Loriane Lafont (Ph.D. Candidate) is a 2023 awardee for The Martin Marty Center Junior Fellowship.

What's next for you?

I will enter the 6th year of my PhD in October between UChicago and the EPHE (co-tutelle degree). I’ll be publishing an article on Foucault’s Confessions of the Flesh in The Journal of Religion, The mystical quality of Foucault's confessions of the flesh: an inquiry from within—it’s forthcoming for January, I assume. I am also organizing an international conference on the work of Pierre Bayard at UChicago in October 2024.

What brings you to study religion?

I am studying religion within secular literature—that being said; I am interested in the way religion is part of non-religious texts in unspoken or “hidden ways."

What's something unique or special about studying at the Divinity School?

The Divinity School is a crossroad for studying very diverse matters in an accessible and interdisciplinary fashion. Having a foot at the Marty Center during the 2022-2023 academic year has helped me to strengthen my ability to discuss papers dealing with topics very different from mine. It has widened the spectrum of my interests, and I’ve gained a more robust knowledge of the American setting of religious practices.