George Herbert in Toronto—Seventh Triennial Conference of the George Herbert Society 

19-22 June 2025 

George Herbert and the Americas 

Trinity College, The University of Toronto 

Plenary Speakers:  

Sharonah Fredrick, College of Charleston—George Herbert and Spain’s Empire: A View from the Global South 

Gary Kuchar, University of Victoria, British Columbia—George Herbert and Metaphysical Poetry in Canada: Poesis into Vision 

Jonathan F. S. Post, University of California, Los Angeles—Cosmopolitan Herbertians:  Bishop, Eliot, and Heaney 

Thursday 19 June 2025—Main Site: Trinity College (Seeley Hall, Combination Room, Board Room) 

7:30-8:30—Pre-paid Breakfast—Private Dining Room—accessed from Combination Room 

8:00—9:10—arrivals and registration with coffee, tea, and pastries—Combination Room  

9:15—9:30—Welcome to Toronto, and to Trinity College—Seeley Hall 

The Right Rvd Dr Susan Bell, Bishop of Niagara 

Chris Brittain, Dean of Trinity College, University of Toronto 

9:30—9:45—Welcome from the George Herbert Society—Seeley Hall 

Christopher Hodgkins (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) 

9:45—10:45—Plenary Address: Gary Kuchar, University of Victoria—Seeley Hall 

George Herbert and Metaphysical Poetry in Canada: Poesis into Vision 

Introduced by Kenneth Graham, University of Waterloo 

10:45—11:00—Tea and Coffee 

11:00—12:15—Parallel Panel Sessions #1 

Herbertian Chaos, Irony, and Dialectic from Genesis to St John to Stevens—Combination Room 

Adele Davidson (Kenyon College) 

James Ross Macdonald (University of the South-Sewanee) Poetic Form and Dramatic Irony in The Temple 

Oliver Peel (King’s College, London) George Herbert, Catherine Keller, and a Different Kind of Chaos 

Bret Van den Brink (University of Toronto) Vendler’s Herbert, Vendler’s Stevens: An Exploration of “The Intensest Rendezvous”  

Virginia Britannia: Herbert and the Business of Transatlantic Dominion—Board Room 

Kristine Wolberg (Valor Christian High School) 

Constance Furey (Indiana University) Corporate Tumult and Ecclesial Order: George Herbert and the English Church’s Atlantic Ecclesiology 

Nikki Roulo (University of Michigan) Paving Paradise on the American Strand: The Virginia Company, Environmental Conservation, and The Temple  

Curtis Whitaker (Idaho State University) Herbert’s Social Network and the Tasks of Colonial Accounting 

12:15—1:45—Lunch on our own 

12:15—1:45—Undergraduate Plenary Panel (organized by Shaun Ross, Victoria College;  Sponsored by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada) 

Catching the Sense: Symbols, Change, and Alchemy in Herbert—         Combination Room 

Shaun Ross (Victoria College)    

Cailin Elliott (Wheaton College) A Man of Letters: The Interpretive Implications of George Herbert’s Letter-Symbolism 

Peter Glossop (University of Toronto) What is the Pulley in Herbert’s “The Pulley”?  

Kephas Olsson (University of Notre Dame) “Oh that I once past changing were”: Herbert’s Inconstant Theology and Its Reception 

Julian Waldner (Canadian Mennonite University) Enchantment, Disenchantment, and George Herbert’s Alchemical Quest 

2:00-3:00—Plenary Address: Jonathan F. S. Post, University of California at Los Angeles—Seeley Hall 

Cosmopolitan Herbertians:  Bishop, Eliot, and Heaney 

Introduced by Sidney Gottlieb, Sacred Heart University 

3:00—3:15—Tea and Coffee—Combination Room 

3:15—4:30—Parallel Panel Sessions #2  

New Songs: Exploratory Settings from North American Settlers and First Nations

Combination Room 

Susan Bell (Anglican Diocese of Niagara) 

Jennifer Newton (California Baptist University) From the Lord’s “Golden Box” to Satan’s “Jewells Cabbinet”: The Evolution of Edward Taylor’s Cabinet-Treasure Courtship Imagery in the First Series Preparatory Meditations 

Anna Lewton-Brain (Dawson College) Metaphysical Music: Performance Research into Voices Past and Present  

American Transfigurations: Shapes, Methods, and Methodists—Board Room

John Rogers (University of Toronto) 

