Nichole Miller’s lecture, “Paul’s Call; Cymbeline’s Calling,” brings Shakespeare’s late romance Cymbeline together with the writings of St. Paul and Max Weber’s lecture (later essay), Politik als Beruf, pointing up both the literary and the political-theological double valences of “calling.”  Looking back to Shakespeare’s earliest plays as well as forward to an off-stage, post-political afterlife, disrupted by a nominal sacrifice that may not, ultimately, matter, Cymbeline both gives us a Pauline heroine who embodies all the contradictions such an idea entails, and models a modern uneasiness with the “return” of theology in the realms of philosophy, politics, and literary criticism.

Nichole E. Miller joined Temple’s English department in 2008. Her research and teaching interests include Shakespeare, 16th-17th c. British literature, political theologies and political philosophy, critical and literary theory, and gender studies.