• 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?

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): ‘What is seen, what is believed: Belief in/and the Novel’.

  
  

• Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson (Downing College, Cambridge): ‘Mysticism and the Modern Novel’.

  
  

• Dr Alison Milbank (University of Nottingham)

  
  

• Dr Grace Mullett (Wilson Hill Academy)

  
  

• Professor Lori Peterson Branch (University of Iowa)

  
  

• Professor Holly Ordway (Word on Fire Institute)

  
  

• Ms Beatrice Scudeler (Fairer Disputations)

  
  

• Dr Clare Walker Gore (Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge)

The conference will be followed by evensong at 5:30pm at which The Rev'd Dr Michael Ward will preach.

Tickets must be purchased to attend. The booking page can be found here.

More details about the conference are available here.