Abstract:
The Great Gatsby might lay easily claim to be “the great” American novel of the 20^th century. As we approach the centenary of its publication – 2025 – this seminar explores some stranger features of the novel that are rarely touched upon. These include the implicit religion of the novel, and yet the absence of God. We will also explore some of the other more familiar themes – including repression, depression, gaudy conspicuous consumption, dishonesty, and classism. If the novel were written today, the parallels with Mar-a-Largo in Florida and the world of Donald Trump might be hard to resist. As this seminar will explore, here again we find distorted and refracted signals of faith and belief in 2025, just as in 1925.

Biography:

Martyn Percy is Professor (honorary post) of Religion and Culture at the University of St. Joseph Macao (with the Xavier Centre for Memory and Identity) and Provost Theologian at Ming Hua College, Hong Kong. He is a Professor of Theology at the Institut für Christkatholische Theologie, Theologische Fakultät, Universität Bern (CH), and a Senior Research Associate at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Martyn was Principal of Cuddesdon (Oxford) from 2004-2014, and then served as Dean of Christ Church Oxford (i.e., the Head of the College and Cathedral) until 2022. Martyn’s research and writing span various disciplines, including theology, religion, education, cultural theory, anthropology, and sociology. He has taught at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, working on moral and social values in public life. Martyn holds a unique distinction in the theological world, as the only living theologian featured in Dan Brown’s 2003 bestseller The Da Vinci Code. This intriguing fact and other notable achievements led the journal Theology to describe him as “the British Theologian closest to being a missionary anthropologist”. His writings have been the subject of an academic study, Reasonable Radical: Reading the Writings of Martyn Percy (Pickwick Publishing: Edited by Ian Markham & Joshua Daniels, 2016). His book The Crisis of Colonial Anglicanism: Empire, Slavery and Revolt in the Church of England will be published by Hurst in January 2025.