The seminar explores what it means for literature to act as its own agent in modernity, to essentially have its own agency in modernity. Consequently, it freights techne as a drive that exceeds technology, and suggests literature to be more than a cultural instrument, more than a reflection of "lived experience." The question becomes then whether modernity has transformed literature into a peculiar phenomenon, one whose fulfillment is no longer found in an object. Can we speak of literature as a techne that no longer reveals itself in objects? Perhaps the question should be, has technology in a modern world produced a writing, a literary drive, that extends the aesthetic to encompass another kind of materiality, or perhaps no materiality at all. Sponsored by the ICLA Research Committee on Religion, Ethics, and Literature, the seminar invites presentations on • literature as an extra-material drive, • the literary as a phenomenological experience • technology as an expansion of literary codes • the written as cryptological object • the ethics of the literary in modernity • religion as a literary code • the transformation of religion, ethics, and literature in modernity • translation as a literary language

John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath vividly portrays the Dust Bowl refugees’ plight during the Great Depression, sparking controversy and scholarly debate. Initially celebrated as proletarian resistance, later analyses reveal deeper mythic and symbolic layers, drawing parallels to the Exodus narrative. Beyond historical hardship, the novel delves into profound questions about human existence, survival, and ethics, remaining relevant today amidst global crises like COVID-19. Steinbeck’s writing career evolved from objective observation in his ‘Trilogy of Migrant Peasant Workers’ to impassioned advocacy, culminating in a neutral lens influenced by Edward Ricketts’s non-teleological approach. This allowed for a deeper understanding of the migrants’ struggles and the social injustices they faced, impacting the novel’s lasting influence.

The survival crisis was fundamentally a product of human actions, including early excessive land cultivation, westward expansion, agricultural capitalization, and the concentration of land ownership that displaced tenant farmers. Natural disasters played only a minor role, exacerbating this pre-existing vulnerability. Government inefficiency and people’s decline in religious faith fostered a society where hardship and moral decay flourished. The novel explores survival ethics through moral dilemmas faced by the migrants. While self-preservation often takes precedence in situations of scarcity of food and job competition that tests people’s ethical limits, even within families; selflessness and sacrifice, even among strangers, highlight the presence of compassion, mutual aid, and a deep commitment to dignity, demonstrating the multifaceted nature of human responses to adversity. The Joads’ journey reveals the complexities of balancing personal survival with ethical principles like kinship, community, and reciprocal kindness. Ultimately, Steinbeck proposes the enduring relevance of compassion, unity and self-transcendence as the keys to navigate challenging times, inspiring future generations to reflect on ethical living in a globalized world.

In their 2019 speculative novel, Pet, author Akwaeke Emezi had portrayed a new world, seemingly perfect. A teenage Black trans girl, Jam, is at the centre of this adventure story. Jam accidentally releases a creature who was painted by her mother, Bitter.In the prequel of the series, Bitter, the mother is shown as a teenager herself. She is a child born from rape; thus, she is shunned for having monster blood, brought up in foster homes, bisexual, living in a home for gifted artists in a city that is troubled by oppression and reactionary violence.Bitter has the power to create blood art alive. After a friend of hers is wounded, enraged Bitter creates a massive blood art. The blood art, however, asserts itself to be an angel and gives the revolution the much-awaited inhuman violent push.What becomes important for scholars of arts, literatures and cultures while studying this young adult popular series is the idea of angels and monsters. Humans can become monsters; they can harm other people, nature, or even abuse children. But the angels are beings who can be summoned or created by art, yet biblically accurate.

The role of the creator has been preserved for God. God is an all-encompassing being with immense power, thus post-human. But what happens when a human makes an angel? Are those angels post-human in the same way human-made technology is? Can words that originated in the cultural strata from theology ever be secular enough to be grouped in the same bracket as a Roomba?

Speaking of Roomba, one of the most talked-about art installations from the same year features a cleaning machine, similar to what these angels want to do; this machine also wants to clean but creates a more bloody scenery. The industrial robot, who is programmed to make sure that a thick, deep crimson liquid is cleaned, is fixed within a specific area and is flexing and turning restlessly in Sun Yuan and Peng Yu's Can't Help Myself. The robot is housed in a translucent "cage," resembling a captured creature on display, as part of the international art exhibition "May You Live in Interesting Times," which Ralph Rugoff curated for the 2019 Venice Art Biennale. This art installation portrays the helplessness faced by the robot to do the one job it is programmed to do; rather, it smears everything, and the viewer almost feels bad in an eerie way, which supposes an anthropomorphic identity of the robot. The robot's gestures have a captivating human grace to enhance these feelings since the artists have "taught" it 32 human-like moves. Comparing these two art pieces, created by three artists from across the globe, one can maybe observe the translations of ideas regarding posthumanism. With the exceptional amount of ‘blood’ in both of these works, a sacrificial element related to birth can be read. With Emezi's own blood art and their ideas regarding religion and god-beings found in their other works, it becomes extremely intriguing to study such narratives with posthuman theories.