{"id":91579,"date":"2021-08-05T05:02:53","date_gmt":"2021-08-05T09:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=91579"},"modified":"2021-07-26T11:06:17","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T15:06:17","slug":"dissenting-beliefs-heresy-and-heterodoxy-in-fantasy-cfp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2021\/08\/dissenting-beliefs-heresy-and-heterodoxy-in-fantasy-cfp.html","title":{"rendered":"Dissenting Beliefs: Heresy and Heterodoxy in Fantasy #CFP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A call for papers that may be of interest to some readers:<\/p>\n

Dissenting Beliefs: Heresy and Heterodoxy in Fantasy<\/a><\/h2>\n
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Name of organization:\u00a0 Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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contact email:\u00a0\u00a0Dissenting.Beliefs@gmail.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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categories (up to 5):\u00a0gender studies and sexuality<\/a>,\u00a0graduate conferences<\/a>,\u00a0interdisciplinary<\/a>,\u00a0religion<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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deadline for submissions:\u00a0 August 31, 2021<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Religious fantasy, for a great many readers, is synonymous with Christian fantasy; more specifically, it is understood as literature overtly reproducing biblical narratives within a fantasy world, such as C. S. Lewis\u2019\u00a0The Chronicles of Narnia<\/em>. Concurrently, fantasy texts engaging with theology through non-allegorical means that challenge mainstream Christian doctrine are all too often dismissed as disingenuous, offensive or deliberately antagonistic. While this is sometimes the case, such a narrow view of religious fantasy excludes all but the least innovative texts from the genre and leaves little room for authors of other faiths. Furthermore, the dominance of texts affirming orthodoxy in religious fantasy discourse threatens to blind us to another side of belief: that radical, sometimes even heretical, literary reconfigurations of religion can also be acts of devotion.<\/p>\n

If religious fantasy is instead allowed to encompass heterodoxy and heresy, theological subversions and expressions of misotheism, then the affordances of religious fantasy expand far beyond the didacticism popularly attributed to it. Understood in these terms, religious fantasy can be used: to affirm one\u2019s identity and spiritual worth in opposition to official doctrines which may deny it, as a tool of protest against unjust systems of power, to explore complex spiritual responses to historical instances of religious complicity in atrocities, or to express lived spiritual experiences which do not conform to orthodox teachings.<\/p>\n

This online conference, supported by the\u00a0Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic<\/a>, University of Glasgow, aims to explore the wide ranging affordances of heterodoxy and heresy in fantasy texts across a wide range of faiths. We welcome 20-minute papers from postgraduate students and early career researchers working in any area of fantasy or theology. These papers might address, but are not limited to, the following topics:<\/p>\n