{"id":311,"date":"2009-06-30T09:30:13","date_gmt":"2009-06-30T13:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/?page_id=311"},"modified":"2025-10-09T08:34:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T12:34:51","slug":"decook-travis","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/people\/decook-travis\/","title":{"rendered":"Travis  DeCook"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"mb-6 cu-pageheader cu-component-updated md:mb-12\">\n    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 pb-5 after:w-10 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px\">\n                    \n             \n                \n            <\/h1>\n\n    \n    <\/header>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Research Interests<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Early Modern literature<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Religion and Theology<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Intellectual and Cultural History<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Theories of Secularity and Modernity<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Bible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Current Research<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My research critically engages concepts of modernity and secularity in light of cultural and religious activity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the period commonly appealed to as secular modernity\u2019s historical source. My current project, <em>The Secularization of God and the Nature of the Human Person in the Seventeenth Century<\/em>&nbsp;explores the emergence of idiosyncratic conceptions of God in the seventeenth century and how they impinged upon understandings of personhood. The project considers how traditional attributes of God within Christian theology\u2014particularly divine simplicity, eternity, and triunity\u2014were increasingly rejected in the period and replaced by a logic rooted in finite, creaturely reality, which in turn played a role in the development of distinctly modern and secular anthroplogies. The project examines how these shifts represent a significant diminishment in the scope of human possibility. The project centres on figures such as Descartes, Milton, Hobbes, Newton, and Traherne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"855\" height=\"1360\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/The-Origins-of-the-Bible-and-Early-Modern-Political-Thought-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27506\" style=\"width:169px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/The-Origins-of-the-Bible-and-Early-Modern-Political-Thought-1.jpg 855w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/The-Origins-of-the-Bible-and-Early-Modern-Political-Thought-1-512x814.jpg 512w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/The-Origins-of-the-Bible-and-Early-Modern-Political-Thought-1-320x509.jpg 320w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/The-Origins-of-the-Bible-and-Early-Modern-Political-Thought-1-768x1222.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 855px) 100vw, 855px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This project follows upon my book <em>The Origins of the Bible and Early Modern Political Thought<\/em>&nbsp;(Cambridge University Press, 2021), which challenges prevailing ways of conceiving the Bible\u2019s relationship to modernity\u2019s fundamental religious transformations. It explores how accounts of the Bible\u2019s origins, and not only engagement with the Bible\u2019s contents, served varied and unexpected functions in the early modern period. Writers at the time exploited a newly heightened tension between the Bible\u2019s divine and human dimensions in order to craft innovative narratives of the agencies and processes through which the Bible came into existence and was transmitted. I investigate how these accounts of Scripture\u2019s production and transmission were taken up beyond a narrowly-circumscribed theological discourse, and were deployed as the theological basis for wide-reaching arguments about the proper ordering of human life. This project reflects on the implications of this overlooked dimension of the early modern Bible\u2019s history for theories of secularity in our own time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Honours and Awards<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>FASS Research Award for Junior Faculty 2010<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>FASS Research Grant 2010<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>SSHRC Institutional Research Grant 2009<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Izaak Walton Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship 2006<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Books<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/ca\/universitypress\/subjects\/religion\/history-religion\/origins-bible-and-early-modern-political-thought-revelation-and-boundaries-scripture?format=HB&amp;isbn=9781108830812\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Origins of the Bible and Early Modern Political Thought<\/a><\/em> (Cambridge University Press, 2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Books Co-edited<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Co-edited, with Donald Beecher, Andrew Wallace and Grant Williams,&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/utppublishing.com\/doi\/book\/10.3138\/9781442642010\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Taking Exception to the Law: Materializing Injustice in Early Modern English Literature<\/a>&nbsp;<\/em>(University of Toronto Press, 2015).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Co-edited, with Alan Galey,&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.routledge.com\/Shakespeare-the-Bible-and-the-Form-of-the-Book-Contested-Scriptures\/DeCook-Galey\/p\/book\/9781138793750?srsltid=AfmBOooIlu0qbodiBTpM0gpOnYFtL1Q-qvUhuZvTFAm_nkn2nJWV1elP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Form of the Book: Contested Scriptures<\/a>&nbsp;<\/em>(Routledge, 2011).