MONDAY 16 SEPTEMBER

 CONFERENCE OPENS

Gather at venue

 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

 OPENING ADDRESS 

Piero BOITANI (Emeritus Sapienza University, Rome)
Dramatising the Word: Episodes  from Plato’s Poem 

Chair – Francesca Knox

 KEYNOTE 1 

Emma MASON (University of Warwick)
Interior Drama in the Catholic Revival 

Chair – Michael Kirwan

 PANEL A: Bible and Drama 

Chair: Liz Macwhirter

 Sarah FENGLER (Oxford University): Louis-Charles Caigniez’s Le Jugement de Salomon (1802) and Le Triomphe de David (1805), and the Genre of ‘Biblical Melodrama’

Deryl DAVIS (Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington D.C.): Bibliodrama and Liturgical Drama as Tools for Theological Education: A Case Study

 PANEL B: Experiencing and Expressing the Inner Word

Chair: Patrick Goujon

 Emily ABDENI-HOLMAN (Campion Hall, Oxford):  The Creative Act of Articulation: an Ignatian Way of Proceeding

Brigid ALLEN (Indipendent Scholar): ‘Make Everyday your Ephemerides’. The Preacher and the Early Modern Diary

TUESDAY 17 SEPTEMBER

 PANEL A: Performed and Dramatised Poetry

Chair: Daniel Gustaffson

 Hilary DAVIES (poet) and Tim ARMSTRONG (novelist and musician): Damnatio Memoriae: Problems of Faith and Forgetting

 Michael HOWLETT (Waterford Institute of Theology): The Great Hunger: From Poetic Words to Stage Performance

Angela Alaimo O’DONNELL (Fordham University): The Drama of Dante: Dear Dante & Poetic Performance

 PANEL B: Modernisms and the Word Dramatised

Chair: Deborah Bowen

 Clark LUNBERRY (University of North Florida): Gertrude Stein and the Rhythmic ReWorking of Words

Robert FRASER (Open University): Confession as Dialogue: Dostoevsky, Virginia Woolf, Translation and Sex Abuse

 KEYNOTE 2

Antonio SPADARO SJ
Performing the Word and Poetic Faith

Chair – Francesca Knox

 PANEL A: T. S. Eliot and Drama

Chair: Hilary Davies

 Deborah BOWEN (Redeemer University): Murder in the Ancient Cathedral, Living (and Partly Living) in the Contemporary Classroom

Stefano Maria CASELLA (formerly IULM University, Milan): Eliot Agonistes: Fragments of a Dramatic Experiment

Anna WALCZUK (Jagiellonian University, Kraków): T. S. Eliot’s Existential Quest at the Intersection of Theatre, Liturgy and Poetry 

 PANEL B: Dramatic/Dramatised Theology

Chair: Iolanda Plescia

 Zuzanna MURDZEK (University of Gdańsk): Dramatic Theology? Rowan Williams’ Shakespeare in Love: Ten Prospects

Klaudia ŁACZYŃSKA (University of Warsaw): Death and Dialogue: An Everyman of the 21st Century in Carol Ann Duffy’s Modern Morality Play

Krystyna WIERZBICKA-TRWOGA (University of Warsaw): The Dramatised Word of God in Angelus Silesius’ Epigrams

 KEYNOTE 3 

Donatella MONTINI, (Sapienza University, Rome)
Royal Voices at Prayer in Early Modern English Texts

Chair – Carol Rutter

 PANEL A: Women Conversing with God: the ‘dramatised word’ in Early Modern Anglo-Italian Religious Texts

Chair: Donatella Montini

 Emilia DI ROCCO (Sapienza University, Rome): Antonia Pulci, Sacred Drama and the Parable of the Prodigal Son

Iolanda PLESCIA (Sapienza University, Rome): The Power of a Queen’s Word: Catherine of Aragon in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Henry VIII

Fabio CIAMBELLA (Sapienza University, Rome): St Catherine of Siena and the Power of her Dialogic, Dramatised word(s) in The Orchard of Syon 

