SEMINAR
Saint Joseph in South India
Tēmpāvaṇi as a Work of the Christian Imagination
Francis X Clooney
Parkman Professor of Divinity, Harvard University, Massachusetts
Thursday, 13 April 2025 | 10 am - 12 noon
Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Porvorim, Goa
Please join us for a Seminar on ‘Saint Joseph in South India: Tēmpāvaṇi as a Work of the Christian Imagination’ by
Francis X Clooney on Thursday, 13 November 2025 at 10 am at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Porvorim, Goa. The Seminar will conclude by 12 noon.
REGISTRATION REQUIRED
PLEASE NOTE
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This is an academic seminar.
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Registration is mandatory to attend the Seminar. We have limited seats.
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Participants will be required to read and engage with a paper precirculated before the Seminar.
The text will be in English.
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Saint Joseph in South India
Tēmpāvaṇi as a Work of the Christian Imagination
Tēmpāvaṇi, “The Unfading Garland,” is the primary focus in Saint Joseph in South India (2022).
Tēmpāvaṇi, nearly 4000 verses long and composed in an elegant Tamil style, is certainly the most famous work of Costanzo Gioseffo Beschi (1680-1747), an Italian Jesuit missionary who worked for decades in Tamil Nadu, South India. It is an epic retelling
of the Bible through the life and example of the foster father of Jesus, Joseph, who was a man of natural virtue, made all the more radiant by the arrival and continuing proximity of the incarnate God, Jesus, and by the grace of Mary, mother of Jesus. Along
the way, Beschi includes many other Biblical stories in the narrative of Joseph’s life. Beautiful poetry,
Tēmpāvaṇi is also theologically substantive, grounded in the worldview and spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. Chapter 3, “Tēmpāvaṇi
as a Work of the Christian Imagination” (33-58), provided for our discussion, gives an overview of the work, and of Beschi’s strategy in narrating the story of Joseph, and of his understanding Christianity and culture. The epic’s message is deeply Christian,
yet as Tamil as possible, in form and imagery. We can discuss the merits and demerits of this literary approach to mission, compared and contrasted with other approaches.
Francis X Clooney
Francis X Clooney joined the Harvard Divinity School faculty in 2005, where he is the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology. He earned his doctorate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 1984
and taught for 21 years at Boston College before coming to Harvard. From 2010 to 2017, he directed Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions.
Clooney’s scholarship focuses on theological writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India and on the emerging discipline of comparative theology, which explores theological learning across religious boundaries. He has also written on Jesuit
missionary traditions, early Jesuit reflections on reincarnation, and the practice of interreligious dialogue today. Among his major works are
Thinking Ritually (1990), Theology after Vedanta (1993), Comparative Theology: Deep Learning across Religious Borders (2010), and
His Hiding Place Is Darkness (2013). His recent publications include Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics (2019),
Western Jesuit Scholars in India (2020), and Saint Joseph in South India (2022). His memoir,
Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story, appeared in 2024. A festschrift honouring him was published in 2023. He served as President of the Catholic Theological Society of America (2022–23) and holds honorary doctorates from the University
of Scranton and Le Moyne College. He is a Fellow of the British Academy (2010) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2025).
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