Senses of the Divine: Aesthetics and Theology, Centre for Comparative Literature

20 Mar 2026 - 00:00 / 22 Mar 2026 - 23:59



Senses of the Divine: Aesthetics and Theology

a graduate conference at the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto

March 20th-22nd, 2026 | Toronto, ON

 

Schedule of Events

Friday, March 20th

 

7 – 9 PM | Keynote Lecture (RESCHEDULED – Prof. Anidjar will speak during the Sat March 21, 5:00 PM Faculty Panel) 

EM001, Emmanuel College (75 Queen’s Park Cres. E)

Prof. Gil Anidjar (Columbia) – Interpellations

 

Saturday, March 21st

 

10 AM – 12 PM | Panel One: “Absence”

NF006, Northrop Frye Hall (73 Queen’s Park Cres. E)

  • Martin Pinckney (Toronto) – “Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, and the

Art of Absence”

  • Yara Ajeeb (Concordia) – “Not Naming God: Indirection, Irony, and the Ethics

of Divine Speech in Classical and Modern Islamic Literature”

  • Ethan Gibson (Toronto) – “Religion and/or Ideology: Rereading Milton and

Jameson”

  • Hannah Cheslock (McGill) – “Disembodied Divinity – Metatheatre and the

Sensory Mediation of the Divine in J.B.”

 

1 – 3 PM | Panel Two: “Legibility”

NF006, Northrop Frye Hall (73 Queen’s Park Cres. E)

  • Niloufar Jamali (Alberta) – “Her Body Is the Revolution: Sensory Theology

and Immanent Divinity in Iran’s ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ Protest Art”

  • Hannah Block Wickham (Toronto) – “‘God Understands my Tears’: Why a

Tkhine Writer Wants You to Cry”

 

  • Paul Haase (UBC) – “Immanent Sensorium? Maya Cosmovision and the

Limits of Aesthetic Mediation in Jayro Bustamante’s Ixcanul”

  • Mariam Nadeem (Oregon) – “Li ma’ai Allāh waqt: Muhammad Iqbal’s

Miʿraj-nāma as a Philosophy of History”

 

5 – 7 PM | Faculty Panel

EM001, Emmanuel College (75 Queen’s Park Cres. E)

  • Prof. Gil Anidjar (Department of Religion, Columbia)
  • Prof. Eric Cazdyn (Centre for Comparative Literature, Toronto)
  • Prof. John Rogers (Department of English, Toronto)

 

Sunday, March 22nd

 

10 AM – 12 PM | Panel Three: “The Quotidian”

NF006, Northrop Frye Hall (73 Queen’s Park Cres. E)

  • Rojina Sabetiashraf (Western) – “Performed Time: Ritual and Temporality in

Iranian Contemporary Art”

  • Zhehui Cici Xie (Toronto) – “Early Modern Intellectual Property

Development 1667-1710: From Copyright Law and the Act of Anne to

Capitalist Venture and Debating Faith in Milton’s Contractual Relationship”

  • Aaditya Aggarwal (Toronto) – “Diva Down: Queer Worship of the Suffering

Screen Goddess”

  • Nicolas Sarian (Toronto) – “Destruction as Mediation: Luxury and the

Econo-Aesthetic Production of Value”

 

1 – 3 PM | Panel Four: “Sensorium”

NF006, Northrop Frye Hall (73 Queen’s Park Cres. E)

  • Julián Galván (UBC) – “Embodied Encounters with the Sacred: Andean

Cosmopraxis in Las voladoras of Monica Ojeda”

  • George Kaldis (York) – “Earthquake, Embodiment, Encounter: The Sensory

Theology of Speculative Fiction”

  • Glynis Macleod (Western) – “Edging the Divine: Carnal Sites of Submission

in Mazis and MacKendrick”

  • María Núñez Kozlova (UBC) – “Savouring the Holy Spirit: A Food Studies

Approach to the Blood of Christ in Sor Juana’s Divino Narciso”

 

 

The “Senses of the Divine: Aesthetics and Theology” organizing committee would like to thank the following University of Toronto sponsors for their support, financial and otherwise:

 

Centre for Comparative Literature ▪ Cinema Studies Institute ▪ Centre for East European Studies ▪ Centre for Jewish Studies ▪ Department of Classics ▪ Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies ▪ Department of East Asian Studies ▪ Department of English (St. George Campus) ▪ Department of English (Scarborough Campus) ▪ Department of French ▪ Department of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies ▪ Jackman Humanities Institute ▪ Centre for Medieval Studies ▪ Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations ▪ Department of Philosophy ▪ Department for the Study of Religion ▪ Victoria University