Central New York Conference on Language and Literature
Standing Session: Comtemporary Literary Theory
Topic: "Religion and the Novel"
Papers focusing on any language, religion, or time-period are welcome.
Of specific interest are papers treating the relation between religion
and the various Enlightenment systems of colonialism, science, print and
industrial capitalism, and state government that have brought to bear on
the novel as cultural artifact and discursive practice. Authors are
encouraged to discuss religion, modernity, and novelistic constructions
of truth, time, subjectivity, landscape, labor, sexuality, class,
ethnicity, tradition, national history, socio-politics. Special
attention will be given to papers that attempt to establish some context
for current debates about the cultural logic of critical texts on the
novel, from Wattian to Foucaultian criticism and beyond. Dare we
question how organizations of shared belief have influenced the
production of novels? What critical obstacles lie in examining
religion's discursive influence on the history of novels? Does such
critical wiring necessarily short-circuit on Eurocentrist or "originist"
arguments about the historical detemination of "the" novel in "the
West"? How can postmodern analyses of the novel re-articulate their
critical bearings in response to attacks in the name of identity
politics?
Suggested topics:
Puritan intellectualism, American "Jeremiads"
Judiasm, "the jews"
Canonization, resistance to canonization
Literature and onto-theology
Religious conflicts in literature
Malice in literature, Radical evil
Inspiration, Excorcism, Excommunication
Literatures of witness, confessionals
Science and religious texts/literature
Beatific visions, the Beats
Religion and Reason
Atheism, Existentialism
Humanism and metaphysics
Religious discipline and law
Echoes of scripture (Bible, Talmud, Kabbal, Koran)
Miracles, messianism, mysticism
Religion and the global imaginary, Derrida's "globalatinization"
The American North (Catholic, Jewish) and South (Fundamentalist,
Pentecostal)
Send one-page abstract for individual paper; please include complete
mailing address, institutional affiliation, and cover letter. Address
all submissions by July 15th to:
Michael M. Logan
Dept. of English, General Lit., and Rhetoric
State University of New York at Binghamton
Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
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