Conference on literature and religion at UCI.

Hey there. It's been a while. Anyway, I'm one of the people organizing this conference and, if you're still reading this blog and this topic interests you, you should come. And if you're not reading this blog and the topic interest you, you should come. And if you're a tumblr-er, tumble this page: http://literatureligion.tumblr.com/

Literature { } Religion
 

Inaugural Conference for the Study of Literature and Religion.

The University of California, Irvine.

Friday, May 11, 2012.

Studies of the relationship between literature and religion have picked up significant momentum in recent years, with many scholars in the humanities, arts, and social sciences taking a “religious” or “postsecular” turn in their work. This conference seeks to gather scholars across varied disciplines and areas of expertise to explore the wide variety of intersections, parallels, collaborations, ruptures, and inspirations to be found under the rubric of a discussion focused on literature and/or/with/on/of/against/about/in religion. 

Without privileging either term or limiting the prepositions or conjunctions between them, UCI’s “Literature { } Religion” conference is conceived with all the broadness that its name implies.  We seek extensive engagement with various religious traditions both Western and Eastern, monotheistic, polytheistic, or non-theistic. Papers may include but are not limited to studies of any literary, rhetorical, narrative, or textual aspects of literature and religion. We invite essays on exegesis and hermeneutics; discursive intersections of civil and canon law; ethics and justice explored in religious and secular literature; the poetics of holy writings; political theology; orthodoxies and/or heterodoxies; humanisms; religious art and imagery; literary works about religion; secularization and the post-secular; religious aesthetics; literature as a mode of religious engagement; comparative literary and religious studies; and conflicts mediated through literature and religion. Papers will be 15-20 minutes long to permit time for discussion.

Finally, there will be a plenary session with Professor Jack Miles (UCI), Pulitzer Prize-winning author of God: A Biography and editor of the forthcoming Norton Anthology of World Religions, which will be published in two volumes at almost 4,000 pages in Fall 2013. Professor Miles will share his views and lead a discussion on the relationship between literature and religion.

 

This conference will take place on Friday, May 11, 2012, at the University of California, Irvine.

Those who heed the call for papers should send abstracts to Brian Garcia (bjgarcia@uci.edu), to whom inquires may also be addressed. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words, and should arrive before January 30, 2012. Invitees will be notified by March 30, 2012.