Call for Papers

Conference on Sermon Studies: The Twentieth Century, Before, and Beyond

Oxford, UK, and Virtual

September 8-10, 2022

 Submission Deadline: April 1, 2022

The Center for Sermon Studies at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia announces its fifth Conference on Sermon Studies, to be held September 8-10, 2022. It will be a hybrid event, with in-person sessions in Oxford and virtual options.

The primary sponsors are the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History (OCMCH) and Brill Publishers.

The conference is multidisciplinary and interfaith. The organizers’ goal is to bring scholars, practitioners, and interested laypersons together to discuss sermon texts and the art of preaching from a variety of academic and religious perspectives.

The theme for 2022 is “The Twentieth Century, Before, and Beyond.” The conference will feature presentations by contributors to A Companion to Preaching and the Sermon, the 20th Century, edited by Keith A. Francis and Robert H. Ellison, to be published by Brill in 2023 or 2024. Submissions by others working on all aspects of the topic are welcome.[GU3] 

We especially encourage proposals for individual papers and complete panels on

• Preaching and the sermon in Africa, Asia, and Latin America
• Underrepresented preachers and sermon creators (e.g., women, the indigenous, lower social classes)
• Trajectories of preaching from the 19th century into the early years of the 21st century
• Preaching and the sermon in Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism

Proposals

All proposals must be submitted online at http://mds.marshall.edu/sermon_conference/2022[ER4] . Please provide the following information:

• For individual papers (20 minutes): Title, abstract (150-250 words), contact information, and a 5-6 sentence biographical sketch.
• For complete panels (Three 20-minute papers): A session title and abstract (150-250 words), titles and abstracts for each paper (also 150-250 words), and biographical and contact information for each participant.

Publication

Accepted abstracts may be included in the online program. After the conference, participants will have the option of contributing their complete papers to the online proceedings; they will also be encouraged to submit revised/expanded essays for peer review and possible publication in Sermon Studies, a peer-reviewed open access journal.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to Robert Ellison, ellisonr@marshall.edu