Upcoming in Texas, a taste of something completely different: “Members of this congress will explore the Gnostic in Western culture from the ancient world to the modern New Age, tracing the emergence, persistence, and disappearance of metaphysical religious currents that are perceived to be countercultural, inverted, transgressive and/or subversive in their relationship to normative religion and their claim to knowledge. The main purpose of this interdisciplinary conference is to unlock the Gnostic from its cage in the ancient world and to challenge the prevailing academic opinion that the Gnostic is a useless category because it reifies as heretics people who were simply “alternative” devout Christians.” Speakers include (in order of appearance) April DeConick, Grant Adamson, Dylan Burns, John Turner, Zeke Mazur, Gregory Shaw, Michael Kaler, Fritz Graf, Kocku von Stuckard, Mark Pegg, Lautaro Lanzillota, David Litwa, Victoria Nelson, Erik Davis, Mark Pilkington, and Wouter Hanegraaff. For details, see here.