CFP: Women and Pilgrimage in the Ancient and Pre-Modern World, 8–9 June, 2018

[agricola at utu.fi]

Agricolan artikkelipyyntöihin on lähetetty uusi ilmoitus:
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Women and Pilgrimage in the Ancient and Pre-Modern World, 8–9 June, 2018
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Women and Pilgrimage in the Ancient and Pre-Modern World
University of Amsterdam
8-9 June 2018
Call for Papers

The organizing committee welcomes contributions for a conference on women and
pilgrimage from the ancient to the pre-modern period that will be held at the
University of Amsterdam on the 8th and 9th of June 2018.

The aim of the conference is to explore the social dimensions of women’s
religiously motivated travel (“pilgrimage”) by taking a cross-cultural and
diachronic perspective on the phenomenon. Pilgrimage is an element of popular
ritual practice in many societies from earliest antiquity and from a wide range
of geographic and cultural backgrounds, taking the form of travel to
sanctuaries, shrines, holy persons, for commemorating the dead or for healing.
The question this conference seeks to answer is: how did women’s participation
in religious travel contribute to their accessing or expressing social agency,
religious authority, or power over their bodies within their communities? We are
interested in pilgrimage as a form of “lived religion”, that is, as a
popular expression of religious participation. By adopting a broad definition of
pilgrimage, we hope to reach out beyond the traditional interpretation as
applying to mainly Christian practice and forge connections with other cultures
and periods in time. The chronological range ends with the modern period and the
advent of widespread mechanized travel, i.e. ca. 1900.

The conference is meant to provide an interdisciplinary discussion, promoting a
cross-cultural approach to and a diachronic view of the theme. Therefore,
researchers from different disciplines, such as historians, archaeologists,
anthropologists and specialists in religious, Near Eastern and gender studies,
are warmly welcome to submit their papers. The communications should be in
English.

We are particularly interested in the following areas of research:

1) Gender and "performance" in pilgrimage: Pilgrimage as a form of gendered
social performance and its meaning for gender identity.

2) Power and agency in pilgrimage. Power not just as political power but social
power as well, the effect of pilgrimage on women’s social status and agency
within their community, and agency over their own body (e.g., in the case of
pilgrimage for healing).

3) Methodological innovations. Challenges of “recovering” women from the
historical record and the contributions of other fields such as archaeology,
epigraphy, art history, anthropology, sociology of religion, etc.

4) Material and economic aspects of women’s pilgrimage. The materiality of
pilgrimage has received increased attention of late, and we aim to incorporate
understanding of how landscape, spaces, and objects contribute to our knowledge
of women’s pilgrimage.

 

Proposals should include:

- the author’s name and affiliation.

- an abstract of ca. 250 words for a 20-minute presentation, clearly stating the
problem being discussed and relationship to the themes of the conference and the
research avenues presented above.

Please send your proposal via e-mail to womenandpilgrimage2018 at gmail.com by
Friday, 12 January 2018. The results of the call will be announced on Monday, 12
February 2018.

Contact us at womenandpilgrimage2018 at gmail.com for further information regarding
the conference.

This conference is supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific
Research (NWO) as part of the project Gendering Sacred Space: Female Networks,
Patronage, and Ritual Experience in Early Christian Pilgrimage.

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

The organizing committee,

Dr Marlena Whiting

Ms Emilia Salerno

 

 

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Ilmoituksen lähetti: Päivi Salmesvuori <paivi.salmesvuori at helsinki.fi>
Ilmoitus vanhentuu: 13.1.2018
Lisätietoja WWW-osoitteesta: womenandpilgrimage2018 at gmail.com