Our people

Professor Judith Wolfe

Professorial Fellow
Religion and Theology

Areas of expertise: philosophical theology, especially in the continental tradition; systematic theology; theology and the arts; eschatology and apocalypticism; Martin Heidegger; C.S. Lewis

Email: judith.wolfe@acu.edu.au

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-3933-6241

Born in Vienna, Prof. Wolfe studied literature and philosophy in Jerusalem, then literature (MPhil) and theology (MA, DPhil) and Oxford. She has taught at Bard College Berlin, St John’s College Oxford, and the University of St Andrews, where she is Professor of Philosophical Theology.

Prof. Wolfe researches and teaches in philosophical and systematic theology, and in theology and the arts. Her publications span modern theology (especially eschatology), modern philosophy in the broadly continental tradition (especially Martin Heidegger), the theological imagination (including in relation to contemporary psychology), literature and philosophy (especially Shakespeare and Stanley Cavell), and literature and theology (especially C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien).

At ACU, she is lead investigator with Dr Phil McCosker and Prof. Stephan van Erp of Theologies of Catholicity. Elsewhere, she is also leading projects on Widening Horizons of Philosophical Theology and Art Seeking Understanding. She is a Senior Editor of the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology and General Editor of the Journal of Inklings Studies.

Select publications

Books

• Philosophical Myths of the End. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.
• Co-edited with Johannes Zachhuber and David Lincicum. The Oxford History of Modern German Theology. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022-24.
• Co-edited with Joel Rasmussen and Johannes Zachhuber. The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Co-edited with Roger White and Brendan Wolfe. S. Lewis and His Circle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
• Heidegger and Theology. London: T&T Clark, 2014.
• Heidegger’s Eschatology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Co-edited with Brendan Wolfe. S. Lewis’ Perelandra: Reshaping the Image of the Cosmos. Kent: Kent State University Press, 2013.
• Co-edited with Brendan Wolfe. C. Lewis and the Church. London: T&T Clark, 2012.

Articles and book chapters

• ‘Hope.’ Edinburgh Critical History of Christian Theology: The Twentieth Century. Ed. P. Ziegler. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.
• ‘The End of Images: Towards a Phenomenology of Eschatological Expectation.’ Image as Theology. Ed. M. McInroy, C. Strine, and A. Torrance. Arts and the Sacred 5 (2021).
• ‘Eschatology.’ Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought. Ed. J. Rasmussen, J. Wolfe and J. Zachhuber. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
• ‘The Eschatological Turn in German Philosophy.’ Modern Theology 35 (2019), 55-70.
• ‘Religion in the Black Notebooks: Overview and Analysis.’ Heidegger’s Black Notebooks and the Future of Theology. Ed. J. Svenungsson and M. Björk. Cham: Palgrave, 2017. 23-48.
• ‘Hermione’s Sophism: Ordinariness and Theatricality in The Winter’s Tale.’ Philosophy and Literature 39, no 1A (2015), A83-A105.
• ‘C.S. Lewis on Power.’ Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis. Ed. R. MacSwain and M. Ward. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 174-188.
• ‘Acknowledging a Hidden God: A Theological Critique of Stanley Cavell on Scepticism.’ Heythrop Journal 48 (2007), 384-405.
• ‘ “Like this Insubstantial Pageant Faded”: Eschatology and Theatricality in The Tempest.’ Theology and Literature 18, no 4 (2004), 371-382.

Reference articles

• ‘Theology.’ St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology.
• ‘Philosophical Theology.’ T&T Clark Encyclopaedia of Theology.
• ‘C.S. Lewis’ and ‘Fantasy (Christian)’. Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 4^th

Projects

• Theologies of Catholicity (2021 – 2026)
• Widening Horizons in Philosophical Theology (2021 – 2024)
• Mapping the Imagination (2020 – 2022)
• New Directions in Philosophical Theology (2019 – 2021)

Editorial roles

• General Editor of the Journal of Inklings Studies
• Senior Editor of the St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology
• Editorial board member of Religion in Philosophie und Theologie (Mohr Siebeck)
• Editorial board member of Theology and the Arts (IVP)

Public engagement

• feature writer for Times Literary Supplement
• feature writer for The Tablet
• panelist on Closer to Truth (PBS)
• interviewee on In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)
• public speaking at literary festivals, museums, and bookshops