Kevin Seidel

Originally from California, Kevin Seidel came to EMU from the University of Virginia, where he received his Ph.D. in English Literature and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He teaches and writes about the changing relationship between religion, secularism, and literature. He is a longtime practicioner of Scriptural Reasoning, where Jews, Christians, and Muslims meet together to read one another's scripture. His book Rethinking the Secular Origins of the Novel: The Bible in English Fiction 1678–1767 was published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. 

“Religion and Literature: Exit, Border, Gap, Ecotone, “ paper presented at Inventing the Secular: Literature and Religion from Medieval to Modern, a conference at New College, University of Edinburgh, organized by the "Literature and Religion" research group (University of Bergen), the Scottish Network for Religion and Literature (University of Edinburgh), and the Centre for Theology and Public Issues (University of Edinburgh), April, 2022.

“This is Secular,” paper presented at the Modern Language Association conference, New York, NY, January, 2018.

“Illustrating toleration: the 1719 frontispiece of Robinson Crusoe and Defoe’s fictional method,” paper presented at the Defoe Society conference, New Haven, CT, September, 2017.

“Reading Wadman’s Bible, or Making Failed Love Sacred in Tristram Shandy,” paper presented at the Northeast Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Amherst, MA, October, 2016.

“Scriptural Reasoning’s Trouble with Context,” paper presented at the Mid-Atlantic Region American Academy of Religion conference, New Brunswick, N.J., March 10, 2016.

“Scriptural Reasoning, Internal Libraries, and Reader-Response Theory,” paper presented at the mid-Atlantic American Academy of Religion Conference, Columbia, Maryland, March, 2015.

“Scriptural Reasoning and Close Reading,” paper presented for the Scriptural Reasoning Academic Network gathering at The American Academy of Religion Conference, San Diego, California, November, 2014.

“Two Visions of the Secular: Orhan Pamuk’s Snow and Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead,” paper presented at The Religious Turn in Literary Studies, the Conference on Christianity and Literature, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, May 2014.

“Why It’s Hard to Read Scripture after the King James Bible,” opening lecture for the library exhibit Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the KJB, Eastern Mennonite University, January 2013.

"A People of God's Spirit," a sermon at Daniel’s Run Peace Church on John 3:1-10, a painting by H. O. Tanner, and a poem by Gregory Pardlo, July 2024.

“Christ in New Worlds: The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley,” a public lecture for the Elder Exchange at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community, July 2023.

"Ecotones of Scripture and Literature," a public lecture for EMU's University Colloquium series, February 19, 2020 [audio]

“Coates, Hope, and the Bible,” a chapel talk at Eastern Mennonite University, November 29, 2017.

“Leave Your Father’s House,” the 2015 Baccalaureate Address at Eastern Mennonite University, [audio] , [transcript]

Executive Director of the Scriptural Reasoning Network.

Modern Language Association
American Academy of Religion

Furious Flower IV: The Worlds of Black Poetry, James Madison University, September 2024.

Modern Language Association Program Services (MAPS) 2023 Leadership Institute, including sessions for new department chairs, June 21–29, 2023

Modern Language Association conference, New York, NY, January, 2018.

Scriptural Reasoning Network conference, Boston, MA, November, 2018.

Defoe Society conference, New Haven, CT, September, 2017.

Northeast Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Amherst, MA, October, 2016.

Mid-Atlantic American Academy of Religion, New Brunswick, New Jersey, March, 2016.

The American Academy of Religion, Atlanta, Georgia, November 2015.

Mid-Atlantic American Academy of Religion, Columbia, Maryland, March, 2015

The American Academy of Religion, San Diego, California, November 2014.

The Conference on Christianity and Literature, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, May, 2014.

• Poetry and Emotion
• Seminar on Ursula K. Le Guin
• Ecology and Science Fiction
• Foundations of the Humanities
• Humanities Seminar
• Global Conflicts, Global Novels
• Global Literatures 1 (from Gilgamesh to The Arabian Nights)
• Seminar on David Foster Wallace
• Intro to Critical Theory
• Romanticism
• College Writing
• Faith, Sexuality, Vocation