Marilynne Robinson to deliver Princeton Theological Seminary’s 2026 commencement address
Pulitzer Prize-winning author will address graduates during the seminary’s Saturday commencement service
PRINCETON, New Jersey — Princeton Theological Seminary announced Monday that Marilynne Robinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, essayist, and one of the most significant American writers of her generation, will deliver the seminary’s 2026 commencement address at 9 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, at Princeton University Chapel. Watch via the seminary’s YouTube channel here.
Robinson’s address, entitled “Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night declares knowledge: The Joys of Theology,”
will be part of this year’s Commencement service, where the seminary will give thanks for its graduates, honor their formation at Princeton Seminary, and bear witness to the many ways they are being called to serve in the church, the academy, the world and the public arena.
Robinson is the author of “Gilead,” winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award; “Home,” winner of the Orange Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; “Lila,” winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; and “Jack,” a New York Times bestseller. Her first novel, “Housekeeping,” won the PEN/Hemingway Award.
Her nonfiction works include “The Givenness of Things,” “When I Was a Child I Read Books,” “Absence of Mind,” “The Death of Adam,” and “Mother Country.” In 2012, she received the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama for “her grace and intelligence in writing,” and in 2025 she received the inaugural Lewis H. Lapham Award for Literary Excellence from Harper’s Magazine.
“Marilynne Robinson has given generations of readers a language for grace, conscience, memory and the sacred dignity of human life,” said Princeton Seminary President Jonathan Lee Walton. “Her work reminds us that the life of faith is lived in community, tested through history, and revealed in the ordinary and extraordinary ways we attend to one another. As our graduates prepare for ministries and vocations marked by faith, integrity, scholarship, competence, compassion and joy, we are honored to welcome a voice whose moral and theological imagination speaks so powerfully to this moment.”
During commencement week, Robinson will also be recognized as the 2026 recipient of the Daniel L.Migliore Distinguished Presidential Award for Faithful Leadership. Named in honor of the late Professor Emeritus Daniel L. Migliore, MDiv ’59, whose teaching and writing shaped generations of students and contributed significantly to contemporary systematic theology, the award reflects the seminary’s highest ideals and honors excellence, pastoral humility, and faithful Christian living.
During Saturday’s commencement service, Princeton Theological Seminary will confer degrees on graduates across its master’s and doctoral programs, marking the culmination of years of study, formation, and preparation for lives of faithful service and leadership.
About Princeton Theological Seminary
Founded in 1812, Princeton Theological Seminary equips women and men for faithful, compassionate and competent leadership in ministry, academia, and public life — preparing them to serve Christ with integrity, scholarship and joy.
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