Mod/Con Seminar
Mod/Con (Modern and Contemporary Studies) Seminar
The Mod/Con seminar meets two or three times per semester to hear presentations on any aspect of 20th/21st century literature and culture. We have speakers from Baylor, from other Texas universities, and from universities across the country. We also run book clubs on major 20th/21st century texts.
Previous speakers have included:
Dr. Sean Latham, University of Tulsa: “Trolls, Thirst Traps, and Memes: Ulysses as Social Media”
Dr. Frances Dickey, University of Missouri: “The Waste Land at 100: The Poet Wears His Heart on His Sleeve?”
Dr. Philip Mitchell, Dallas Baptist University: “C. S. Lewis and the Apocalypse: Postsecularity and the Transcendent End”
Dr. Bryan Giemza, University of North Carolina: “Is Anything Sacred in Cormac McCarthy’s Fiction?”
Dr. Cassandra Falke, University of Tromsø, Norway: “Charity in Reading”
Dr. Gerald Carruthers, University of Glasgow, UK: “Muriel Spark, Fiction, and Religion”
Dr. Mark Eaton, Asuza Pacific University: “9-11 and Its Literary-Religious Aftermaths”
Dr. Alan Jacobs, Honors College, Baylor University, “Technocracy, Humanism, and Total War”
Dr. Ralph Wood, Dept of Religion, Baylor University: “Rum, Romanism, and the Sacramental Imagination in G. K. Chesterton”
Dr. Philip Jenkins, Dept of History, Baylor University: “Prophetic Neighbors: Karl Barth, C. G. Jung, and Rudolf Steiner in WWI Switzerland”
Dr. Stephen Enniss, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, “The Harry Ransom Center: A Center for the Nation's Cultural Compass”.
Dr Lawrence Steven, Laurentian University, Canada: “D. H. Lawrence, Kairos, and Revision”
Recent and current schedules
Fall 2025
Book club. This semester, we are reading Emmanuel Levinas’ Totality and Infinity.
Next meeting:
Friday January 23, 2026, 4th floor lounge, Carroll Science, 5.00 pm. For this session, we will be discussing Section III, Part C and Section IV, Part A, drinking coffee, and eating snacks. All are welcome.
Spring 2025
April 11 Dr. Darren Middleton, Rastafari and Literature
Professor of Literature and Theology,
Baylor University
April 25 Fr. Francis Gruber, O.Cist. The “They” and the Call of Conscience: Heidegger for Literary Critics
University of Dallas
Meetings will be held in Carroll Science 201, 2.30 pm. All faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduates are invited to attend. Coffee and cookies will be served.
Contact
Luke_Ferretter@baylor.edu / Annie_Roufs1@baylor.edu