Sensory Cultures and the Communication of Belief

Religious History Association, Canberra, 3 July 2018 (in association with the Australian Historical Association Conference 2-6 July 2018)

The Religious History Association invites presentations that explore the material and sensory dimensions of the communication of belief.

Our knowledge of devotional practices and rituals, and of beliefs and attitudes, can be enriched by exploring the material and sensory heritage through which religions are interpreted, expressed and understood. We are especially interested in how the material aspects of religion, such as music, movement, architecture, objects, foodways, and clothing, as well as sensory responses to these material forms, express and translate religious commitment.

We welcome papers that look particularly at how material and sensory practices shape and express the dynamics of religious belief across geographical areas, eras of history or between distinct communities; that explore cross-cultural and interfaith exchanges, including the re-interpretation of religious texts, art or artefact in missionary encounters; and in diverse social and cultural contexts. Papers may also examine how objects or devotional practices are the products of encounter between diverse religious cultures and exchanges.

Proposals for 20 minute individual papers, panels (3 x 15 minute papers with chair and respondent), and roundtables (90 minute conversation by several scholars on an issue, book or object) are welcome.

Proposals should be submitted through the Australian Historical Association conference site: aha2018.anu.edu.au, indicating RHA Stream.

CFP Deadline: 28 February 2018 Participants will be invited to submit papers to the Journal of Religious History.

Calls for Papers
ISSM 2018 Boundary Crossings
October 12-13, 2018
Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada

St Catharines, Ontario, Canada, the location of Brock University, is just 19 kilometres from the Niagara River, the boundary between Canada and the United States of America. In this location, then, it seems appropriate to think about medievalism and boundary crossing. Plenary sessions will cross disciplinary boundaries by investigating similarities in concerns, methods, and themes between the fields of (neo)medievalism(s) and the Neo-Victorian. For regular conference sessions, proposals are invited on the conference theme. Papers might address the ways in which medievalism crosses the boundaries of, or is used to interrogate the boundaries of

• genres/subgenres
• national designations
• temporal periods
• academic disciplines
• the academic and the popular
• gender
• sexuality
• class
• race
• human / non-human

Please send one-page proposals to Dr. Ann F. Howey, Associate Professor at Brock University (ahowey@brocku.ca), by March 26, 2018.

St Catharines, in the Niagara Peninsula, is located midway between Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Buffalo, New York, USA; both cities have international airports, and airport shuttles service the Niagara region from both airports. St Catharines is located in the heart of Niagara’s wine producing region and is also close to tourist attractions such as Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake, with its famous Shaw Festival theatre productions.

Traces Arborescentes – Call for Papers

Sacred Science: Learning from the Tree

European Society for the History of Science

Biennial Conference 2018 September, 14-17

We are pleased to announce that Trames Arborescentes is preparing a symposium for the European Society for the History of Science’s conference (http:// www.eshs.org/?lang=en) that will take place in London on September 2018.

«Unity and Disunity» has been chosen as the main theme for the aforementioned meeting. Within this framework, Trames Arborescentes has decided to participate by proposing a commented panel that will gather four speakers around the subject «Sacred Science: Learning from the Tree».

Proposals containing personal information (including academic affiliation), an abstract, and a short bio are welcome for this panel. The document may be submitted to our email address tramesarborescentes@gmail.com before December 12.

Symposium abstract:

Sacred Science: Learning from the Tree

This panel traces the arboreal motif through time, using it as a means to reflect on unity and disunity of interaction between science, art and the sacred. Indeed, the figure of the tree has been used as a visualization tool to structure knowledge since Antiquity. However, it turns out that the tree of the Arts and Sciences is a deciduous tree. Its holy leaves, metaphorical expressions of unseen secrets, have been shed as science gradually broke away from the sacred. The apparent unity of its branches, the Arts and the Sciences, became exposed and fractured. What was the role of the arboreal structure in this process?

Three points will stand in our proposal. Firstly, we will question how the treediagram was used to articulate the conjunction of the Arts, the Sciences and the Sacred. During the Middle Ages, tree diagrams were commonly used in the arts degree as tools to study arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music theory, grammar, logic and rhetoric. These frameworks of learning in the universities were infused with the sacred, they sprang from the sacred. Gradually though, the Arts and Sciences began to be distinguished, subjects changed categories. But even as Darwin was developing his theory of life, the sacred continued to play a role in scientific discovery and communication. How was this distinction nuanced in every period?

