The Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies is hosting a hybrid online and at the University of Western Australia for it’s 13th biennial conference, with the topic “Reception and Emotion”. Ceræ is accepting submissions for a panel with the following themes.

Themes: Reception, Emotion, and Witchcraft

As Michael Ostling and Laura Kounine have pointed out, the history of witchcraft has always also been a history of emotions: the victims, the accusers, and the witches themselves. It demonstrates the importance of perspective: whose emotions are we permitted to see, from whose standpoint? What role do emotions play in creating the idea of witchcraft, and how do these differ over time and space? The intersection of the history of emotions and the history of witchcraft also highlight the importance of reception (both premodern and present-day) and concerns regarding methodology (in both fields). It also invites scholars to critically consider the additional intersection of rationality, as this is often contrasted with both emotions and witchcraft – often to the detriment of the latter. Does this help us to uncover particularly elusive aspects of premodern witchcraft, or reinforce negative stereotypes? Ceræ invites submissions for papers to discuss these themes.

Paper proposals may include but are not limited to
•To what extent are emotions and a lack of reason which informs them one of the only ways which we try to understand the irrational within a system of dogmatic beliefs?
•Differences in the intersection of emotions and witchcraft between the medieval and early modern periods.
•Regional differences in associations and intersections between emotions and witchcraft.
•The vulnerability of marginalised communities to these associations and intersections.
•Emotions that are brought into particularly close association with witchcraft; conversely, those which are not, and what impact this can have for our understanding of premodern witchcraft.
•The additional intersection of emotion, witchcraft, and religion.

Please send abstracts of not more than 250 words to editorcerae@gmail.com by December 31st.

For further information on the ANZAMEMS conference, visit https://www.anzamems2021.com/