Dr. Jens Zimmermann was born and raised in Germany. He studied at the University of British Columbia, earning his first Ph.D in Comparative Literature in 1997. He taught at UBC briefly before moving on to Trinity Western, where held the Canada Research Chair of Interpretation, Religion and Culture from 2006-2016.

In 2010, he earned a second Ph.D in Philosophy from the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. He was awarded a research fellowship at Cambridge University (Trinity Hall) for 2016-17, and a British Academy Visiting Fellowship in theology at the University of Oxford (Christ Church College) for 2018-2019.

He is currently visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Centre for Theology and Modern European Thought and also a research fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa (2021-2023). His main intellectual interests are anthropology and epistemology. He has pursued these two central questions across a broad range of interests that include theological anthropology, hermeneutics, European literature, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, the church fathers, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eastern Orthodox theology.

His published works include the monographs Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Humanism and Religion: A Call for the Renewal of Western Culture (Oxford University Press, 2012), and the collection Reimagining The Sacred: Debating God with Richard Kearney, co-edited with Richard Kearney (Columbia University Press, 2016). His most recent book is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christian Humanism (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Current Research

Dr. Zimmermann directs “Human Flourishing in a Technological World: A Christian Perspective,” a three-year research project through which several scholars work toward a comprehensive Christian perspective for human flourishing in a world of technology. Scholars meet annually to share research, which is then published as essays, blogs, and finally an edited volume with Oxford University Press. Visit Human Flourishing (christianflourishing.com) and https://www.jenszimmermann.ca/ for more.

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