Stephen R. Prothero to deliver Noble Lectures

New York Times best-selling author and Boston University professor of religion Stephen R. Prothero will deliver this year’s William Belden Noble Lectures, “The Work of Doing Nothing: Wandering as Practice and Play,” Nov. 18-20 at the Memorial Church.

In the three-part lecture series, Prothero will explore “wandering” as one of the great themes in the world’s religious and literary traditions as an antidote to contemporary obsessions with efficiency, productivity, and the purpose-driven life.

The Nov. 18 lecture Prothero will present is titled “Wandering Out: Leaving and Letting Go.” On Nov. 19, the lecture topic will be “Wandering Around: Out of Doors and Out of Mind,” and the Nov. 20 lecture is titled “Wandering Home: Reckoning and Return.” All of the lectures are at 8 p.m.

Prothero is chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University and the author of “Religious Literacy: What Americans Need to Know” (HarperOne, 2007) and “American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003).

The William Belden Noble Lectures were established at Harvard University in 1898 and claim an impressive roster of past lecturers including Theodore Roosevelt, H. Richard Niebuhr, Sen. Eugene McCarthy, and Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie.

The Noble Lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Memorial Church at (617) 495-5508 or e-mail memorial_church@harvard.edu.