 PANEL B:    The Word Performed, the Word Embodied

Chair Anna Walczuk

 Jose MANALASTAS (San Beda University, Manila): Cenaculo: The Power of Words in Drama and Color

Sander VLOEBERGS (KU Leuven): Dancing the Word: An Exploration of the Role of Contemporary Liturgical Dance within Catholic Theology 

WEDNESDAY 18 SEPTEMBER

 PANEL A: Reading and Drama

Chair Francesca Knox

Brennan O’ DONNELL (Manhattan College, New York): Reading as Resurrection: a ‘New and Improved’ Approach to Poetry

Małgorzata GRZEGORZEWSKA (University of Warsaw): Word, image, and the Drama of Conversion in The Burning Babe by Robert Southwell

Petra CARUANA DINGLI (University of Malta): Monastic Women in the Dramatic Poetry of Christina Rossetti and Augusta Webster 

 PANEL B: The Word Enacted

Chair Haddy Bello

 Rebecca MACKENZIE (University of Glasgow): Brora Y Station: a Performative Paper

Liz MACWHIRTER (University of Glasgow): Theopoetics: Giving Voice to Julian of Norwich and Trauma Spirituality in the Climate Crisis

Carolyn KELSHAW (poet and writer): A Great Unfolding Drama in Word and Life 

 KEYNOTE 4 

Patrick C. GOUJON SJ (Campion Hall-Oxford/Facultés Loyola Paris)
Precarious Words: The Paradoxical Power of Prayer

Chair – Emma Mason

12.00-13.00

 PANEL A: Sacrament, Liturgy and the Dramatised Word

Chair: Mark Bosco

 Bridget NICHOLS (Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Dublin): Story and Spirit in the Eucharist, Baptism and Ordination

Jean WARD (University of Gdańsk): Bitter Lamentations: The Soul’s Conversation with Our Lady of Sorrows 

 PANEL A: Inner Drama

Chair: Deryl Davis

 Katarzyna DUDEK (Franciscan University of Steubenville): The Power and Shape of the Word(s). Between the Rhapsodic Theatre and the Theatre of Inner Self

Anna Marta SZCZEPAN-WOJNARSKA (Cardinal Wyszynski University, Warsaw): Questions about Suffering - Job by Karol Wojtyła

NB - All Wednesday afternoon  events take place in the Crypt of the Sapienza Chapel, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma

** Click here to see the venue on a Google Map **

 WORKSHOP (Limited to 20 participants)

Shakespeare at Prayer - Information for Participants

SPECIAL SESSION

Flannery O’Connor

Chair: Angela Alaimo O'Donnell

 PANEL

The Realized Word: Flannery O’Connor’s
Everything That Rises Must Converge and Revelation

 Karin COONROD (Yale School of Drama)
Michael MURPHY (Loyola University Chicago)
Mark BOSCO SJ (Georgetown University)
Angela Alaimo O’DONNELL (Fordham University)

PERFORMANCE

Everything That Rises Must Converge
by Flannery O’ Connor, created for the stage and directed by Karin Coonrod

Followed by a question and answer session

** Read the 'Press Release' about our performance **
** Read the script of the performance **

THURSDAY 19 SEPTEMBER

 PANEL A: Theology and Dramatic Performance

Chair: John Bowen

 Lukasz Bernard SAWICKI (Pontificio Ateneo Sant’Anselmo): Performance as locus theologicus: an Attempt at Synthesis

Mark BOSCO SJ (Georgetown University):  Performing as Transformation: The Theo-drama of Conversion in Contemporary Artists

Michael MURPHY (Loyola University Chicago): The Transcendental Frame: Sketches on the Theodramatic Possibilities of Cinema

 PANEL B: Good and Evil in Drama

Chair - Małgorzata Grzegorzewska

 Maria VARSAM (University of the Peloponnese): Scapegoating, Nature and Nationhood in Dawn King's Foxfinder

Riccardo ANTONANGELI (Sapienza - University of Rome): Eternity, Resurrection and Judgement Day: The Enigma of Time in 15th Century Italian Sacred Dramas and Early Modern English Mystery Plays