The second point will focus on the loss of the sacred and the sacralization of knowledge. In effect, step by step, the distinction between the arts and sciences gradually became a divide and the concept of sacred changed in this learning context. The sacred was given less space in the hierarchies of knowledge, it no longer penetrated every aspect of learning. At some point knowledge itself became sacred. When and how did this happen? What rapport did the sacred have in this dramatic change in our perception of knowledge? Was this new knowledge disruptive? Did it bring about unity or disunity? Is the current dissociation between the Arts and Sciences a consequence of divorcing knowledge from the sacred?

Thirdly, we will examine arboreal motifs in our contemporary era, when encyclopedic knowledge and three-dimensional mind maps, once again seek to chart the infinite, the unknown, what is not seen by the naked eye. Are these new worlds in new dimensions still shown shaped in a tree-form? If so, what knowledge does the tree convey? Why is the arboreal structure effective? How is the sacred expressed (if at all) in this structure?

The dialectic relationship between unity and disunity seems perfectly tailored to the branching of the tree-diagram, which also allows expression of a hierarchical combination ad infinitum. The centrality and unity – concepts in which the trunk of these diagrams was firmly rooted, has been shifted for new multifocal tree-figures, which grant us plenty of new possibilities that adapt well to current models of information visualization. This panel uses arboreal constructs as a means to look into the sacred/knowledge relationship in order to question the forthcoming cognitive patterns of unity and disunity that will shape our near future.

Channeling Relations in Medieval England and France

Organizers: Stephanie Grace-Petinos (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Deborah McGrady (University of Virginia); Elizabeth Robertson (University of Glasgow); Sara Rychtarik (Graduate Center, CUNY)

Date: May 4, 2018

Location: CUNY Graduate Center

For medievalists, interdisciplinary work has always been a necessity, and our major annual conferences reflect this need to broaden our understanding of the dynamic and widespread time period. While medieval scholars may specialize in one area of medieval studies, they also understand that separating traditions – by culture, language, religion, geographic borders, etc. – can create a limited and narrow understanding of the Middle Ages. This is especially the case for medievalists who study medieval England and France. Although, or perhaps because, they were frequently engaged in war, these two countries had many rich literary and cultural exchanges over the course of the Middle Ages. For Middle English scholars, French literature and music are often valuable resources for the sources of the works of popular authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, and so are often read in medieval English classes. Yet why is Chaucer not routinely read in French departments? Or, on the other side, medieval English texts, law, as well as literature, were often written in French, not English. But British literature survey courses often limit their coverage of the Anglo-French corpus to one or two lais of Marie de France.

This one-day conference offers the opportunity for scholars, whether they usually preserve or cross departmental lines in their own work, to come together with scholars from departments with whom they may not routinely discuss academic work/research/approaches. While this conference focuses on literary and cultural exchanges between England and France, we are not discounting other traditions and welcome submissions for individual papers or full panel proposals that also incorporate other perspectives, particularly non-western. 

Topics to be discussed can include, but are by no means limited to:

–       A text that belongs to both the English and French traditions

–       A text, legend or corpus of characters that exist with variations in each tradition

–       A textual theme shared by both traditions

–       A historical event that occurred in both traditions (i.e. The Hundred Years War)

–       Religious orders or religious figures prominent in both England and France

–       Historical or literary figures that travel throughout England and France

–       French texts that circulate within England; English texts that circulate within France; English and/or French texts that circulate within both England and France

This event is hosted by Pearl Kibre Medieval Study at the CUNY Graduate Center, with contributions by the Medieval Studies Certificate Program.

Please send abstracts of 250 words to pkmsconference@gmail.com by December 31, 2017.

The Worlds That Plague Made

Call for Papers

The Annual Conference at the Medieval and Renaissance Center will be held on April 13th and 14th. This year’s theme will be “The Worlds That Plague Made: Cultures of Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern Period.” Keynote speakers will be Ann Carmichael, Indiana University, and Susan Jones, University of Minnesota.

