A panel for the American Comparative Literature
Association's 2001 conference in Boulder,
Colorado(April 20-22), seeks papers on any and all
aspects of what John McClure has termed a
"post-modern/post-secular." Are concerns of faith and
religion seeping back into a long-secular academy? Is
"post-modernism " inherently invested in this return?
Is there any actual return, or have such themes been
lurking, occasionally surfacing and resurfacing, ever
since the supposedly secularizing nineteenth century?
Or is the apparent engagement with religiosity in
contemporary literature and film being blown way out
of proportion? How does the breaching of a new
millenium change the discussion? Just to give a few
examples: magic realism; Thomas Pynchon; Walter Kirn;
Toni Morrison; J. M. Coetzee; Michel Houellebecq;
Salman Rushdie; Roman Polanski; films like "Dogma,"
"Dead Man Walking," "The Sixth Sense" and "Contact";
the rise of Christian rock and rap music; and thinkers
like Jean-Luc Marion, William Bennett, Linda Kintz,
Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida are all fair
game.
I am especially interested in projects that examine
the manner in which religious themes are played to
political ends or used to frame a political discourse
or social critique in contemporary works, or the way
that sacred space is increasingly negotiated within a
political context; that said, however, any
presentations that engage the broader topic are
welcome.
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words by 1
October to
Geoffrey Baker
Dept. of Comparative Literature
Rutgers University
131 George St.
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1414
USA
or via e-mail at: gabaker73@yahoo.com or
gabaker@rci.rutgers.edu
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