The 2021 Dobbs Lecture will feature Dr. David Lyle Jeffrey, Distinguished Professor of Literature and the Humanities at Baylor University. Previously, Jeffrey served as Distinguished Professor of Literature and Humanities at Baylor University from 2000 until 2019. He was also Professor Emeritus of English Literature at the University of Ottawa and was Guest Professor at Peking University (Beijing) and Honorary Professor at the University of International Business and Economics (Beijing).

Jeffrey graduated from Wheaton College in 1965 and received his PhD from Princeton in 1968. Among the honors he most values include being made inaugural Professor of the Year in Arts and Humanities at the University of Ottawa in 1995, election to the Royal Society of Canada in 1996, being chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Conference on Christianity and Literature in 2003, an invitation from St Andrews University in Scotland to give the Andrew Laing Lecture on the occasion of the 65th Anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Laing lecture in 2004, and receiving the Cornelia Marschall Smith Outstanding Professor Award at Baylor in 2015. Jeffrey taught courses on the Bible as literature, medieval exegesis, biblical hermeneutics and literary theory, biblical tradition in the arts, and philosophy of art (aesthetics).

Jeffrey is known as a medievalist and scholar of biblical tradition in Western Literature and art. He has written a number of books, the most recent being Real Characters: A Tip of the Hat to Non-Conformity. His articles have appeared in Chinese as well as western academic journals, and currently, he has a wide range of articles in both Chinese and English venues.

More information about Jeffrey can be found here.