UPCOMING CONFERENCES

WEST

Literary Geographies – Space, Place, and Environments

Biola University

La Mirada, CA

April 7-9, 2022

“All theology is rooted in geography.”

—Eugene H. Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: an Exploration in Vocational Holiness

Eugene Peterson’s statement highlights how our spiritual lives are rooted in the material reality of our daily lives. Keeping in mind how Christ transforms not only individual hearts but also entire neighborhoods—and remaining attentive to how literature documents and shapes that transformation—we invite papers that address textual representations of space/place, environment, ecological endangerment, displacement, and rootedness. How do these ideas shape individual and communal identities? How do embodied experiences of being in particular places affect our orientation toward the world and understanding of human flourishing? What does it mean to cultivate a meaningful relationship to place? How does the discourse around immigration and citizenship help us think about the effects of displacement and emplacement? How do literary texts illuminate what our response should be toward the environmental crisis? And what does it mean to think of place and environment not merely as backdrops to our lives but as agents and interlocutors?

Potential topics / methods might include:

• Neighbors and neighborhoods (shared, communal or different identities)
• Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies
• Ecological footprints and the relationship between nature and culture
• Literary representations of disaster—fires, floods, earthquakes, drought
• Reflections on how Christian scholars occupy particular space(s) in the academy or elsewhere
• Literary representations of embodiment/embodied identities

E-mail your one-paragraph abstracts for an individual presentation or a one-paragraph abstract for a group panel by December 20, 2021 to Chris Davidson at christopher.davidson@biola.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.

OTHER CONFERENCES

CFP for SAMLA 93, November 4-6, 2021, Atlanta, GA

The Company You Keep: Reading, Writing, & Socializing in Religious Literature

Affiliate Group: Southeast Conference on Christianity and Literature

Literature is rife with the concept of the “social,” whether it be through exclusion or connection. The Bible records letters sent, Church History preserves the ways in which communities gathered and encouraged one another regardless of distance, and Christian writers have invested heavily in understanding the topic of community and social structures. This panel welcomes submissions that address the topics of intimacy, community, or exile. We welcome papers exploring literary works that engage with Christianity (or religion broadly) on the idea of the “social.” Papers might consider one or more of the following:

• Definitions of community in the writings of A. J. Mojtabai
• Social networks, broadly conceived, in the writings of Walker Percy
• Letter writing between authors as a source for inspiration (i.e. the letters of Ernest Hemingway)
• News or gossip in relation to community connections (i.e. gossip in the works of William Faulkner or the importance of the news in James Fenimore Cooper’s writing)
• Exile and reconciliation in American Catholic fiction (i.e. J. F. Powers and Harry Sylvester)
• The nature and definition of exilic literature (or literary depictions of characters in exile)
• The question of authenticity in religious literature
• Ways that literary texts comfort the reader or challenge religious traditions
• The conventions and techniques of religious literature and their adaptation over time and distance
• How religious writers turn to other religious traditions for resources of community or inspiration
• The relationship between society and exile in religion
• Pedagogical approaches to religious literature
• The nature of communities built around the reading of good books
• Creative writing submissions addressing the panel theme are also welcome

Please send a 250-word proposal, a CV, and any A/V requests to Sean C. Hadley at sean.hadley@faulkner.edu. (For creative writing submissions, please submit the full work to be read and not an abstract). All abstracts or creative writing submissions are due May 31.

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:

Western

Midwest

Southeast

Eastern

Southwest