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Articles and Book Chapters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/article\/954017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cGod\u2019s Act of Knowing: Henry Vaughan, Participatory Attention, and the Eschatological Restoration of the Creatures.\u201d<\/a> <em>ELH <\/em>92.1 (2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/chapter\/10.1007\/978-3-031-55064-5_15\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cFrom the Image of Christ to the Imagining of the Sovereign: Donne, Hobbes, and the Eclipse of Participation and Transformation.\u201d<\/a> <em>Historicizing the Embodied Imagination in Early Modern English Literature<\/em>, ed. Mark Kaethler and Grant Williams (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/48736943\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cD.F. McKenzie\u2019s \u2018Providential Version\u2019 and the Biblical Paradigm.\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;<em>Textual Cultures<\/em>&nbsp;16.1 (2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/1462317X.2022.2078547\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cSovereignty Over Communion: Heterodox Salvation in Hobbes\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Leviathan<\/em>.\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;<em>Political Theology<\/em>&nbsp;24.4 (2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.euppublishing.com\/doi\/10.3366\/more.2022.0126\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cThe Charmed Circle: Identity in&nbsp;<em>Utopia<\/em>, Unethical Practices, and Augustine\u2019s Two Cities.\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;<em>Moreana<\/em>&nbsp;59.2 (2022)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/48558076?seq=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cDivinity, adieu!\u201d The Modern Subject and the Encounter with Scripture in Christopher Marlowe\u2019s <i>Doctor Faustus<\/i>.\u201d<\/a> <i>Literature and Theology<\/i> 32.3 (2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/24752952?seq=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cThe Extrinsic Bible:&nbsp;Francis Bacon\u2019s&nbsp;<em>New Atlantis<\/em>, Concepts of Scripture, and the Question of Secularity.\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;<em>Religion and Literature <\/em>47.1 (2015)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/24392078\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cFrancis Bacon\u2019s \u2018Jewish Dreams\u2019: The Specter of the Millennium in <em>New Atlantis<\/em>.\u201d<\/a> <em>Studies in Philology <\/em>110.1 (2013).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/utppublishing.com\/doi\/abs\/10.3138\/utq.81.1.037\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cNorthrop Frye and the Book as Metaphor and Material Artifact.\u201d<\/a> <em>University of Toronto Quarterly <\/em>81.1 (2012).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.routledge.com\/Shakespeare-the-Bible-and-the-Form-of-the-Book-Contested-Scriptures\/DeCook-Galey\/p\/book\/9781138793750?srsltid=AfmBOooIlu0qbodiBTpM0gpOnYFtL1Q-qvUhuZvTFAm_nkn2nJWV1elP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cScriptural Negotiations and Textual Afterlives,\u201d<\/a> co-authored with Alan Galey, <em>Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Form of the Book.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.routledge.com\/Shakespeare-the-Bible-and-the-Form-of-the-Book-Contested-Scriptures\/DeCook-Galey\/p\/book\/9781138793750?srsltid=AfmBOooIlu0qbodiBTpM0gpOnYFtL1Q-qvUhuZvTFAm_nkn2nJWV1elP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cApocalyptic Archives: The Reformation Bible, Secularity, and the Text of Shakespearean Scripture.\u201d<\/a> <em>Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Form of the Book.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com\/books\/edit\/10.4324\/9781315556581\/invention-discovery-1500%E2%80%931700-james-dougal-fleming\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cUnearthing Radical Reform: Antiquarianism against Discovery.\u201d<\/a> <em>The Invention of Discovery, 1500-1700<\/em>. Ed. James Dougal Fleming. Ashgate, 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20464309\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cThe Ark and Immediate Revelation in Francis Bacon\u2019s <em>New Atlantis<\/em>.\u201d<\/a> <em>Studies in Philology<\/em> 105.1 (2008): 103-122.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/pub\/1\/article\/232201\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cUtopian Communication.\u201d<\/a> <em>Studies in English Literature<\/em> 48.1 (Winter 2008): 1-22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.euppublishing.com\/doi\/abs\/10.3366\/more.2007.43-44.4_1-2.13\">\u201cTemporality and the Text of Scripture in Thomas More\u2019s Religious Polemics.\u201d<\/a> <em>Moreana <\/em>169 (2007): 226-248.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/journals.lib.unb.ca\/index.php\/SCL\/article\/view\/12792\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cThe History of the Book, Literary History, and Identity Politics in Canada.\u201d<\/a> <em>Studies in Canadian Literature<\/em> 27.2 (2002): 71-87.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Presentations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Gift of Being: Traherne\u2019s Virtue Ethics and Gratitude to God.\u201d Canadian Society of Renaissance Studies Conference, Toronto, June 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTraherne\u2019s Theological Anthropology and the Love for God.\u201d Workshop presentation. Renaissance Society of America, Boston, March 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFaith Comes by Hearing: Hobbes Quoting Paul.