Phenomenology and God : All Is True - Unless You Decide in Advance What Is Not

Bruce Smith locates his wonderfully lucid and engaging book on Shake speare and phenomenology {Phenomenal Shakespeare, 2010) within the :urrent "affective turn" of critical thought, a turn that is, he suggests, a ''counterturn" responding to the "linguistic turn" of the 1960s and 1970s.1 Jne hesitates to add yet another twist to this dizzying array ot turns, but if one is trying to sketch in full the relationship between Shakespeare and phenomenology, it is necessary to point out tnat somewnere in oetween the so-called linguistic turn and the affective turn early modern litera ture/Shakespeare studies experienced a "religious turn" that was deter mined in large part by the "theological turn" in phenomenology.2 That is, if we are to determine a relationship between Shakespeare studies and phenomenology, we should not ignore that both have tried—unsuccess fully—to rid themselves of God and religion. We should also say, frankly, that without phenomenology's engagement with religion no one would be particularly interested in talking about phenomenology these days. Or, to put this another way, whatever one s engagement with religion nr theolofrv. it is riskv to lean too auicklv over these "in between" turns.