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Ray L. Hart Professor of Philosophy of Religion / Director, Ray L. Hart Centre for the Philosophy of Religion
School of Philosophy (Faculty of Theology and Philsoophy)
Areas of expertise: Philosophy of Religion; Philosophical Theology; Renaissance Theology (Nicholas of Cusa); German Idealism (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel); French Phenomenology (Michel Henry)
Email: garth.green@acu.edu.au
Location: ACU Melbourne Campus
HDR Supervisor accreditation status: Full
Research: I teach and research the histories of Christian theologies and European philosophies, and the systematic relations within and between these histories. I have focused on (1) medieval, and specifically neo-Platonic, theology, (2) modern and 19th-century philosophies of religion, and (3) the reconfiguration of this medieval-theological and modern-philosophical inheritance in contemporary phenomenology and its 'theological turn.' In each case, my intention is to comprehend fundamental philosophical and theological problems by attending to the process of their unfolding, in order to come to a contemporary understanding of ourselves as inheritors of these unfinished philosophical and theological histories.
These research and teaching interests developed during graduate study in Religion (M.A., Boston University), Philosophy (M.A., Leuven), and Philosophy of Religion (Ph.D., Boston University). I also held graduate fellowship and research positions at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Austria), the University of Leuven (Belgium), the Institut Catholique de Paris (France), and the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici (Italy).
Experience: I was first appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Boston University, where I taught in the Department of Religion, Department of Philosophy, and School of Theology, from 2004-2011. I became Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at McGill University in Montreal in Fall 2011; I became the John W. McConnell Professor of Philosophy of Religion there in 2017.
While at McGill, I held a FRQSC Nouveaux Chercheurs Grant (2013-16) for my work on Michel Henry and the origins of the 'theological turn' of French phenomenology. I also held a SSHRC Insight Grant as Co-Applicant for "Divine Illumination: The Reception of German Mysticism in Early Modern England" with colleagues Torrance Kirby (McGill), Principal Investigator, and Douglas Hedley (Cambridge) as Collaborator (3 years, 200k CAD). I held two SSHRC Connections Grants; as Principal Investigator (PI), for the Inaugural International Conference of the Canadian Society for the Philosophy of Religion, entitled "Religion and Metaphysics," and as Co-Applicant and Co-Organizer (with Professor Jean Grondin; Université de Montréal) for the International Conference of the Société Francophone de Philosophie de la Religion (October 2015, Montréal).
I was Visiting Professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Institut Supérieur de Philosophie) in 2014, and at the Università di Cagliari (Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia) in 2015, as I had been Boston University Faculty Fellow at Università degli Studi di Padova in 2005 and 2007, and as I had been Visiting Professor at Shandong University (China) in 2010.
In 2019, I founded, with Jean Grondin and Sean McGrath, the Canadian Society for Philosophy of Religion/Société canadienne de philosophie de la religion, of which I served as inaugural president. In 2021, I founded, with George di Giovanni, a new series with McGill-Queen's University Press, entitled Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, which I continue as Series Editor. At the same time, from 2022-25, I was Chair of the Council on Graduate Studies in Religion, the "consultative body made of the 30 preeminent institutions in the United States and Canada that offer the Ph.D. in Religion or Theology."
From 2018-2025, I served as Inaugural Director of the School of Religious Studies at McGill.
Teaching and Supervision: I continue to supervise four doctoral students at McGill. They are: (1) Francesco Bossoletti; "Infinity and the Mind: Insufficient Reason and Theo-logy in Nicholas of Cusa"; (2) Isabelle Lindsay; "The Mirror of the Mind and the Ground of Being: Analogy as Theological Method"; (3) Adam Smith; "Antecedent to Appearance: The Question of Origin in Michel Henry's L'essence de la manifestation"; (4) Nathan Strunk; "The Metamorphosis of the Transcendental: Philosophy, Religion, and Primordiality."
While at McGill, I successfully supervised eight MA theses (in Renaissance Theology, German Idealism, Transcendental Thomism, and French Phenomenology). I also supervised or co-supervised six doctoral dissertations, on, e.g., F.H. Jacobi, J.G. Fichte, F.W.J. Schelling, Husserl. At the same time, I supervised (Marie Curie-, Globus-, and SSHRC-sponsored) post-doctoral projects of Roberto Formisano and Marina Pisano on Michel Henry, and James Bryson on Franz von Baader. A majority of these doctoral and post-doctoral students have attained long-term teaching positions upon completion.
I invite applications at each of these levels, in each of the areas of my research, particularly as overlap with ACU colleagues in the School of Philosophy and the School of Theology.