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 17 th Annual Conference:

Religion and Spirituality in Literature and the Arts

Dates: 46 June, 2015
Venue: The Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures,
Str. Pitar Mos 713, Bucharest, Romania
Invited speakers:
Adrian Grafe (University of Artois)
Hester Jones (University of Bristol)
Carl Lavery (University of Glasgow)
Tereza Sinigalia (George Oprescu Institute of Art History,
Bucharest)
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 entailswhile, of course, the key role of religion in premodern 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 religionand 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 workfor 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, poststructuralism, 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 20698658; listed on EBSCO, CEEOL, Ulrichsweb, and
SCOPUS; CNCS category B). See the guidelines for contributors at
http://ubr.rev.unibuc.ro.
Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2015
Please send proposals (and enquiries) to litcultstbucharest@gmail.com
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 17.aced@gmail.com .

We look forward to welcoming you in Bucharest.

The organizing team
Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru
James Brown
Eliana Ionoaia
Drago Manea
Martin Potter
Ioana Zirra