Southwest Region Conference on Christianity and Literature
Where:
Houston Baptist University, Houston TX
When:
Sept. 20-21, 2013
Proposals:
We welcome both individual paper abstracts and session proposals relevant to the conference theme. Please send paper abstracts (no more than 200 words) and/or session proposals by May 1, 2013 to the Conference Chair, Dr. Holly Ordway, at hordway@hbu.edu.

Description of Conference:
From the classical period to today, the virtues have served as a means of self-examination, a guide for self-reflection, a pattern for living a good life, and an inspiration for literary composition. For Christians, the virtues have the added dimension of being rooted in the revelation of God's character. This re-orientation of the understanding of virtue means that pursuing virtue can be a spiritual discipline as well as a form of witness.

Literature provides a powerful means of reflecting on what virtue is, how the expression of particular virtues shapes actions and character, and what a virtuous life looks like in various times, places, and cultures.
This conference invites papers that consider literary approaches to one or more of the theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) and the cardinal virtues (justice, wisdom, temperance, and courage). Possible sub-topics include:
• The representation in literature of specific virtues and/or their corresponding vices
• Particular virtues considered in both non-Christian and Christian literature
• Realistic, allegorical, symbolic, and mythopoeic approaches to presenting the virtues in literature
• How literature can 'embody' virtue (or vice)
• Considerations of Aristotelian, Thomistic, or Platonic representations of virtue as expressed in literary works
• Virtues as represented in Biblical literature
• Virtue as a topic for literary apologetics
• Original poetry
• And other papers dealing with the conference theme

Keynote Speaker:

Dr. Michael Ward: "'Pilate Was Merciful Till It Became Risky': C.S. Lewis on the Role of Courage in Every Virtue"
Senior Research Fellow, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University
Co-editor, The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis; author, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis
Please direct any questions to:
Dr. Holly Ordway, Conference Chair: hordway@hbu.edu
Dr. Evan Getz, egetz@hbu.edu
We hope that you will join us!

cfp categories:
religion
interdisciplinary
poetry
classical studies
medieval
renaissance
romantic
victorian
twentieth century and beyond