We invite submissions from any discipline in Medieval and Renaissance Studies on any aspect of the history of plague and disease.

Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis until January 15th 2018. Please submit a 250 word abstract and a brief CV to marc.center@nyu.edu (put “Conference Submission” in the subject line).

Illuminating Hidden Figures 

Diversity and Difference in the Middle Ages

New England Medieval Studies Consortium Brown University March 17-18, 2018

The diversity of medieval Europe has come under close scrutiny from all sides. As medievalists have, with increasing vigor, insisted on complex and nuanced understandings of the constitution of both normative European soci- eties and their interactions with those surrounding them, popular ideological movements have sought to claim the medieval past as a homogeneous, `white’ male space. Whether it is studied through art, literature, theology, history, gender and sexuality studies, or any of the other manifold disciplines that comprise medieval studies, the question of diversity and dierence in the mid- dle ages thus represents not only an increasingly fruitful avenue of scholarly inquiry, but also a vital interface between academia and the public at large. This conference therefore invites papers which explore this question and its modern implications through intellectual history, scriptural exegesis, art and material culture, pedagogical approaches, philology, literary studies, digital humanities, or any other ways in which diversity and dierence in the middle ages can be understood. We also invite papers that address the exchange of culture and material from outside Europe.

We welcome both individual papers and full panel proposals. We also welcome volunteers for chairing panels. Papers should be 20 minutes in length, and may be from any discipline or geographic specialization. Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words to nemsc.2018@gmail.com by January 1, 2018.

Graduate students whose abstracts are selected for the conference will have the opportunity to submit full papers for consideration for the Alison Goddard Elliott Award.

Meetings, Conflicts, Exchanges: Mediterranean Space in the Middle Ages

23rd and 24th March 2018 Université de Montréal

Fernand Braudel writes in his The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II: “The Mediterrenean has no unity but that created by the movements of men, the relationships they imply, and the routes they follow” [1972: 276]. The position of the Mediterranean, at the intersection of three continents, has made it a vital location in these movements of men, women and children. These movements continue, sometimes with tragic consequences, to this day. In the Middle Ages, the meeting of peoples and cultures enabled the exchange of ideas, traditions, texts, languages, and things. In recent years, scholars of Medieval Studies have made significant progress in defining and increasing our knowledge of the interactions in this Mediterranean space. From the art and architecture of the Taifa kingdoms to the phases and waves of Frankish colonisation in the Latin East, from the political and cultural role of religious military orders throughout the Mediterranean to the rich literary and cultural output of the eastern kingdoms, from the multiple roots of medieval Jewish thinking to the specific type of eastern Mediterranean French, medieval scholars of multiple disciplines and interdisciplinary approaches, have opened up new ways of studying and conceiving of these cultural interactions.

Some students of the Centre d’études médiévales present Meetings, Conflicts, Exchanges: the Mediterranean Space in the Middle Ages conference, which will take place in the Carrefour des Arts et des Sciences at the University of Montréal on 23rd and 24th March 2018. The conference looks primarily to address graduate students and early career scholars. Meetings, Conflicts, Exchanges aims to promote the sharing of ideas, methologies and avenues of research, with a focus on interdisciplinary approaches (from the fields of Literature, History, History of Art, Religious Studies, Languages, Philosophy, Theology, etc.).

Please send a single document to alessio.marziali.peretti@umontreal.ca containing:

1. An abstract with a title (150 to 200 words)

2. A short biography (specifying author’s name, affiliation, and contact information)

Presentations will be 20 minutes long with an additional 10 minutes for discussion. Presentation languages: French and English.

Deadline: 31st December 2017

Conference website: https://cetmedcolloque.wordpress.com/

The Sacral and the Secular: Early Medieval Political Theology 

Call for Papers

Ever since Ernst Kantorowicz popularised the term ‘political theology’ in the 1950s, scholars have known that the political and religious thought of the early Middle Ages cannot be separated. But since the 1990s there has been a resurgence of interest in this field. The traditional focus on sacral kingship has been replaced by an awareness of the early Middle Ages as a world of debate and contestation where a wide variety of political theologies existed. This one-day conference will explore the latest thinking on early medieval political theology, with particular attention to the idea of the secular during the period.

