What Makes a Novel Christian?
Wednesday 13th May
Can a novel be Christian even though the author is not?
What makes us consider Pilgrim's Progress and The Brothers Karamazov to be Christian novels? Is it because the authors professes certain beliefs or because the novels possess certain features of form or content?
Is a novel Christian because it presents morality and mortality in a particular way?
Should we accept Alastair MacIntyre's suggestion in After Virtue that Jane Austen and Dante wrote comedies precisely because of their Christian faith?
Could a novel never be truly Christian if its story is a tragedy?
Overview
The Centre for Theology, Law, and Culture at Pusey House would like to organise a conference to discuss these questions on Wednesday 13 May in Oxford.
We will invite academics from English studies to speak about how they might answer some of these questions by talking about a particular novel or novelist. We also invite novelists to discuss how they consider some of these questions in their own writing and what it means to be a Christian novelist today.
Speakers
Professor Randy Boyagoda (University of Toronto)
Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson (Cambridge)
Dr Rebekah Lamb (St Andrew's)
Dr Alison Milbank (University of Nottingham)
Professor Lori Peterson Branch (University of Iowa)
Professor Holly Ordway (Houston Christian University)
Dr Clare Walker Gore (Cambridge)
Tickets
Tickets are available for £15. They can be booked on this page.
All tickets come with a livestream link which will be emailed to
all ticketholders before the colloquium, which will also grant access to recordings of the talks after the colloquium is over.
A limited number of tickets are available for the drinks reception and three-course dinner with the speakers on Wednesday night. Tickets for the dinner can be purchased here.
Please email mehmet.ciftci@stx.ox.ac.uk with any questions.
We are only able to host our academic programme thanks to the generosity of donors great and small. If you would like to support us, you may do so HERE.
