In lieu of the usual biographical information, we present the following retirement party information for eminent theologian and author Harvey Cox, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard emeritus, who definitely should be in a Got Milk? ad (see also the Boston Globe):
 
The Jersey cow from the Farm School was ensconced in the Tercentenary Theater outside Memorial Church in Harvard Yard by 4 p.m., Thursday, September 10. At 4:30, the Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes, Pusey Minister, in the Memorial Church, presided over a half-hour ceremony. Someone presented clinching evidence that the first Hollis professors did indeed graze their cows on the spot where the ceremony took place. There was a Latin (humorous) oration by Travis Stevens, a doctoral candidate at Harvard. Harvey said a few words. And someone from the Farm School said a few words about the Farm. Peter Gomes spoke about the Hollis professorship. There was a band and music.

Then the assemblage, led by the band and the cow, proceeded to the Divinity School where there was a second ceremony at 5:30. William Martin from Rice University, Harvey's first graduate student advisee, spoke, as did Diana Eck, the latter reflecting on the significance of cows in world religions. The Dean, William Graham, welcomed everyone.

From 6 to 7:30, there was a reception at the Divinity School that included a signing for Harvey's new book, The Future of Faith, published by HarperOne last month, and jazz and swing classics played by the 17-piece big band, Soft Touch, in which Harvey plays tenor sax. The cow was milked, and eventually everyone went home.

On your nightstand now:

Out by Natsuo Kirino, Garibaldi by Christopher Hibbert and Granta 106 (the New Fiction Special).

Favorite book when you were a child:

The Call of the Wild by Jack London, and later, Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast.

Your top five authors:

Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, George Eliot, Dostoyevsky, John Updike.

Book you've faked reading:

Augustine's The City of God.
 
Book you're an evangelist for:

Anna Karenina.

Books that changed your life:

The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich and Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Favorite line from a book:

"If we want to keep things the way they are, then we must change."--Giuseppe di Lampedusa in The Leopard.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.

Favorite old films:

High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino, but more recently: La Strada (all-time favorite), Burnt by the Sun and 8 1/2.

Book you really liked but rarely admit it:

Gone with the Wind.

Genre of books you prefer:

Political and cultural history of the 20th century and well-written historical biographies like Jonathan Alter's The Defining Moment.