First Conference of the International Society for Heresy Studies

May 30-31, 2014

New York University
Gallatin School
1 Washington Place

For questions about the conference, contact or .

You may download this program as a PDF or Word file.

Please note that all events in the Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts are free and open to the public.

FRIDAY, MAY 30

12-6, Lobby
Registration

12-1:30, Room 801
General Membership Meeting, light lunch served

2-3:30
Concurrent Seminars I

1. History of Heresy, Room 401
Chair: Lorna Gibb

A. Robert Royalty, Jr.: “Heresy Before ‘Heresy’:  The Discursive Origins of Early Orthodoxy”
B. John Holloway: “Did Saint Augustine Teach Heresy? Elements of Augustine’s Theology that Cast Doubt on His Orthodoxy”
C. Bella Tendler: “The Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs: New Sources, New Insights into Heterodox Islam”

2. 17^th-century Heresy in England, Room 501
Chair: Suzanne Hobson

A. Anne Greenfield: “Abandoned by the Angels: The Role of Providence in Restoration Rape Scenes”
B. Geremy Carnes: “Tyrannick Belief: Heresy and the Heroic Mode in John Dryden’s Tyrannick Love”
C. Maggie Vinter: “Formal Heresy and Heretical Formalities in Doctor Faustus”

3. Medieval Heresies, Room 601
Chair: Andrew Romig

A. Natalie Calder: “The Politics of Naming ‘Heresy’: Unbelief and the ‘Age of Faith’”
B. Kathryn Green: “The Joys of Heresy:  Benefits for Women in Medieval Heretical Sects”
C. Julie Gafney: “Weeds and Words: Interpellating Heretics, Name-calling, and Lollard Poetics in Chaucer and Langland”

4-5:30, Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts
Round Table
“Why Heresy Now?”
Robert Royalty, Jr.
James Morrow
Rebecca Goldstein
Gregory Erickson
Edward Simon

5:30-6, Lobby
Coffee

6-6:30, Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts
Welcome Address: Gregory Erickson

6:30-7:30, Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts
Plenary Talk
James Wood
“Belief, Disbelief and the Modern Novel”

7:30-9, Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts lobby
Opening Wine and Cheese Reception

SATURDAY, MAY 31

8-4, Lobby
Registration

8-10, Lobby
Coffee/Continental breakfast

9-10:30
Concurrent Seminars II

4. Modernism, Unbelief, and the Heretical Imperative, Room 401
Chair: A.Q.M.A. Rahman Bhuiyan

A. Gregory Erickson: “Heresy and the Modernist Literary Imagination”
B. Jade Principe: “Graham Greene on the Exigencies of Choice”
C. Suzanne Hobson: “The Problem of Unbelief in Modernist Writing: Mary Butts and Traps for Unbelievers”

5. Artists’ Panel, Room 501
Chair: Bernard Schweizer

A. James Morrow: “The Novelist as Heretic”
B. Lorna Gibb: “Spiritualism and Heresy: Genesis of a Novel”
C. Tasha Golden: “Pop Heresy: Songwriting at the Edge of the Speakable–An interdisciplinary conversation “

6. Religious Practice as Heresy, Room 601
Chair: John Holloway

A. Jordan Miller: “Solving Some Problems of Language: on Ritual, Craft, and Apophasis”
B. Andrea Dickens: “The Rhetoric of Heresy in David Ebershoff’s The Nineteenth Wife”

11-12, Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts
Plenary Talk
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
“The Accidental Literary Influence of Modernity’s Greatest Heretic”

12-1
Lunch, on your own

1-2:30
Concurrent Seminars III

7. Heresy, Folk Religion, and the Arts, Room 401
Chair: Jordan Miller

A. Mark Hama: “There is no devil, there is nothing”: Theodicy, Misotheism, and Re-membering in Tomás Rivera’s . . . And the Earth Did Not Devour Him”
B. Jason Bauman: “The Trementinas’ Black Book: Witchcraft and Heresy in Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima”
C. Angelina Tallaj: “On the Steps of the Cathedral: Heresy, Lived Religion, Dominican Voodoo, Music, and Catholicism”

8. English Literature and Dissent, Room 501
Chair: Richard Santana

A. Will Miller: “From Heresy to Enthusiasm: Henry More and Anne Conway in the wake of the English Revolution”
B. Ethan Quillen: Ian McEwan and Atheist Ethnography: Testing the Ethnographic Value of Fiction in Defining Modern Atheism”
C. Morgan Strawn: “A Rank Republican”: Mark Akenside, Tobias Smollett, and the Literary Politics of Religious Nonconformity”

9. Heresy in the late 19^th century, Room 601
Chair: Tim Hendrickson

A. Tim Hendrickson: “Allan Quatermain and the Religious Crusade of Haggard’s Adventure Fiction”
B. Michael Keller: “Between Very and Kneeland: Emerson’s Heretical Boundaries”

3-4:30
Concurrent Seminars IV

10. Lightning Rods of Heresy, Room 401
Chair: Gregory Erickson

A. Patrick Bixby: “‘Poison Doctrines’: Yeats, Nietzsche, and the Fate of Christian Civilization”
B. Clement Grene: “Three Versions of Judas: Borges, Heresy and the Historical Judas”
C. Andrea Sheridan: “The ‘day-to-day trenches of adult life’: Worship in David Foster Wallace’s This is Water and ‘Good People'”

11. On the Borders of Heresy: Theory, Laughter, and Science, Room 501
Chair: Mark Hama

A. A.Q.M.A. Rahman Bhuiyan: “Literary Heresy and the Act of Theory”
B. Bernard Schweizer: “Comedy as Heresy: The Curious Case of the Theology of Laughter”
C. Richard Santana: “Heretical Science: Paracelsus’ Distant Mirror”

5:15-6:15, Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts
Plenary Talk
Thomas J.J. Altizer
“The Absolute Heterodoxy of William Blake”

6:30-7:30, Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts
Concert

8:00,
Dinner