For Lancelot Andrewes
About this Event
For Lancelot Andrewes
September 25th 2026 marks the 400th anniversary of Lancelot Andrewes’ death. It also marks the 100th anniversary of an essay by T. S. Eliot which appeared first in the TLS and was later collected into the volume named after it: For Lancelot Andrewes. This essay instigated modern critical interest in Andrewes’ intellectual and imaginative legacy, and is a significant event not just for sermon studies but for the conjunction of modernism and early modernism, and the influence of the renaissance period on the poets and thinkers of the twentieth century and beyond.
This two-day conference, to be held at the Cambridge English Faculty (23rd) and Pembroke College (24th), will invite participants to consider the current state of Andrewes criticism, and to think in new ways about the wider legacies of Eliot’s essay.
Panels will run from c.10 am to 5pm on Wednesday 23rd, and 9 am to 5pm on Thursday 24th. Details and running order to be confirmed shortly. There will also be an exhibition of connected materials from Pembroke's Old Library.
Lunch will be provided onsite for both days.
On the evening of the 23rd there will be a chapel service and drinks reception - kindly sponsored by the Cambridge Quarterly - to which all participants are warmly invited. Due to space contraints, we can sadly only accommodate speakers at the conference dinner that evening.
Keynote speakers: Professor Peter McCullough (Lincoln College, Oxford) and Professor Jeff Dolven (Princeton).
Wednesday 23
🕑: 10:00 AM - 09:00 PM
Conference programme 23/9 NEW
Info: 10:00–10:30 Registration, Coffee & Welcome
10:30–12:00 Panel 1: Andrewes: History & Writing
• Alison Knight — ‘Belief on Paper: Lancelot Andrewes and Certificates of Conformity’
• J. D. Eynard — ‘Waiting for God: Lancelot Andrewes and the Grammar of Suspense’
• Akrivi Ventouras — ‘Andrewes and Recognition’
12:00–13:00 1622: Andrewes’ sermon and Eliot’s essay
• Six five-minute papers, thinking variously about the essay, its origins, and its influence
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00–15:30 Panel 2: Andrewes: Theoretical Perspectives
• Eve Houghton — ‘Lancelot Andrewes and Marion Milner’
• Gui Nabais Freitas — ‘Saturated Sermons: Andrewes, Eliot, and the Phenomenology of Excess’
• Josie O’Donoghue — ‘“Relevant intensity” and “irrelevant local texture”: Eliot, Ransom and Lancelot Andrewes’ prose style’
15:30–15:45 Coffee
15:45–17:15 Keynote: Peter McCullough, ‘Memorialising Andrewes’
18:00–18:45 Chapel
18:45–19:30 CQ Drinks Reception
19:30 onward Conference dinner (speakers only)
Thursday 24
🕑: 09:30 AM - 05:00 PM
Conference programme 24/9 NEW
Info: 09:30–11:00 Panel 3: Andrewes & Eliot: Literary Critical Focus
• Paul Norris — ‘Comparing Andrewes’
• Anika Goddard — ‘The Last Swallow-Time’: Andrewes’ Pertinent Anniversary and Eliot’s Present Action
• Nathan Walker — ‘Formalist Homiletics’
11:00–11:30
Coffee
11:30–13:15 Panel 4: Eliot & Early Modern Writers
• Priya Abularach — ‘Distraction and Attention in Eliot, Andrewes and Donne’
• Christopher Archibald (QMUL) — ‘Passage-worship’: T. S. Eliot and early modern drama
• Katie Mennis — ‘T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, and the Burial of a Dead Language’
• Michael West — ‘Eliot’s Donne’
13:15–14:15
Lunch
14:15–15:45 Keynote Lecture
Jeff Dolven
‘What Would Lancelot Andrewes Do?’
15:45–16.00
Coffee
16.00–17:00 Roundtable Discussion
17:00 onwards Informal Gathering (Venue to be confirmed)
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 0.00