Nadine Weiss (Universities of Neuchâtel and Fribourg) Colinear Reading and “Easter-wings”  

James Doelman (Brescia University College at the University of Western Ontario) Herbert Texts in North American Hymnals 

Carol Blessing (Point Loma Nazarene University) “Exceeding Exact”: Herbert’s Influence on John Wesley’s Methodism  

4:45-5:45—Drinks and light hors d’oeuvres—Combination Room 

5:45—8:00—Dinner on our own 

8:00—9:00—poetry reading with Gary Kuchar, Sally Ito, Greg Miller, Regina Walton— Seeley Hall 

Friday 20 June 2025—Main Site: Trinity College 

7:30-8:30—Pre-paid Breakfast—Private Dining Room—accessed from Combination Room  

8:30—9:00—Registration with Coffee, Tea, and Pastries—Seeley Hall 

9:00—10:00—Plenary Panel #1—Seeley Hall 

West-ward Bent: Herbertian History, Science, and Epistemology on the Frontiers 

 Helen Wilcox (Bangor University, Wales) 

Christopher Hodgkins (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) Future Past: Herbert’s Alternative History of America in The Church Militant 

Andrew Harvey (Grove City College) Baconian Herbert: New World Man?  

10:00-10:15—Coffee and Tea—Seeley Hall 

10:15—11:30—Plenary Panel #2—Seeley Hall 

The Church Militant: Text, Context, Plantation Text?

Achsah Guibbory (Barnard College of Columbia University) 

Helen Wilcox (Bangor University, Wales) Religion on Tip-toe: Editing The Church Militant 

Adele Davidson (Kenyon College) “Dead stones, and wild Americans”:  Religion on Tip-toe in the Seventeenth Century 

Angela Balla (The University of Alabama in Huntsville) Divine Husbandry and the Challenge of Spiritual Planting in The Church Militant  

11:40—12:15—Special Exhibition, Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, (five-minute walk from Trinity College—See Map) featuring Shaun Ross and Robert Whalen 

12:15—2:00—Lunch on our own 

2:00—3:15—Parallel Panel Sessions #3 

Eternal Longings: Affliction, Desire, and Apocalypse in Herbert, Dickinson, and Vaughan

Combination Room

Jennifer Newton (California Baptist University) 

Christine Pyle Cloud (Baylor University) Charming and Knotty Herbert and His Riddles of Affliction  

Joshua Hamm (United States Air Force Academy) My God, What is a Heart…What is a Mouthful: Herbert’s Poetics of Desire in Dickinson’s Fascicles 

Jonathan Nauman (The Vaughan Association) Valediction and Apocalypse: Henry Vaughan’s Responses to The Church Militant 

Antillean Herbert: Voices from the Islands

Board Room

Paul Dyck (Canadian Mennonite University) 

Sarah Kunjummen (University of Chicago) “Redemption Ground”: Domesticity and Repair in the Work of Herbert and Lorna Goodison 

Daniel Strait (Asbury University) “Greet yourself arriving”: Sacred Strangeness and the Stranger Self in the Poetry of Herbert and Derek Walcott  

3:15—3:55—Further Viewing, Special Exhibition, Fisher Library  

3:15—4:00—Coffee and Tea—Combination Room 

4:00—5:15—Plenary Panel Session #3—Seeley Hall 

Haunting Faith: Herbert and North American Post-Religious Poetry 

Jonathan F. S. Post (University of California at Los Angeles) 

Regina Walton (Harvard Divinity School) George Herbert and Mary Oliver: Anglican Poets of Praise  

Shaun Ross (Victoria College, University of Toronto) The Function of Herbert at the Present Time 

Kenneth Graham (University of Waterloo) Dusty Echoes: Thom Gunn’s Conversation with Herbert and Religion 

5:30—7:00—Gala Dinner—Strachan Hall 

7:00—8:30—Choral Concert—Trinity College Chapel Choir—Thomas Bell, Director  

8:30—9:15—Drinks reception in the Combination Room 

Saturday 21 June 2025—Main Site: Trinity College 

7:30-8:30—Pre-paid Breakfast—Private Dining Room—accessed from Combination Room  

8:30—9:00—Coffee, Tea, and Pastries—Combination Room  

9:00—10:00—Plenary Panel Session #4—Seeley Hall 

The Mean(ing)s of Grace: Herbert Refracted through Dordt, and Baxter

Constance Furey (Indiana University) 

