ACED-17
THE 17TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT,
UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
LITERATURE AND CULTURAL STUDIES SECTION
CALL FOR PAPERS
The English Department of the University of Bucharest invites proposals for the Literature and
Cultural Studies section of its 17th Annual Conference:
Religion and Spirituality in Literature and the Arts
Dates: 4–6 June, 2015
Venue: The Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures,
Str. Pitar Mos 7–13, Bucharest, Romania
Research in literary studies, and the humanities generally, has seen during the last two decades
a renewed interest in the role of religion in culture, a development sometimes known as the
‘Religious Turn’. Part of this development has involved a revisionary approach to the assumption
that modernity is characterised by ever increasing secularisation, Charles Taylor spearheading a
movement aiming to achieve a more nuanced understanding of what secularisation entails—
while, of course, the key role of religion in pre-modern and non-Western cultural products has
always been widely acknowledged.
One facet of the investigation of what secularisation means is the recognition that intimations of
the transcendent in modern literature and other modern arts may be inspired by various forms
of spirituality that fall outside the field of traditional organised religion—and indeed the
influence of such spiritual movements may not be limited to the modern era. On the other hand,
there is currently a lively dialogue between the study of literature and the arts, on the one hand,
and theology, on the other, as witnessed by the recent flourishing of such fields of study as
‘literature and religion’, and ‘theological aesthetics’. Prominent theologians and theological
schools have made aesthetics and the arts a key concern in their work—for example Hans Urs
von Balthasar, and the Anglican ‘Radical Orthodoxy’ school (e.g. Catherine Pickstock, Alison
Milbank). Inheritors (and creators) of the structuralist and post-structuralist traditions (e.g.
Ricoeur, Kristeva, Derrida) have also increasingly, in their more recent work, shown an interest in
religious concepts and thinkers.
Theoretical approaches to the possible similarity or coincidence between the modes of cognition
involved in religious/spiritual conviction/knowledge and aesthetic perception/knowledge have
proliferated during the last century, philosophical traditions involved including phenomenology,
post-structuralism, neo-Thomism, and Eastern Orthodox thought. On the other hand, the
twentieth-century debate included discourses which viewed art in terms which made no
provision for or even disallowed a relationship of special relevance with religion (e.g. art as
political protest, art as social institution).
We invite papers in English addressing topics including (but by no means limited to) the
following:
˗ religion or other spirituality in the works or life of literary figures or artists (literature,
visual arts, music, film, theatre, dance, etc.);
˗ secularisation and its re-evaluations;
˗ theology in literature or other arts, or theological approaches to literature and other
arts;
˗ the ‘Religious Turn’;
˗ interpretations of apparently non-religious writers or artist as religious, or vice-versa;
˗ comparisons, relationships, and/or contestations between religion and other
spiritualities in literature and the arts;
˗ relationships between different religious traditions as active in works of literature or
other works of art;
- mysticism in literature and the arts today and in the past;
- philosophical approaches to the link between aesthetic and religious cognition;
- contestations of the relevance of art to religion or spirituality;
- national and transnational religious connections mediated by art and literature;
- the religious imaginary and its symbols today and in the past;
- artistic and literary testimonials about negotiating a place for religion in cultural
memory archives ;
- the devotional connection in artistic and literary resistance to totalitarianism;
- religion as a stimulus for post-communist art and literature.
Presentations should be in English, and will be allocated 20 minutes each, plus 10 minutes for
discussion. Prospective participants are invited to submit abstracts of up to 200 words in Word
format. Proposals should also include name and institutional affiliation, a short bio (no more
than 100 words), and e-mail address. Proposals for panel discussions (to be organized by the
participant) will also be considered.
A selection of papers from the conference will be published in University of Bucharest Review
(ISSN 2069–8658; listed on EBSCO, CEEOL, Ulrichsweb, and SCOPUS; CNCS category B).
Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2015
Please send proposals (and enquiries) to [email protected]
The conference fee of 50 euro (or 200 lei if paid in Romanian currency) is payable in cash on
registration, and covers lunches and refreshments during the conference, but not evening meals.
For further details and updates, see
http://www.unibuc.ro/depts/limbi/literatura_engleza/conferinte.php .
Enquiries regarding the Linguistics section of the conference, which will be running at the same
time as the Literature and Cultural Studies section, should be sent to [email protected] .
We look forward to welcoming you in Bucharest.
The organizing team
Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru
James Brown
Eliana Ionoaia
Dragoș Manea
Martin Potter
Ioana Zirra