9th 11th November 2023, lasi, Romania

 

CALL FOR PAPERS


“…in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself.

Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eye, but it is still I who see.

Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself;
and am never more myself than when I do.”

CSL

C. S. Lewis taught Literature at Oxford and Cambridge Universities for more than forty years.  His prowess led Cambridge to create the Chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature specifically for him. Yet studies of this renown author, apologist, scholar, and deeply invested teacher, too often overlook the specific vocation in which he not only delighted and excelled, but which infused his entire corpus. Lewis’ passion for the literature he taught gripped him
from his teenage years (if not earlier!) right through to the end of his life. His final academic book, The Discarded Image, which drew together many of his lectures, was an invocation not to discard the riches of this past; then and now, it calls his readers to more closely consider their own chronological and literary snobbery. Within the literature of old Lewis saw much that was fundamental for the wellbeing of the future; as an intellectual historian he was
prophetic. His calling as an academic whatever genre his output was to return his readers to the enchantment of literary transcendence.

Come join us in Iasi as we reclaim the image too easily discarded, as we explore Lewis the academic both his own reenchantment as such, and how he summoned others to the same, as we discuss how he interwove his calling as a teacher of literature  both in the classroom and on the page  with that of a challenger of contemporary culture; how with wit and intellect he enticed his students and readers into that which he found “so imaginable and so satisfying
to the imagination.” In the current zeitgeist of inhospitable contention, of ideological (and physical) warfare, Lewis the academic proffers an engaging, intellectually satisfying, and carefully informed alternative.

On the 60th anniversary of the death of C. S. Lewis, as well as the 10th year since our first Symposium, the sixth C. S. Lewis conference C. S. Lewis the Reenchanted Academic addresses topics related to the scholarship of C. S. Lewis and his kindred spirits as members of academia: biographical particulars; vocations as literary/cultural historians and critics; specific attention to the influence of Medieval and Renaissance ages in their writing academic, theological, and otherwise; their perspectives on pedagogy and education (higher education in particular); their perspectives on the academic as tutor and mentor. We invite papers in the fields of literary history and criticism, cultural studies and arts studies, linguistics, aesthetics, theology, history, ethics, and education sciences, that will invite constructive dialogues between disciplines and generate constructive responses to contemporary dilemmas.

The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is surrender.
Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way.

(There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserve such a surrender, for until
you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)

CSL

Interested participants are invited to send a 200 250 words abstract for peerreview to the Conference Committee via the organizers:

REGISTRATION:

  • deadline for proposal submission: 15th March 2023
  • notification of acceptance by 15th April 2023

Selected papers presented at the conference will be published in the Conference Proceedings or in the Linguaculture Journal.

Registration and fees:
The early bird discount* conference fee is €200 / $200 / 300 LEI** for participants with a submitted paper and €100/$100/150 LEI for attendants without a submitted paper***.

The fee includes admission to all sessions, the conference folder, coffee breaks and lunch breaks.
*Special fee for Romanian students with submitted paper: 150 LEI

Venues: “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, The Romanian Academy Iasi branch, “Mihai Eminescu” Central University Library of Iasi, The Metropolitan Palace of Iași

The social program of the conference (details to be added):

  • conference dinner on 9th;
  • cultural event on 10th;
  • a day trip to Moldavian Monasteries on 11th November

We are very much looking forward to seeing you!

On behalf of the organizing team,
Dr. Denise Vasiliu

Lect
urer, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania
CEO of Agora Christi Foundation