Conference) Lawrence M. Krauss ''Religion vs. Science? From the White House to Classroom''
*2006 (Centennial Conference) Alvin Plantinga ''Science and Religion: Why Does the Debate Continue?''
*2006 (Centennial Conference) Kenneth R. Miller ''Darwin, God, and Dover: What the Collapse of 'Intelligent Design' Means for Science and for Faith in America''
*2006 (Centennial Conference) Ronald L. Numbers ''Aggressors, Victims, and Peacemakers: Historical Actors in the Drama of Science and Religion''
*2004 David Sloan Wilson ''Evolution for Everyone''
*2003 Mary Douglas ''Writing in Circles: Ring Composition as a Creative Stimulus'':
*2003 H.C. Erik Midelfort ''Exorcism and Enlightenment: Johann Joseph Gassner and the Demons of 18th-Century Germany'':
*2001 Francisco J. Ayala ''From Biology to Ethics: An Evolutionist's View of Human Nature''
*2000 Peter Singer ''One World: The Ethics and Politics of Globalization'':
*1999 Bas C. Van Fraassen ''The Empirical Stance'':
*1998 David Hartman (rabbi), David Hartman ''Struggling for the Soul of Israel: A Jewish Response to History'':
*1996–1997 Rev. John Polkinghorne ''Belief in God in an Age of Science'':
*1993–1994 Walter J. Gehring ''Genetic Control of Development'':
*1988–1989 Joshua Lederberg ''Science and Modern Life''
*1986–1987 Eric R. Kandel ''Cell and Molecular Biological Explorations of Learning and Memory''
*1985–1986 Stephen Jay Gould ''Darwin and Dr. Doolittle: ‘Just History’ as the Wellspring of Nature’s Order''
*1979–1980 Hans Jonas ''Technology and Ethics: The Imperative of Responsibility'':
*1978–1979 Adin Steinsaltz
*1977–1978 Hans Küng ''Freud and the Problem of God'':
*1976–1977 Philip Rieff
*1975–1976 David Baken ''And They Took Themselves Wives: Male Female Relations in the Bible''
*1973–1974 Father Theodore M. Hesburgh ''The Humane Imperative: A Challenge for the Year 2000'':
*1971–1972 James Hillman ''Re-Visioning Psychology'':
*1968–1969 Albert J. Reiss Jr. ''Civility and the Moral Order: The Police and the Public'':
*1967–1968 Clifford Geertz ''In Search of Islam: Religious Change in Indonesia / Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia'':
*1966–1967 Loren Eiseley
*1964–1965 James Munro Cameron ''Images of Authority: A Consideration of the Concept of Regnum and Sacerdotium'':
*1963–1964 Walter J. Ong ''The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History'':
*1962–1963 Michael Polanyi ''Man and Thought: A Symbiosis / The Tacit Dimension'':
*1961–1962 Norbert Wiener ''Prolegomena to Theology''
*1961–1962 Paul Ricoeur ''The Philosopher Before Symbols'' (published as ''Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation'': )
*1958–1959 Hermann Dörries ''Constantine and Religious Liberty'':
*1957–1958 Margaret Mead ''Continuities in Cultural Evolution'':
*1956–1957 Errol Eustace Harris ''The Idea of God in Modern Thought / Revelation Through Reason: Religion in the Light of Science and Philosophy'':
*1955–1956 Rebecca West ''The Court and the Castle: Some Treatments of a Recurrent Theme''
*1954–1955 Pieter Geyl ''Use and Abuse of History'':
*1953–1954 Gordon Willard Allport ''Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality'':
*1951–1952 Jerome Clarke Hunsaker ''Aeronautics at the Mid-Century'':
*1950–1951 Paul Johannes Tillich ''The Courage to Be'':
*1949–1950 Erich Fromm ''Psychoanalysis and Religion'':
*1948–1949 George Gaylord Simpson ''The Meaning of Evolution'':
*1947–1948 Alexander Stewart Ferguson
*1946–1947 Charles Hartshorne ''The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God'':
*1946–1947 Henri Frankfort
*1945–1946 James Bryant Conant ''On Understanding Science'':
*1944–1945 Julius Seelye Bixler ''Conversations with an Unrepentant Liberal'':
*1943–1944 George Washington Corner ''Ourselves Unborn: An Embryologist's Essay on Man'':
*1942–1943 Jacques Maritain ''Education at the Crossroads'':
*1942–1943 Alexander Dunlop Lindsay ''Religion, Science, and Society in the Modern World'':
*1941–1942 Reinhold Niebuhr
*1940–1941 Alan Gregg (medical doctor), Alan Gregg ''The Furtherance of Medical Research''
*1939–1940 Henry Ernest Sigerist ''Medicine and Human Welfare'':
*1938–1939 Te Rangi Hīroa ''Anthropology and Religion'':
*1937–1938 Carl Gustav Jung ''Psychology and Religion'':
*1936–1937 Joseph Barcroft ''The Brain and Its Environment''
*1935–1936 John Macmurray ''The Structure of Religious Experience'':
*1934–1935 Joseph Needham ''Order and Life'':
*1933–1934 John Dewey ''A Common Faith'':
*1932–1933 Herbert Spencer Jennings ''The Universe and Life'':
*1931–1932 Arthur Holly Compton ''The Freedom of Man'':
*1930–1931 Hermann Weyl ''The Open World'':
*1929–1930 William Pepperell Montague ''Belief Unbound: A Promethean Religion for the Modern World'':
*1928–1929 James Young Simpson ''Nature: Cosmic, Human, and Divine'':
*1927–1928 William Brown (psychologist), William Brown ''Science and Personality'':
*1926–1927 Robert Andrews Millikan ''Evolution in Science and Religion'':
*1925–1926 William Ernest Hocking ''The Self: Its Body and Freedom'':
*1924–1925 Henry Norris Russell ''Fate and Freedom'':
*1923–1924 John Arthur Thomson ''Concerning Evolution'':

References

{{reflist

Philosophy events
Philosophy of religion
Lecture series, Terry
Lectures on religion and science