John Rogers (University of Toronto) “Then for thy Passion … I know not what”: Herbert’s Poetics of Atonement and the Theological Crises at the Synod of Dort 

Andrea Walkden (University of Toronto) “Heart-work and Heaven-work”: Herbert, Baxter, and The Saints Everlasting Rest 

10:00—10:30—Coffee and Tea 

10:30-11:30—Plenary Address: Sharonah Fredrick, College of Charleston

Seeley Hall 

George Herbert and Spain’s Empire: A View from the Global South 

Introduced by Angela Balla, The University of Alabama in Huntsville

11:30—1:00—Lunch on our own  

1:00—2:15—Plenary Panel #5—Seeley Hall 

From South to North—and Beyond: Borges, Cohen, and Star Trek

Regina Walton (Harvard Divinity School) 

Paul Dyck (Canadian Mennonite University) Herbert’s Bible and Borges’s “Book of Sand”: The Spirits of Textuality  

Achsah Guibbory (Barnard College of Columbia University) Imperfect Offerings: Herbert and Leonard Cohen  

Anne Myers (University of Missouri) Herbert in Outer Space: Star Trek, “Jordan (I)” and the Dangers of Boldly Going  

2:30—2:45—Presentation of Chauncey Wood Dissertation Awards for 2020-2024                     

             Presentation by Shaun Ross, Winner, 2014-2016—Seeley Hall 

Honorable Mention: Christine Pyle Cloud, “‘Take me by the hand’: Affliction and     

Liturgical Participation in George Herbert’s The Temple,” 

Winner: Oliver David Peel, Kings College London, “‘It May a Babel Prove’: Order,  

Disorder, and Death in George Herbert’s Poetic Theology”  

2:45—3:45—Plenary Panel #6—Seeley Hall 

George Herbert: Complete Works and the Complete Works Digital Archive: A Demonstration of Current Features, and a Modest Proposal

Christopher Hodgkins (University of North Carolina at Greensboro) 

Robert Whalen (Northern Michigan University) and Paul Davis (University College, London)  

3:45—4:15—Coffee and Tea  

4:15—5:45—Parallel Panel Sessions #4 

New World Souls: Herbertian Selves in Hughes, Lowell, and Williams 

Combination Room

Daniel Strait (Asbury University) 

Erik Ankerberg (Concordia University Wisconsin and Ann Arbor) “That’s American”: Herbert, Langston Hughes, and the Construction of the Self in a Time of Disbelief  

 Matthew McNees (Louisburg College) George Herbert Passes to the Lost Puritans: Herbert and Robert Lowell 

Nicholas Nace (Hampden-Sydney College) Herbert’s Phantom Limbs: Pruning and    Poetic Decision in the Late Poems of C. K.  Williams 

An Everlasting Style: Plainness, Pastoral Practice, and Herbert’s Eternal Present

Board Room

Gary Kuchar (University of Victoria) 

John Baxter (Dalhousie University) Yvor Winters, Herbert, and the Native Plain Style  

Kristine Wolberg (Valor Christian High School) The Country Parson and the American Critics 

Chad Engbers (Calvin University) Herbert’s Eternalism 

5:45—7:45—Dinner on our own 

7:45—9:00—Final Roundtable Discussion—Angela Balla, Adele Davidson, Sharonah Fredrick, Achsah Guibbory, Andrew Harvey, Christopher Hodgkins, Gary Kuchar, Jonathan F. S. Post, Robert Whalen, Helen Wilcox—Seeley Hall  

et le tout ensemble 

“Wheel’d About Again”? The Revolutions of The Church Militant 

Sunday 22 June 2025—Main Sites: Trinity College 

7:30-8:30—Pre-paid Breakfast—Private Dining Room—accessed from Combination Room  

8:00—9:00—Combination Room—coffee, tea, and pastries 

9:00—10:00—Optional Eucharist service in Trinity College Chapel—The Right Rvd Dr  Susan Bell, Bishop of Niagara, officiating  

10:15—Coach departs from outside Trinity College Chapel on Hoskin Avenue at Tower  Road for Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s The Winter’s Tale  

1:00 – Arrive Stratford—Lunch on our own 

2:00—The Winter’s Tale, Stratford Shakespeare Festival (for those who pre-purchased  tickets) 

5:30 —Coach departs for Trinity College 

8:00—Trinity College: Farewells  

Monday 23 June 2025—Main Site: Trinity College 

7:30-8:30—Pre-paid Breakfast—Private Dining Room—accessed from Combination Room