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.

 

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