Peter Kline is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at St Francis College, University of Divinity. He received his PhD from Vanderbilt University as part of their Theology and Practice program, and his first book is titled Passion for Nothing: Kierkegaard’s Apophatic Theology (Fortress Press, 2017). Peter has since published a number of articles and book chapters on a range of topics, including mysticism, feminism, art, and critical theory. In 2021, he received the “Most Productive Early Career Researcher” award from Charles Sturt University, and in 2023, he became a research fellow in a Templeton Grant project on theology and psychology through the University of Birmingham.

Peter’s current research is at the intersections of psychoanalysis and theology. He is currently working on a monograph with the title Infinite Seduction: Theology and the Sexual Unconscious, which seeks to offer a psychoanalytic account of religious subjectivity in conversation with Jean Laplanche. The research aims to use Laplanche’s “general theory of seduction” as a framework to explore sexuality and otherness in the construction and deconstruction of theological meaning. The core thesis of the book is that religious subjectivity variously stages and works on “the originary relation to the enigma of the other” (Laplanche). In particular, the project critiques the limits of phenomenological approaches to theology which tend to forclose the de-centering force of the sexual unconscious. The book will venture a theology of the unconscious that thinks God under the name “infinite seduction.”

Peter teaches units on mysticism, ecotheology, disability theology, and the trinity. He is open to enquiries for supervision from prospective doctoral and minor thesis students in any area of theological studies. He has previously supervised theses on feminist theology, trauma, and the arts.

Peter has written for Anglican Focus and has appeared on ABC’s Soul Search.

University Appointments

Lecturer and Research Coordinator (St Francis College)