Women Modernists and Spirituality: a Symposium – University of Stirling, 22-23 May 2014

Recent criticism in modernist studies indicates a growing interest in the relationship between spirituality (broadly understood to include religious structures and practices as well as less traditional engagements with the sacred) and modernist discourse. This symposium aims to bring modernism and spirituality together with research on women modernists, many of whom still call for greater critical attention. It will focus on women modernists and foreground gender in analysis of modernism and spirituality in order to highlight and problematise issues including the relationships between spirituality and embodiment, authority, domesticity, the public sphere and creative practice. From Edith Sitwell’s incarnational poetics to Mary Butts’s pagan landscapes; from Elizabeth Smart’s engagement with the King James Bible to Dorothy Richardson’s interest in Quakerism, the symposium seeks to address spirituality in all its guises in the work of modernist women. Papers are not limited to literary criticism; the symposium invites papers that consider a range of modernist fields, including art, film, music, philosophy, etc.

Lara Vetter will be one of the keynote speakers, addressing issues of spirituality in H.D.

Please send abstracts of 250-350 words to Elizabeth Anderson (sarahelizabeth.anderson@stir.ac.uk) by 3 March 2014. Please see the attached CFP for more details.