Books and Bridges is a community institute that facilitates ideas and conversation on the best of human thought. We explore the wisdoms of the world and apply them to modern life. We have no political, religious or ideological affiliation. In a society divided by uncivil discourse, the beauty of the humanities—novels, history, philosophy, poetry, ethics and epics—lift us to our better angels.

On Tuesday, July 18th, Terryl Givens will speak on how the idea of the preexistence of the human soul has evolved and persisted in Ancient Greek and Near Eastern cultures and how it resurfaced during the Romantic period in England and still exists today. He will base his lecture on a book he has published with Oxford University Press called "When Souls Had Wings."

Terryl L. Givens was born in upstate New York, raised in the American southwest, and did his graduate work in Intellectual History (Cornell) and Comparative Literature (Ph.D. UNC Chapel Hill, 1988), working with Greek, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and English languages and literatures. As Professor of Literature and Religion, and the James A. Bostwick Professor of English at the University of Richmond, he teaches courses in Romanticism, nineteenth century cultural studies, and the Bible and Literature. He has published in literary theory, British and European Romanticism, Mormon studies, and intellectual history.