Robert Markus influentially argued that the beginning of the Middle Ages in Europe witnessed a progressive ‘de-secularization’ as a monolithically Christian society emerged. Recent work, however, has questioned this analysis, with Peter Brown suggesting that elements of late antique secularity survived until at least the seventh century. On the other hand, the trend in scholarship of Carolingian political theology has been to abandon older distinctions between Church and State, moving towards a vision of ninth-century society where there was no place for the secular. As confidence in the progressive secularization of the contemporary world has faltered in the past generation, now seems an appropriate time to explore how concepts of the secular and de-secularization can shed light on the early Middle Ages.

The conference welcomes papers on any aspect of the political theology of the early medieval period (which will be broadly defined both chronologically and geographically), especially those which touch on questions relating to the secular. Papers which deal with the evidence of art, archaeology and material culture, as well as textual sources, are welcome. Graduate students and early career scholars are particularly encouraged to submit since the conference aims to showcase new research which will help shape the direction of the field over the next generation.

All enquiries and paper abstracts (250 words max.) should be sent to Conor O’Brien (cpo32@cam.ac.uk) via email. Papers are to be 25-30 mins in length and there will be ample time for discussion and the exchange of ideas on the day. Abstracts are due by 15 January 2018.

Churchill College and the G.M. Trevelyan Fund of the Faculty of History, Cambridge, have generously supported the organisation of this conference.

LIMINA: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies upcoming conference entitled ‘Home: Belonging and Displacement’. This conference is a great opportunity for graduate students and early career researchers to share their research with an interdisciplinary audience. The conference will be held on 26-27th July 2018 at the University of Western Australia in Perth.

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

• The role of the home in society
• Banishment and exile, colonisation and invasion
• Literary portrayals of home
• Hearth and home, food, celebrations, traditions
• Family life, family structure, and kinship
• Homelessness and refugees
• Human and natural disasters’ effects on home
• Gentrification and changing landscapes
• Personal, cultural, and national identity
• Temporal and spatial aspects of home

Deadline for the submission of abstracts (approx. 200 words) is 30th March, 2018.

We are also accepting article submissions for our general edition, which will be published next year. For more information, visit: http://www.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au/future

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EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF RELIGION FIRST ANNUAL CONFERENCE BOLOGNA, MARCH 5-8, 2018

The European Academy of Religion (EuARe) is a new constellation in
European scholarship which was established in 2016 with the support of
the European parliament. It aims to create an inclusive network, to
act as an open platform, and to provide a framework to foster
research, communication, exchange and cooperation concerning important
religious issues for the academic world and society at large.

The program of the EuARe Conference 2018 will be composed of plenary
(lectiones magistrales and roundtables) and working sessions (panels
and papers).

On Tuesday 6th and Wednesday 7th, the Conference will host an
international Moot Court Competition in Law & Religion, organized in
cooperation with ICLARS – International Consortium for Law & Religion
Studies.

In the location of the event, a display space reserved for publishers
will be set up. Publishers are invited to organize book presentations
with authors and to advertise their participation on their websites
and in newsletters in order to draw public attention to their works
and encourage attendance.

The Call  has been recently published on the EuARe
website: there you will find all the information you need about the
Conference program and your participation (deadlines, registration
fees, travel grants and accommodation). https://www.europeanacademyofreligion.org/general-information

If you wish to contribute to the Conference by convening a panel or
applying for a single paper, we remind you that the deadline for
proposal submission is Wednesday, December 20th (submission forms can
be found here: https://www.europeanacademyofreligion.org/program).
Registrations to the Conference, instead, will be open until Friday,
February 16th
(https://www.europeanacademyofreligion.org/registration).
Early rates for registration will be available until December 20th
(early bird) and February 16th (regular). After this date only on-site
registration will be possible.

We also remind you that, starting this year, the EuARe will be
granting memberships.
Members will have the benefits of discounted conference rates and will
be invited to join and participate in the next General Assembly, which
will meet on Tuesday 6th of March.
The Call will also give you more detailed information about the
membership rates and the General Assembly.
Membership application forms are available here:
https://www.europeanacademyofreligion.org/membership

European Academy of Religion