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Dreams, Fears, and Transformation: Theological Roots in Literary Mythologies
Hope International University | Fullerton, CA
March 20-21, 2025
Many works of literature are also mythologies—orienting (or disorienting) narratives that establish a worldview or community identity. Mythologies may depict origins and apocalypses, dreams and fears, transformation and redemption. Amidst a spectrum of literary mythologies (“The Dream of the Rood,” Shakespeare’s Tempest, Hawthorne’s Puritan stories, Joyce’s Ulysses, Eliot’s Waste Land, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, etc.), the threshold between theology and literature often blurs. In such texts, dreams and visions sometimes fill the liminal space between religious belief and the mythological narrative. In others, fear shapes religious limitations and ideals. And transformation often lies at the center of such narratives. Where, then, is the intersection between theology and representations of dreams, fears, or transformation in literary mythologies? How might integrating these parts help us understand Christian thought and practice?
Hope International University invites you to contribute your original research on the topic of Dreams, Fears, and Transformation: Theological Roots in Literary Mythologies through an examination of these themes in literature and storytelling. We welcome papers, panels, creative works, and presentations that include theological or philosophical insights into these themes provided the primary grounding is in and through literature.
The conference aims to address questions that include, but are not limited to:
- What is the relationship between faith and fear in literary mythology?
- How might readers’ religious beliefs alter their interpretation of a mythological narrative?
- How do stories of transformation affect readers’ openness or resistance to religious thinking?
- How do stories of transformation or redemption shape cultural mythologies?
- What role does religion play in origin narratives? In apocalypse narratives? In eschatological narratives?
- How are postmodern mythologies influenced by spirituality, Christianity, or religious practice?
- How do postcolonial readings view Christianity in mythological narratives?
- How does religious belief influence dreams or visions for a community? Which literary forms serve this function well? Poetry, short fiction, etc.?
- How do dreams function in literary mythology? Do they answer questions, raise more questions, or lead to transformation?
Keynote Speaker – Lori Anne Ferrell, PhD is the dean of the School of Arts & Humanities at Claremont Graduate University, and the director of the Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry Awards. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was a 2018–19 Dana and David Dornsife Fellow at The Huntington Library. Ferrell is the editor of volume 11 of The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne (Oxford University Press, 2016), and author of The Bible and the People (Yale University Press, 2008). Her research concentrates on the effect of religious and political change on early modern texts—theological, literary, theatrical, and practical.
Conference Registration Links:
Presenter - https://forms.office.com/r/spXRJzuRj4
Guest - https://forms.office.com/r/nL7zsUVbDg
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