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Research Writing at Wheaton

Writing in the Disciplines: What Is (and Isn’t) Writing About Religion and Literature?

If you’ve ever taken a literature class at Wheaton, chances are you’ve been asked to interpret a novel or a poem through a religious lens. Or maybe you’re in a BITH class and your professor has assigned you a non-theological text to analyze in light of your theological studies, perhaps a work of fiction. If you’ve never written something in the genre of Religion and Literature Studies, it can be confusing to understand what to write about, especially because this discipline has some similarities and differences with other genres.

In this post, I’ll break down what writing in Religion and Literature Studies looks like. What does a literary analysis look like when it considers a religious focus? And how does this genre differ from others?