Call for Proposals

This Section invites proposals for individual papers and preorganized papers sessions or roundtables on any of the following topics:

• The history and practice of calligraphy in world religions


• Islam — arts, film, literature, and media


• The religious in the literature of C. S. Lewis (2013 marking the fiftieth anniversary of his death)


• The religious poetry of Constantine P. Cavafy (in connection with UNESCO’s declaration of 2013 as the “Year of Cavafy”)


• Religion and kitsch


• Museums dedicated to religious art


• Blasphemy in the arts and literature


• Aniconism in religion


• Apocalypse in arts and literature


• The religiosity or lack thereof in the literature of Edgar Allen Poe


• Baltimore artists (e.g., John Waters)


• The novels of Anne Tyler


• Visionary art and literature


• Folk art


• For a cosponsored session with the Queer Studies in Religion Group, queer theory’s reliance on art and literature and its investment and interrogation of the category of the “aesthetic”


• For a cosponsored session with the Religion and Humanism Group, visualizing inhumanity — whether depictions of the inhuman in the arts and the media fund moral sensitivity or desensitize us to inhumane acts and events


• Any topic in arts, literature, and religion

Mission

This Section seeks to engage the critical issues at the intersection of religion, literature, and the arts. We are concerned with both the aesthetic dimensions of religion and the religious dimensions of literature and the arts, including the visual, performative, written, and verbal arts. Approaches to these two avenues of concern are interdisciplinary and varied, including both traditional methodologies — theological, hermeneutical, and comparative approaches associated with the history of religions — and emerging methodologies, those that emerge from poststructuralism, studies in material culture, and cultural studies.

Anonymity of Review Process

Proposer names are anonymous to Chairs and Steering Committee members until after final acceptance or rejection.

Questions?

Diane Apostolos-Cappadona
Georgetown University
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Eric Ziolkowski
Lafayette College
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Method of Submission