Przemysław MICHALSKI (Pedagogical University of Krakow): The Problem of Good and Evil in the Plays of Zbigniew Herbert 

 KEYNOTE 5

 Anton BIERL (University of Basel)
The Dramatized Word: Electra and Orestes on Stage 

Chair– Francesca Knox

 PANEL A: Failure and Triumph of the Dramatised Word

Chair: Riccardo Antonangeli

Anna BASILE (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II): ‘...regnabit. est haec poena’ (Sen. Phoen. 646): the (De)Construction of Power in Seneca’s Tragedies

John BOWEN (Wycliffe College, University of Toronto): Restoring the Claws to the Lion of Judah: Dorothy L. Sayers's "The Man Born to be King" as an Exercise in Translation

 PANEL B: Adaptations and Reception of Ancient Drama

Chair: Dilwyn Knox

 Angelica VEDELAGO (Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München): Greek Tragedy and Christianity in Early Modern European Theatre: England and Italy, 1500-1660

Evy VARSAMOPOLOU (University of Cyprus): ‘“Beware, beware words, / subtle and so far—": Artemis against Aphrodite in H.D.’s Hippolytus Temporizes 

 PANEL A: Philosophical Intimations

Chair: Robert Fraser

Haddy BELLO (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile): The Abyss of Freedom. Dialogues on Freedom Between Edith Stein and Fyodor Dostoevsky

Daniel GUSTAFSSON (University of York): ‘Visionary Forms Dramatic’: Expressing and Enacting the Real in Blake and Dōgen

Dilwyn KNOX (University College London): Giordano Bruno, Il Candelaio: Comedy, Philosophy and Theology

 PANEL B: The Word, the Flesh and the Sacred

Chair: Maria Varsam

Aleksandra WISNIEWSKA (University of Gdańsk): Women, Literature and Artful Theology: the Word and the Flesh

Roksana ZGIERSKA (University of Gdańsk): Illuminating the Sacred in the Mundane: A Reader-Response Analysis of Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 

 KEYNOTE 6

 Thomas STERN (University College London)
The History of Philosophy: A Dialogue with the Past? 

Chair – Dilwyn Knox

REPEAT PERFORMANCE

Everything That Rises Must Converge
by Flannery O’ Connor, created for the stage and directed by Karin Coonrod

** Read the 'Press Release' about our performance **
** Read the script of the performance **

 CONFERENCE DINNER

(Networking) 

FRIDAY 20 SEPTEMBER

 PANEL A: A Word embracing the Difference: Translation, Hospitality, Tragedy and Salvation in the Play Pierre & Mohamed (2018) by Adrien Candiard.

Chair: Ana Rodriguez Falcon and Mercedes Lennon

 Rodríguez Ana FALCÓN (Catholic University of Argentina, UCA)

Mariano CAROU: Pierre & Mohamed: Drama and Effectiveness of the Symbol (Salvador University, USAL)

Mercedes Maria LENNON: Pierre & Mohamed: Witnesses Consecrated to a Life in Relationship (Catholic University of Argentina, UCA)  

 PANEL B: Performance

Chair: Carolyn Kelshaw

 Deryl DAVIS (Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington D.C.): "The Poet as Prophet": A Dramatic Reading drawn from the words of the Hebrew prophets and poems by Walt Whitman, T. S. Eliot, and Denise Levertov.

Rupert SMITH (Lancaster University): Solo Spoken Word Performance - ' King Lear’s Mute '

Joe MILUTIS (University of Washington, Bothell): The Veridencies: A Poetic Performance on the History of Green Bodies in Art 

 ROUNDTABLE

Conference reflections

POWER OF THE WORD

OPEN FORUM

An invitation and opportunity to share ideas about the future of the Power of the Word Project.

 VISIT TO THE ENGLISH COLLEGE
Guided tour by  the College Archivist Maurice Whitehead
Refreshments

Organised by Father Ryan SERVICE