CFP: MW/SWCCL, “Taking Care”

Midwest/Southwest Conference on Christianity and Literature

College of the Ozarks
Point Lookout, Missouri
September 25-26, 2026

What does “taking care,” or caretaking, mean for literature and literary study? Salman Rushdie’s novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) offers one suggestive model in the figure of Mali, the Floating Gardener, who tends the strands of stories in the Sea of Stories. When Haroun encounters him, Mali explains that stories require attention. They must be tended, repaired, and protected if they are to flourish. Rushdie’s allegory gestures toward a broader set of practices and dispositions that shape our engagement with literature: slow, attentive reading; responsibility toward texts and traditions; pedagogical concern for students; sympathy, compassion, and care for others. Yet this language of care also raises a challenge for literary criticism. Care is frequently invoked as an ethical or pedagogical good, but its relationship to critical judgment is far from self-evident. At what point does an emphasis on care risk softening interpretation or discouraging interpretive conflict? Might critique itself be understood as a form of care? And when does care instead demand critique, even at the risk of disagreement or discomfort?

This regional meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature approaches “Taking Care” as an opportunity to examine the tensions, costs, and responsibilities that emerge when practices of care meet the demands of literary criticism. We invite participants to examine care not as a posture of affirmation, but as a practice of attention, responsibility, and judgment that shapes how we read, teach, argue, and disagree. We welcome proposals that engage taking care in relation to literary texts, interpretive methods, pedagogical practices, and Christian commitments, especially where care comes into productive tension with critique.

Possible lines of inquiry include (but are not limited to):

×        What does it mean to take care with words, texts, or traditions?

×        When does care sharpen interpretation, and when might it soften critique?

×        How do literary works stage, demand, complicate, or resist practices of care?

×        How do literary forms and genres shape what kinds of care are possible or impossible?

×        How does care relate to judgment, disagreement, and interpretive risk?

×        What distinguishes care from charity, sympathy, or assent in reading practices?

×        What kinds of insights can be gained by interpretations that draw on Christian moral vocabularies?

×        What does taking care look like in the classroom, especially when texts provoke discomfort or resistance?

×        When does care become burdensome, conflicted, or ethically costly?

MW/SWCCL is open to other proposals concerning the relationship of Christianity and literature, including panel proposals and creative works. Readings of original poetry and fiction will also be considered (please email conference coordinators for details). Undergraduate and graduate students are also encouraged to submit proposals. In lieu of an abstract, undergraduate students must submit their entire paper for consideration. Eligible undergraduate papers will be entered into the national CCL Undergraduate Writing Contest. Graduate students accepted to the conference are encouraged to apply for the CCL Travel Grants for Conferences.

Send abstracts (250-400 words) for 15-20 minute papers to jeff.galbraith@wheaton.edu on or before June 30, 2026. Notifications will be sent in late July or early August, with the final program published soon after. Please include your name, institutional affiliation (if any), and contact information with your submission.

Presenters are required to be members of the Conference on Christianity and Literature at the time of the conference.

Membership includes a subscription to the conference’s journal and information can be found on the organization’s website: https://www.christianityandliterature.com/Membership.