Panel 1 / 1 Performing Memory: Social, Ritual and Religious Identities in South India
Room: Birks 111
Chair: Davesh Soneji. McGill University
Leslie C. Orr, Concordia University and Katherine K. Young, McGill University. “Praising, Performing, Recounting: The Evolution of Tamil Devotional Literature as Canon and Liturgy.”
Archana Venkatesan, St. Lawrence University. “Embodying the Devotee and Entertaining the Goddess: The Araiyar Cevai as Commentary at the Srivilliputtur Antal Temple.”
Davesh Soneji, McGill University. “Invoking Archetypes and Re-Presenting Selves: Devadasis and the Uses of Memory in Contemporary South India.”

Panel 1 / 2 Storytelling: (De)Facing the Page
Room: Birks Chapel
Chair: Patricia Kirkpatrick, McGill University
Stephen Healey, University of Bridgeport. “In My Father’s House Are Many Stories – If It Were Not So…”
Michelle Rebidoux, McGill University. “Birth of a Story-Teller: The Encountenance of the Icon in the Phenomenonology of Jean-Luc Marion.”
David Hermanson, Drew University. “Story Against Story: “Georges Bataille’s ‘The Dead Man.’”

Panel 1 / 5 Story, Myth and Interpretation in the Second Temple Judaism—Part I
Room: Birks 203
Chair: Gerbern S. Oegema, McGill University
Andrea Lobel, McGill University. “Astronomy, Cosmogony, and Images of National Rebirth in the Exagoge of Ezekiel The Tragedian (or, By the Time I Get to Phoenix).”
Eva Steinlauf, McGill University. “‘Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea’ at Dura.”
Carla Sulzbach, McGill University, “The Sky is the Limit for the Grateful Dead in Daniel.”
Tim Goltz, McGill University, “The Gates of the Temple Scroll: A Built Environment Analysis.”

Panel 1 / 6 Storytelling: Religious Narratives and Religious Institutions
Room: Birks Reading Room
Chair: Preeti Parasharami, McGill University
John V. Apczynski, St. Bonaventure University. “‘Introduction to Catholicism’ as Religious Studies.”
Mirela Saim, McGill University. “‘Recognizing the connexion with the sermon’: The Rhetorical Use of Storytelling in Homiletics.”
Bilal Bas, McGill University. “The Concept of Divine Monarch and the Church in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Imperial Theology.”

Panel 1 / 8 Religion and the Arts: Writing and Religious Practice
Room: Birks 104
Chair: Colleen Gray, McGill University
Alyda Faber, Atlantic School of Theology. “Virginia Woolf’s Writing as Mystical Practice of Loving Attention.”
Rebecca King, Queen’s University. “Memories and Truths: A Discussion of Confessional Narratives in Canadian Literature.”

Panel 2 / 3 Religion at Play: Religious Narrative and Children
Room: Birks 001
Chair: Marie-Paule Martel-Reny, Concordia University
Jacqueline S. du Toit and Luna Beard, University of the Free State. “‘Room of Requirement’: The Interplay of Visual and Conceptual Space in Biblical Literature for Children.”
Adriaan Lamprecht, North-West University. “Elijah’s Ascension: The Interplay Between Visual and Conceptual Space.”
Laurie Kathleen Gashinski, Queen’s University. “The Cult of Santa Claus: Maintaining the Myth of St. Nick for Canada’s Children.”

Panel 2 / 4 Religion and Gender: Generating Narratives of Women, Wives, and Mothers
Room: Birks 205
Chair: Cindy Bentley, McGill University
Lisa Kuly, Cornell University. “The Competing Narratives of Safe Childbirth of Obitokedera and Nakayamadera.”
Susan Landau-Chark, Concordia University. “The Public Role of the Rabbi’s Wife: The Interweaving of Fact and Fiction in Jewish Religious Leadership.”
Janet Gunn, University of Ottawa. “Intersections of Story, Myth, Ritual and Art in Household Puja: Narratives of Relationship.”

Panel 3 / 1 Religion and Gender: Making Space for Queer Narrative
Room: Birks 111
Chair:
B.K. Hipsher, Episcopal Divinity School. “A Queer Retelling of the Healing of the Leper in Mark 1:40-45.”
Donald L. Boisvert, Concordia University. “Storytelling, Sensual Language and the Politics of Desire: A Personal Tale.”
Lee Wing Hin, Queen’s University. “When Bisexuals Meet an Evangelical Protestant Wife.”

Panel 3 / 5 Religion and the Arts: Visions of the World
Room: Birks 203
Chair: Barbara Galli, Independent Scholar
Aaron Tugendhaft, University of Chicago. “‘Between the Calf and the Tent’: Towards a Biblical Theology of Art.”
Barbara Weiser, Concordia University. “The Book of Ruth, a Different Dimension.”
Brian P. Bennett, Niagara University. “Myths of Mice and Men: Some Russian Lubki (Broadsheets).”
Pamela Chrabieh, Université de Montréal. “Arts et spiritualités, ou l’écriture artistique au carrefour du dialogue interspirituel.”

Panel 4 / 2 Religion Encounters Technology
Room: Birks Chapel
Chair: Jim Kanaris, McGill University
Richard Walker, McGill University. “Science and the Myth of Spirituality.”
Janna Rosales, University of Toronto. “Jacques Ellul and the Technological Society.”
Anais Spitzer, Pacifica Graduate Institute. “If There Is Any: Myth and Its Study Within the Network of Religion.”

Panel 4 / 3 Religion and the Arts: Drama and Theatre
Room: Birks 001
Chair: David Perley, University of Toronto
Paul Morris, Syracuse University. “Staring into the Sun/Gruesome Night: Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy.”
Heather Empey, McGill University. “An Aesthetic Approach to Religious Ritual: Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy and the Persian Passion Play.”
James O’Regan, St. Paul University. “Taxonomy of Liturgy and Theatre: Structural Similitude.”

Panel 5 / 5 Pop!: The Living and the Dead in Popular Culture
Room: Birks 203
Chair: Alexandra Boutros, McGill University
Gabriel Lefebvre, Université du Québec à Montréal. “Enlèvements extraterrestres, expériences de mort imminentes, témoignages d’apparitions: des récits mythiques contemporains.”
Christopher Moreman, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “Apocalypse of the Living Dead: Hollywood Zombies and the Christian Resurrection.”
Jason Shim, Wilfrid Laurier University. “Playing Dead: Memorials in Second Life.”
Michelle Bakker and Daniel Bernard, Concordia University. “Left Behind as a Commodity in Consumerist America.”
Matthew Forrest Lowe, McMaster University. “Working for Dr. Zeus: Belief, Narrative, and Eschatology in the Novels of Kage Baker.”