Greetings

Paul Tillich, a 20th century German-born American religious philosopher and theologian, does not define religion from a doxastic perspective towards the transcendental God, but as human's "ultimate concern" in depth of consciousness. We have aimed to explore contents of the ultimate interest in literary works written diverse languages and accumulated significant amount of scholarly accomplishment. Our academic journal, Literature and Religion, was selected as a candidate for KCI in the first half of 2003 by the Korea Research Foundation and was later certified as a KCI journal in 2005. Future studies in literature should be switched from simple understanding of avant-garde literature and critical theories to facing up the reality. Isn't the exploration of existential quest the human's "ultimate interest"?


In the US, a separate department of Literature and Religion under MLA has actively undertaken academic activities since 1997 whereas research in the area of literature, religion and culture has widely been conducted in the UK pivoting around Literature and Religion, a quarterly magazine published by Oxford. The Korean Society for Literature and Religion (the KSLR hereafter, http://www.liteligion.com) has accomplished distinguished academic achievement since its establishment in 1992. For example, Professor Robert Snyder, an editor of Christanity and Literature, a renowned academic journal in the US and Professor David Jasper, the director of the Center for the Study of Literature, Theology and the Art at Glasgow Univ. have expressed their interest in our society and journal. Our society is consisted of not only English literature, Korean literature and various world literature scholars, but also theologians, religious scholars, clergy and novelists who are interested in literature. Our society is an academic association in which you can maintain your identity as experts in your fields and explore common interdisciplinary issues together. Our association actively accepts various viewpoints with regards to "literature and religion" related studies. In future, our journal, Literature and Religion will make a new leap forward becoming an internationally recognized journal. We look forward to more scholars' participation.