Our culture is obsessed with “literacy.” We track literacy statistics and data; schools hire literacy coaches and specialists; literature class has been replaced by literacy class.  But has this obsession resulted in greater understanding of the written word? Quite the opposite.

All around us is the evidence that we are existing in an almost Post-Literate Age. The popularity of AI tools to summarize reading into talking points for us is simply one small example of our inability to decipher the written word. We need machines to read for us because we can no long read like humans.

To understand how we got here, we have to cast our eyes to the other side of what C.S. Lewis calls The Great Divide, the invisible curtain that separates us from the past. For the seeds of our current crisis were planted a long time ago, and the path of renewal starts in the same place. Looking back before The Machine Age, we can learn to recover a more human way to read and therefore to live.

Join Keynote Speaker Dr. Jason Baxter, Angelina Stanford, Thomas Banks, Dr. Anne Phillips, and Jenn Rogers as they explore what it means to read like a human.

This year the conference also includes a Student Panel who will be sharing their experiences learning to read and live like humans.

SCHEDULE:

NEW DATES: The Literary Life Annual Conference is now moved to January 23-30, 2026.

• Friday, January 23rd, 2026 at 7:00 PM ET - Dr. Jason Baxter, Keynote Speaker
  • “Deep Reading in the Age of Hyper-Texts”
• Monday, January 26, 2026 at 7:00 PM ET - Angelina Stanford
  • “The Great Divide: Overcoming Modern Illiteracy”
• Tuesday, January 27, 2026 at 7:00 PM ET - Jenn Rogers
  • "On Norman Keeps and the Two Towers of All Souls: Words Come Alive in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Notion Club Papers”
• Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 7:00 PM ET - Thomas Banks
  • "St. Paul and His Reading: A Lecture on the Mind of an Apostle, and His Use of Writings Sacred and Secular"
• Thursday, January 29, 2026 at 7:00 PM ET - Dr. Anne Phillips,
  • "How to Read a Greek Tragedy, or How Greek Tragedy Teaches Us How to Read"
• Friday, January 30, 2026 at 7:00 PM ET - HHL Student Panel (Elizabeth Eusterman, Olivia Hornstra, Rhome Smith, Oliver Garber)
• Friday, January 30, 2026 following HHL Student Panel - Closing Remarks from Angelina Stanford

How to access the conference: After completing your purchase, the conference will be available in your HHL account under "My Courses." Make sure to follow the instructions within to join the conference on Canvas. When the conference goes live in January, 2026 the links to the live Zoom sessions, the recordings, and the discussions will all be done through Canvas.