Associate Professor Duane Williams

Job Title: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Department: Theology, Philosophy and Religious Studies
Extension: 0151 291 3171
Email: williad3@hope.ac.uk

Short biography:

I am currently an associate professor in the Theology, Philosophy, and Religious Studies team. I have been at Liverpool Hope University since 2012. Before working at LHU, I worked for many years as an hourly paid lecturer at the University of Kent, designing and delivering undergraduate and posgraduate courses. I also taught theology, philosophy, and religious studies for the Worker's Educational Association for many years. I have a BA (Hons) in Philosophy with Theatre Studies, an MA with Distinction in the Study of Mysticism and Religious Experience, and a PhD in Theology, Philosophy, and Religious Studies.

My first monograph was called, The Linguistic Christ (Edwin Mellen Press, 2011) and my most recent, Language and Being: Heidegger's Linguistics (Bloomsbury, 2017). I am also co-editor of an anthology called, Mystical Theology and Continental Philosophy (Routledge, 2017). I was series editor for the Reframing Continental Philosophy of Religion book series with Rowman and Littlefield, which resulted in 8 publications. Since 2011, I have been a trustee of the Meister Eckhart Society, and chief editor of the international, peer-reviewed journal, Medieval Mystical Theology (Taylor and Francis).

I have published articles and given talks on a range of figures and topics, including, Marcel Proust, William Blake, Martin Heidegger, Meister Eckhart, Advaita Vedanta, Zen Buddhism, Biblical Exegesis, Phenomenology, and Apophaticism.

Teaching specialisms:

Advaita Vedanta

Aesthetics

Existentialism

Hermeneutics

Mysticism

Phenomenology

Philosophy of language

Poetics

Zen Buddhism

School/Faculty roles:

Academic Misconduct Officer.

Co-facilitator of the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion.

Co-facilitator of the Hermeneutics Research Group.

Levels I and H course leader for Philosophy, Ethics, and Religion.

Earlier publications:

'Prisons of Law and Brothels of Religion: William Blake's Christian Anarchism', in Essays in Anarchism and Religion, Vol. 2 (Stockholm University Press, 2018)

Language and Being: Heidegger's Linguistics (Bloomsbury Press, 2017)

'The Finger and the Moon: Language, Reality, and Interpretation in Zen Buddhism', in, Buddhism and Linguistics: Theory and Philosophy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)

'Eckhart's Why and Heidegger's What: Beyond Subjectivistic Thought to Groundless Ground', in, Mystical Theology and Continental Philosophy (Routledge, 2017)

'Feminist Theology and Meister Eckhart's Transgendered Metaphor', in Feminist Theology, Vol. 24, No. 3, May 2016

'Meister Eckhart's Christ and Medieval Biblical Exegesis', Medieval Mystical Theology, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2015.

'The Why and What of Philosophy of Religion: Towards a New Hermeneutic Phenomenology for Pedagogical Practice, in Journal of Dharma: Religion and Rationality, Vol. 40, No. 4, Oct.-Dec. 2015, pp. 443-462

'An Apology for Language', Temenos Academy Review, 17, 2014.

'Between the Apophatic and the Cataphatic: Heidegger's Tautophatic Mystical Linguistics', in Christian Mysticism and Incarnational Theology: Between Transcendence and Immanence (Ashgate, 2013)

The Linguistic Christ (Edwin Mellen Press, 2011). Foreword by, Dr. Mary Anne Perkins.

'Eckhart and the Varieties of Nothing', in Medieval Mystical Theology, ISSN 2046-5726, Vol. 20,  2011.

'Where a Silence is Said: The Ambiguities of Apophaticism', in Skepsi, ISSN 1758-2679, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2009.

Recent publications:

'The Eye With Which I See God Is The Same Eye With Which God Sees Me: Meister Eckhart on Divine Awareness', Medieval Mystical Theology, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2023.

'Two Masters Negating the Negation: A Comparative Study of Zhaozhou Congshen and Meister Eckhart, Medieval Mystical Theology, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2022.

'Opposition is True Friendship: William Blake on Individuality, Plurality, and Community', Temenos Academy Review, 24, 2021.

'Eternity Glimpsed and Time Regained: Marcel Proust's Ontological Time', in Literature and Modern Time: Technological Modernity; Glimpses of Eternity; Experiments with Time (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

Forthcoming publications:

'The Picture, the Frame, the Danger, and the Crack: Heideggerian Reflections on Technology, Poetics, Intentionality, and Education', (2025).

'A Monk, a Master, and a Dog: Negativity in Zen Buddhism's Mu Kōan, in Thinking About Nothing: Negation, Philosophy, and the Mystical (2025).

Current projects:

I am working with anthropologists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and philosophers of education at Strathclyde University, with the aim of publishing ongoing research exploring problems in Technology and Education.

I am currently co-editing an anthology of essays titled, Thinking About Nothing: Negation, Philosophy, and the Mystical.

I am co-organising an international conference at LHU, titled: Nature Thinking: From Romanticism and Idealism to Ecological Philosophy.

I am researching a monograph on Meister Eckhart with the working title: Naked in the Wilderness.