CFP: Southwest Christianity and Literature Conference

http://www.pepperdine.edu/sponsored/ccl/conferencesandannouncements/

Southwest 2013 Regional Conference
“Love that Moves the Sun and Other Stars”: Exploring the Virtues in Literature

Houston Baptist University, Houston, Texas
September 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 April 1, 2013 to the Conference Chair, Dr. Holly Ordway, at [email protected].

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, 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: [email protected]; Dr. Evan Getz,[email protected]