WESTERN REGIONAL CONFERENCE
Dreams, Fears, and Transformation: Theological Roots in Literary Mythologies
Hope International University | Fullerton, CA
March 20-21, 2025
Many works of literature are also mythologies—orienting (or disorienting) narratives that establish a worldview or community identity. Mythologies may depict origins and apocalypses, dreams and fears, transformation and redemption. Amidst a spectrum of literary mythologies (“The Dream of the Rood,” Shakespeare’s Tempest, Hawthorne’s Puritan stories, Joyce’s Ulysses, Eliot’s Waste Land, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, etc.), the threshold between theology and literature often blurs. In such texts, dreams and visions sometimes fill the liminal space between religious belief and the mythological narrative. In others, fear shapes religious limitations and ideals. And transformation often lies at the center of such narratives. Where, then, is the intersection between theology and representations of dreams, fears, or transformation in literary mythologies? How might integrating these parts help us understand Christian thought and practice?
Hope International University invites you to contribute your original research on the topic of Dreams, Fears, and Transformation: Theological Roots in Literary Mythologies through an examination of these themes in literature and storytelling. We welcome papers, panels, creative works, and presentations that include theological or philosophical insights into these themes provided the primary grounding is in and through literature.
ConVersing/ConServing: Care, Creation, Communion
2024 West Regional Conference on Christianity and Literature
May 9-11, 2024
Trinity Western University
22500 University Drive
Langley, BC Canada V2Y 1Y1
In Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, our conference keynote speaker Marilyn McEntyre presents literary art and the study of literature as a form of stewardship. Caring for words is akin, she says, to environmental concern and action, for we hold both language and the land in common. We invite presentations and conversations exploring the relations between literature and conservation, of serving together creatively to keep and pass on what has been given to us. Our theme is intentionally broad as we seek to encourage and celebrate the creation, interpretation, and appreciation of literature from across historical periods and genres. We welcome professors, graduate and undergraduate students from within the discipline of literary studies, as well as scholars from other disciplines who engage with the theme.
Our keynote speaker: Marilyn McEntyre teaches and writes on topics including literature and the natural world and relations among spirituality, language, and healing.
Other special guests include: Loren Wilkinson, professor emeritus, Regent College and expert in Christian environmental ethics and earthkeeping. Leah Kostamo, Spiritual Care Counselor and co-founder of A Rocha Canada.
For conference website click here.
Literature as Vocation
Azusa Pacific University
Azusa, CA
March 16-18, 2023
Keynote Speaker: James K.A. Smith
James K.A. Smith is a professor of philosophy at Calvin University and serves as editor in chief of Image journal, a quarterly devoted to “art, mystery, and faith.” Trained as a philosopher with a focus on contemporary French thought, Smith has expanded on that scholarly platform to become an engaged public intellectual and cultural critic. In his latest book, How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithful Now (2022), Smith shows that awakening to the spiritual significance of time is crucial for orienting faith in the 21st century. Integrating popular culture, biblical exposition, and meditation, Smith’s text provides insights for pastoring, counseling, spiritual formation, politics, and public life.
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.
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?
Additional Past Conference Themes and Locations
April 2019: “Illuminating Darkness: Literature in an Age of Unbelief”
Colorado Christian University
April 2018: “Mixing Water with Wine? Innkeepers at the Borders of Secular and Sacred”
George Fox University
May 2017: Point Loma Nazarene University
May 2016: “Shepherding Language: Restoring Faith in Words”
California Baptist University
May 2015: “Literature, Film and Religion in an Interdisciplinary Age”
Seattle University
May 2014: “The Religious Turn: Secular and Sacred Engagements in Literature and Theory”
Westmont College