Arts, Literature, and Religion Unit
The Arts, Literature and Religion Unit welcomes paper and panel proposals for the following themes. Please indicate to which of these themes you are responding. We welcome open call for papers.
1-Songs and Artistic Expressions of Freedom. Contact- Adam Newman, anewman4@illinois.edu
This panel examines the paradoxes of freedom in an era of repeatedly undermined human rights. We invite submissions from artists and scholars whose work challenges the cooption of freedom’s language by oppressive groups, resists systemic oppression, and/or affirms enduring and transformative visions of freedom. Contributions that critically engage with systemic struggles while imagining pathways toward justice and liberation are particularly encouraged.
2-Poetics of Comparison. A Round table. Contact-Gloria M. Hernández, ghernandez@wcupa.edu and George Pati, george.pati@valpo.edu
In our post-colonial era, comparativists face the dual challenge of adhering to rigorous methodological standards while embracing the creative dynamics of comparison. This roundtable seeks to examine the poetics inherent to the comparative process, understanding poetics both as poiesis— the creation of new meanings— and as a form of linguistic play.
We invite proposals involving religious and theological comparisons that incorporate the poetic and affective dimensions of the objects being compared. We also welcome analysis of comparative methodologies through the lens of poetics, and explorations of the dialogue between comparison and creativity.
3-Exploring Religious Freedom through Art-Based Research. Organizer: Angela Hummel, ahummel@iliff.edu
Call for works of art-based research and accompanying papers. This panel will focus on visual art-based research (painting, sculpture, photography, concrete poetry, etc.). We are more interested in what new insight the creation of the artwork provided you than in judging the art creations. We welcome any and all visual art forms exploring religious freedom from any and all religions. The works of art will be placed on display before the panel begins (if the work of art is too large to travel to AAR, we invite artists to create photos of the works of art that can be brought and put on display). Presenters will then share what new knowledge their creative work surfaced. Applicants should submit a description of their medium(s), what particular aspect of religious freedom they explored through the art based research, and a brief summary of their findings.
4- Arts, Literature, and Religion at the Centennial of 1925. Contact-Cooper Harriss, charriss@iu.edu
1925 was a pivotal year for modernism in the arts, marked by works that redefined cultural and aesthetic boundaries. F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby chronicled jazz age excess, Alain Locke's The New Negro heralded a new Black cultural consciousness, and Surrealism pushed representation beyond reality. Frida Kahlo began exploring identity through folk art, Sergei Einstein released Battleship Potemkin, and artists like Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong transformed music. The Scopes Trial and the Grand Ole Opry broadcast highlighted tensions between modernity, tradition, and religion. This session invites papers examining how works and movements of 1925 challenge, transform, or preserve religion, and what new categories of meaning they offer for Arts, Literature, and Religion in 2025 and beyond.
5- Transhuman Mysticisms: Animals, Aliens, and Objects (co-sponsored with the Mysticism Unit)
This panel considers new approaches to the study of mysticism and the arts, with an emphasis on non-human, more-than-human, and transhuman “mysticisms,” particularly as expressed in visual art, music, film, and science fiction. Topics to be considered include:
- Multi-species mysticisms
- Mysticisms of unfolding: micro- and macrocosmic realities and hierarchies of emergence
- “Astro” mysticisms and “outer” spaces, particularly as represented in film, literature, and the arts
- The “supernatural”: mysticism and ecology/biology; "plant mysticisms"
- Mysticism and Science Fiction
- Mysticism and/as "outsider art"
- Mysticism and New Materialism
The Art, Literature, and Religion Unit and The Religion, Social Conflicts, and Peace Unit are seeking papers for a co-sponsored session on "Religion, Art, and Political Reimagination." We are interested in exploring the role of religion in art and the production, disruption, and reconfiguration of political imagination. We are likewise interested in identifying the relevance of are and religious meaning-making and remaking in processes of social and political protests and visions of alternative political futures.
We seek papers that focus on the following (not an exhaustive list of topics):
- religion and literatures of resistance, exile, and annihilation
- protest art and slogans
- art and disruption of weaponized religious symbols
- art, religion, and the imagination of justice
- art, religion, and political domination
- art amid genocide
This Unit seeks to engage the critical issues at the intersection of religion, literature, and the arts. We are concerned with both the aesthetic dimensions of religion and the religious dimensions of literature and the arts, including the visual, performative, written, and verbal arts. Approaches to these two avenues of concern are interdisciplinary and varied, including both traditional methodologies — theological, hermeneutical, and comparative approaches associated with the history of religions — and emerging methodologies, those that emerge from poststructuralism, studies in material culture, and cultural studies.