UPCOMING CONFERENCES
WEST
Literature as Vocation
West Regional Conference on Christianity and Literature
March 12-14, 2020
Azusa Pacific University
Azusa, CA
Why do we do what we do in the field of literary studies? Why does it matter? To whom? What redemptive or transformative work does literature do? When? Where? How? We invite reflection and conversation about the different kinds of work literature does to and through writers, readers, teachers, thinkers, and scholars. Our topic is intentionally broad as we seek to inspire, encourage, and celebrate the creation, interpretation, and appreciation of literature from any historical period and any genre. Our format is inclusive with panels for professors, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as scholars from multiple disciplines including English, Modern Languages, Theology, Education, Psychology, Science, and Humanities.
Suggested topics include but are not limited to the following:
· the work of re-enchantment: magical realism, refreshment, joy, delight
· the work of transformation: secular/post-secular accounts of religious experience, narratives of conversion and de-conversion, spiritual autobiography
· the work of empathy: emotion and affect, caregiving, accounts of suffering, grief, and illness
· the work of social justice: remembrance, rediscovery, lament, protest, reconciliation, peace
· the work of stewardship: ecology, creation care, apocalypse
E-mail your one-paragraph abstracts and session proposals by December 1, 2019 to Dr. Patricia Brown at plbrown@apu.edu. Undergraduate students must submit their entire paper for consideration; eligible undergraduate papers will be entered into the national CCL Undergraduate Writing Contest for a cash prize and publication on the CCL website. Graduate students are encouraged to apply for the CCL Travel Grant. For more details on these undergraduate and graduate opportunities, visit https://www.christianityandliterature.com/Awards-and-Grants
Keynote Speakers:
Dr. Karen Swallow Prior
Liberty University
Author of Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues (2019) and On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books (2018)
Dr. Tae Sung
California Baptist University
Author of The Spirit and the Gift: A Postsecular Reading of Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James (monograph in progress)
Dr. Ayana Jamieson
Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network, founder
Author of “Black Blessings: Toni Cade Bambara and Octavia Butler” (The Feminist Wire)
REGIONAL CONFERENCES
Regional conferences afford members an opportunity to learn from one another and to build networks of support for their scholarly and professional endeavors. They also offer graduate students an opportunity to gain valuable experience presenting at conferences.
For the themes of past and recent regional conferences, please click on the regions below:
SOUTHWEST
The Christian Storyteller
Southwest Conference on Christianity and Literature
September 13-14, 2019
University of Dallas, Gorman Lecture Center
1845 E. Northgate Drive | Irving, TX 75062
This is a conference for both literary scholars and writers to meet and discuss the nature of storytelling in a Christian context. Keynote speaker and screenwriter Barbara Nicolosi Harrington, Ph.D., will speak on "The Crisis in Christian Storytelling."
Keynote Speaker: Barbara Nicolosi Harrington
A highly sought-after public speaker on art, culture, media and spirituality as well as author, producer, screenwriter and founding faculty member of Azusa Pacific University Honors College, Barbara Nicolosi Harrington, Ph.D., is also founder and chair emerita of Act One, a globally recognized nonprofit that trains and mentors Christians as Hollywood producers and screenwriters.
Sponsored by the Conference on Christianity & Literature, Southwest Region, and the University of Dallas.
To register for this conference:
https://advancement.udallas.edu/conference-on-christianity-literature
For special rate hotel reservations for this conference:
https://www.omnihotels.com/hotels/dallas-mandalay/meetings/university-of-dallas-09132019
Contact Karen Gempel, University of Dallas English Department,kgempel@udallas.edu; 972-721-5243 if you have questions.
SOUTHEAST
Revenants: Christ, Time, and the Twenty-First Century
Southeast Conference on Christianity and Literature
June 6-8, 2019
Lee University
Cleveland, TN
Keynote Speaker: William Tate, Covenant College
Flannery O’Connor’s attribution of a “Christ-haunted” South, the metaphysical revenant that haunts Derrida’s “Of Spirit,” George Steiner’s Real Presences that “rattle about [language] like old rags or ghosts in the attic,” Richard Harries’s 2018 Haunted by Christ: Modern Writers and the Struggle for Faith, the recent currency of postsecular analysis—in these and many more instances a post-Christian literature, critical discourse, and broader culture has long been coming to terms with the terms and continuing claims of its past. This conference seeks to explore and extend that haunting by inviting work that will address a variety of intersections between time, the Christian faith, and the literary enterprise.