\u201d Roundtable presentation. Renaissance Society of America, Boston, March 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMilton, the Denial of Divine Simplicity, and the Nature of the Human Person.\u201d Sixteenth Century Conference, Toronto, November 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHobbes\u2019s Sovereign and the Theology of Images.\u201d Canadian Society of Renaissance Studies Conference, Montreal, June 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDonne\u2019s Holy Sonnet 13 and the Phenomenology of the Image of Christ.\u201d Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Baltimore, October 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMilton and the Political Theology of Bible Reading.\u201d Renaissance Society of America, San Juan, March 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEschatological Restoration and Attention to Nature in Henry Vaughan\u2019s \u2018The Book.\u2019\u201d Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Minneapolis, October 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Materiality of the Bible in the Divine Economy: Henry Vaughan\u2019s \u2018The Book.\u2019\u201d Canadian Society of Renaissance Studies, online, May 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cImagination, Religion, and the Private and Public Spheres in Hobbes and Spinoza.\u201dRenaissance Society of America, Dublin, April 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Beatific Vision and the Mortal Person in Hobbes and Traherne.\u201d Renaissance&nbsp;Society of America, Toronto, March 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Afterlife and the Human Person in Hobbes\u2019s <em>Leviathan<\/em>.\u201d Renaissance Society of America, New Orleans, March 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Origins of the Bible and Early Modern Political Theology.\u201d Invited talk given to The Bible in the Renaissance Conference, Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem, May 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWilliam Tyndale\u2019s Polemical Representation of God and Modernity\u2019s Domestication of Transcendence.\u201d Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, March 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWilliam Tyndale, the Teleology of the Christian Life, and Genealogies of Modernity.\u201d Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies, University of Calgary, May 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c\u2019A Removed Space\u2019: Theories of Print in Contemporary Treatments of the Reformation Bible.\u201d Sixteenth Century Conference, New Orleans, October 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;<em>De Doctrina Christiana<\/em>, Miltonic Freedom, and the Providential Immanence of the Bible&#8217;s Textual History.&#8221;&nbsp; Canada Milton Seminar, University of Toronto, May 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The Political Theology of Biblical Production:&nbsp; Milton, Hobbes, Spinoza.&#8221;&nbsp; Renaissance Society of America Conference, New York, March 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Tyndale&#8217;s Theology of Scripture and the Subject of Secularity.&#8221;&nbsp; Sixteenth Century Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;&#8216;Divinity, Adieu!&#8217;: Doctor Faustus&#8217;s Secular Bible.&#8221;&nbsp; Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies, University of Victoria, June 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The Suspension of Providence: Textual Contingency in Thomas More&#8217;s Attack on <em>Sola Scriptura<\/em>.&#8221;&nbsp; Renaissance Society of America, San Diego, CA, April 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Early Modern Secularity and Francis Bacon&#8217;s Theology of Revelation.&#8221;&nbsp; Renaissance Society of America, Washington, DC, March 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Graduate Courses<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ENGL 6002: Doctoral Proseminar<br>\nENGL 5005: M.A. Seminar<br>\nENGL 6000: The Production of Literature<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Graduate Supervisions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>DRP supervisor for Ali Ahmed. DRP title: \u201cPoetic Truth: Lewis, Barfield, and the Karamazovs\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2012-13. MA Thesis supervisor for Christopher Jenkins. Thesis title: \u201cThe Cross Pressure of Flannery O\u2019Connor\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10497,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cu_people_first_name":"Travis ","cu_people_last_name":"DeCook","cu_people_initials":"TD","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_people_type":[22],"cu_people_expertise":[],"class_list":["post-311","cu_people","type-cu_people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_people_type-professors"],"acf":{"cu_people_job_title":"Associate Professor","cu_people_degree":"B.A. Honours, M.A. (University of Victoria), Ph.D. (University of Toronto)","cu_building":"","cu_people_office_num":"","cu_people_pronoun":"","cu_people_designation":"","cu_people_email":"travis.decook@carleton.ca","cu_people_phone":"","cu_people_phone_ext":"","cu_people_linkedin":"","cu_people_bluesky":"","cu_people_twitter":"","cu_people_instagram":"","cu_people_facebook":"","cu_people_website":"","cu_people_orcid":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_people"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27519,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/311\/revisions\/27519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_people_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_type?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"cu_people_expertise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_expertise?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}