cfp.english.upenn.edu

42nd Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association
April 7-10, 2011
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ

The received wisdom tells us that the modernization of American culture and society was contingent upon its secularization. And yet, when we look to both canonical works of American modernism and to contributions to the “cultural front,” we find an abiding concern for the religious that troubles this dominant narrative. This panel seeks to reexamine the multivalent modernist concern for the religious in order to reassess its place in early 20th century American literature and culture, to analyze the myth of the ‘secular age,’ and to determine the place of religion in the conflict between capital and labor.

Paper topics may include, but are not limited to:

Eliot’s ‘The Idea of a Christian Society’
Faulkner’s Christology
Dos Passos, Hagiography, and Cultural Sacralization
H. D. and Religion
Louis Zukofsky, Judaism, and Kabbalah
Moses and Modernism
The Social Gospel in Modern America
Religion and the Cultural Front
Religion and the CPUSA (Communist Party of the United States of America)
Religion and the SPA (Socialist Party of America)
The Literature, Journalism, and / or Activism of Christian Socialism
Religion and Modern Social Theory
“Practical Christianity” vs. “Churchianity” in Modern American Literature
Christianity and Capitalism
Theology in Modern American
Paul Tillich and Christian Socialism
Reinhold Niebuhr on Socialism, Capitalism, and / or Christian Realism
Bonhoeffer in America
Modernist Cultural Capital and Aesthetic Consecration
The Idol and the Icon in Modern Art
Literary accounts of a 'proletarian Jesus'
Bruce Barton’s _The Man Nobody Knows_

Please send 300-500 word abstracts to Andrew Ball (ajball@purdue.edu) on or before September 30, 2010, with 'NeMLA' in the subject line. Along with your abstract, please include your contact information (email address, postal address, and phone number), academic affiliation, and A/V requirements.