Religion and Literature at the MMLA

The call for the 2007 Religion and Literature session of the Midwest Modern Language Association follows. Interested parties please respond with short (250 word) proposals and contact information.

Spiritual Anarchists and Sacred Troublemakers: (Auto)Biographies of the Saints as Subversive Discourses.

The lives of exemplary religious figures can exert a disruptive effect on accepted canons of religious literature. While accounts of the lives of saints and other religious virtuosi eventually play a central role in the lives of ordinary practitioners, these same exemplary figures often stand in opposition to authoritative religious and cultural institutions of their times. Attempts to bring these figures into the fold of orthodoxy typically involves an elision of the more seditious aspects of saintly lives. This session seeks papers that address the subversive elements that reside in the (auto)biographies of saintly personages. The organizers are particularly interested to address the topic from multiple religious traditions; papers addressing figures outside the Judeo-Christian tradition are especially, though not exclusively, invited.

Reception Studies Conference

The Bible is missing from the list below, but the work many of us do would be just right for this conference, I think.

Call For Papers

Suggestions for panels and papers in all areas of English, American, and other literatures, media, and book history are welcome. Here are some possible panels and topics:

1. The Reception of Brokeback Mountain, including internet activity

2. The reception of serialized fiction in periodicals.

3. Marxism and reception study

4. Rereading Huckleberry Finn

5. The Reception of Toni Morrison’s fiction

6. Reading Torture Or Human Rights in Literature

7. Rereading Stanley Fish’s Is there a Text in this Class?

8. Reception and nineteenth-century (American) women's fiction

9. Trans-Atlantic receptions of British and American fiction

10. American fiction and reception as (re)construction

11. Feminist theories of reception

12. Reception and/of children's literature(s)

Proposals are due by May 1. To suggest papers or panels or for more information, please contact the organizers:

Philip Goldstein, University of Delaware, 333 Shipley St., Wilmington, DE 19801 pgold@udel.edu

Tom Poe, Department of Media Studies, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 202 Haag Hall, 5120 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, MO 64110 ThomPoe@aol.com

Religion and Literature at MLA 2007

This just in from the MLA:

Dear Members of the Division on Literature and Religion,

The Executive Committee of the Division on Literature and Religion would like to invite you to join a conversation about our mutual interests that stretches beyond the four-day Convention each December. This email is being sent to all of you who listed the Division on Literature and Religion on your annual dues form. We hope throughout the year to use this means to keep you informed about upcoming events and other matters of interest.

The Division-sponsored sessions at the 2007 Convention in Chicago are on holy beauty and the teaching of world literature:

HOLY BEAUTY: concept and function of beauty in sacred texts and religious literature, representations of the divine and their legitimacy, taste and exclusivity, devotional uses, ontology of beauty, aesthetics. 300-word abstracts by March 1 to Susan Felch (felch@calvin.edu) and Achsah Guibbory (aguibbor@barnard.edu).


RELIGION AND THE TEACHING OF WORLD LITERATURE: Bridging divide between religious and secular; the use of sacred texts; all genres and cultural traditions; one traditional session, one roundtable format. 200-word abstracts by March 15 to patricia.a.ward@vanderbilt.edu.

We encourage you to submit abstracts for these sessions and look forward to a robust conversation in December.

For the convention in 2008, we would like to address "the current state of the field in religion and literature." If you have suggestions for specific sessions or papers on this topic, or would like to propose a speaker, or have ideas for other topics, please contact the Chair of the Division.

Please do feel free to correspond with any member of the committee regarding your concerns and suggestions.


All the best,

Susan M. Felch, Chair (felch@calvin.edu)
Dennis Taylor, Secretary (taylor@bc.edu)
David Damrosch (dnd2@columbia.edu)
Patricia Ward (patricia.a.ward@vanderbilt.edu)
Achsah Guibbory (aguibbor@barnard.edu)

Speaking of Sci-Fi and Bible...

Hi all. Sorry I haven't been around, reading, posting, or commenting: I've been remodelling my basement, a full time job on top of a full time job.

I noticed J.T.'s post about Zelany's Ecclesiastes, and for some reason, it reminded me of a couple of books I haven't thought of in about four years.

Have any of you read Mary Doria Russell's works, such as The Sparrow or it's sequel, Children of God? These are really interesting books, and I'd love to either discuss them or spread the word. Also, if anyone has read anything else by her and likes it, I'd like to know.

My copy of Political Theologies just arrived. I'm so disappointed that we don't all work at the same institution, as I'd love to work my way through it with you all.