Criticism and the Divine

Twenty-minute presentations concerning the notion (or concept, image, invocation, etc.) of the divine or the sacred as it emerges for recent criticism/theory of literature and/or culture. How is the notion explicitly or implicitly defined, engaged, critiqued, avoided, superseded, deflected, etc.?

The topic might involve various lines of inquiry. How might one assess the (putative) resurgence of interest in religion reflected in academic, popular, and political discourse? What about concerns with faith, sublimity, absoluteness, incorruptibility, and so on in areas besides religion, such as aesthetics? Conversely, how might one respond to Talal Asad’s question, “What would an anthropology of secularism look like?”

Abstracts due 9/15/05 to Scott DeShong, spdes@conncoll.edu or alternatively Quinebaug Valley Community College, 742 Upper Maple St., Danielson CT 06239, USA.