Special Issues & Forums

Special Issues

Religion & Literature publishes regular special issues on various topics in the field. Each special issue is edited by an invited guest editor who chooses a topic, invites contributions, and manages the editing process. The following is a list of the journal’s special issues and their editors:

Forthcoming: "John Henry Newman: Reading the Times" (Spring 2023), edited by Michael D. Hurley and Rebekah Lamb

“On Grace” (Summer-Autumn 2017), edited by Romana Huk

“David Jones” (Spring 2017), including the forum “David Jones: Towards a Theology of History” edited by Anna Svendsen and Jasmine Hunter Evans and the mini-forum “On Logos” edited by L. M. Kilbride

“Mellon Issue: Literature and Religion for the Humanities” (Summer-Autumn 2014), edited by Susannah Monta

“’Something Fearful’: Medievalist Scholars on the Religious Turn in Literary Criticism” (Spring-Summer 2010), edited by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton and Jonathan Juilfs

“What is Religion and Literature?” (Summer 2009), edited by Susannah Monta

“Ecotheology and Literature” (Spring 2008), edited by Kate Rigby

“Political Theology and Renaissance Literature” (Autumn 2006), edited by Graham Hammill and Julia Lupton

“The Book and Religious Practice in Late Medieval England” (Summer 2005) edited by Paul J. Patterson

“Pilgrimage in Literature of the Americas: Spiritualized Travel and Sacred Place” (Summer-Autumn 2003), edited by Heidi Oberholtzer

“Faith and Faction: Religious Heterodoxy in the English Renaissance” (Summer 2000), edited by Daniel Gates

“Visions of the Other World in Medieval Literature: An Introduction” (Spring 1999), edited by Brian McFadden

“Jewish Diasporism: The Aesthetics of Ambivalence” (Autumn 1998), edited by Ranen Omer-Sherman

“The Endless Knot: Literature and Religion in Ireland” (Summer-Autumn 1996), edited by Willa Murphy

“Giving Testimony: African-American Spirituality and Literature” (Spring 1995), edited by Laura Winkiel

“Dancing at the Altar: American Indian Literature and Spirituality” (Spring 1994), edited by Donelle R. Ruwe

“Violence, Difference, Sacrifice: Conversations on Myth and Culture in Theology and Literature” (Summer 1993)

“Reconstructing the Word: Spirituality in Women’s Literature” (Autumn 1991)

“Religious Thought and Contemporary Critical Theory” (Summer-Autumn 1990), edited by Paul J. Contino

“The Literature of Islam” (Spring 1988), edited by Issa J. Boullata

“Language, Literature, and the Imagination in the Writings of Simone Weil” (Summer 1985)

“An Investigation of Sacred Experience and Work in Jewish Traditions” (Winter 1984)

“Faith and Narrative” (Spring 1983)

“Christianity and Culture” (Summer 1982)

“Judaic Literature: Critical Perspectives” (Spring 1979)

Forums

Religion & Literature's forums offer reflections from a select group of contributors on a key issue or question in the field of religion and literature. Each forum is edited by an invited guest editor who invites contributions and manages the editing process. The following is a list of the journal’s forums and their editors:

"Irish American Literature" edited by Christopher Cusack (52.3-53.1)

"Angelic Poetry" edited by Felix Schmelzer (51.3-52.1)

"Religion and Old English Literature" edited by Daniel Anlezark, Karl Persson, and Jacob Riyeff (51.1)

“Literature and the Reformation” edited by Richard A. Strier and Susannah Brietz Monta (49.3)

“The Postsecular Novel,” edited by Michael Kaufmann (41.3)

“Poetry and Devotion,” edited by Hannibal Hamlin (42.3)

“The Place of Islam in Contemporary European Literature,” edited by Catherine Perry and Alison Rice (43.1)

“Midrash and Literature,” edited by Alicia Ostriker (43.2)

“Deceit, Desire, and the Novel Fifty Years Later—The Religious Dimension,” edited by Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson (43.3)

“New Directions in Religion and Literature Criticism of T. S. Eliot,” edited by Craig Woelfel and Dominic Manganiello (44.1)

“Walter J. Ong Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: A Special Centenary Forum,” edited by Sara J. van den Berg (44.2)

“‘Acknowledged Convictions’ and Ongoing Conversation: A Forum in Response to Religion & Literature 42.1–2,” edited by Katy Wright-Bushman and Robin Kirkpatrick (44.3)

“Defining Religion in Milton,” edited by Stephen M. Fallon and Karen Clausen-Brown (45.1)

“Gerard Manley Hopkins,” edited by Martin Dubois (45.2)

“Hospitable Forms: Post-Secular Thought and New-Century Poetics,” edited by Romana Huk and Ailbhe Darcy (45.3)

“Emily Dickinson and Religion,” edited by Roger Lundin (46.1)

“Rethinking the Bible as Literature,” edited by Emily A. Ransom with Peter S. Hawkins (47.1)