Seminar

CALL FOR PAPERS

Pilgrimage in Motion: Exploring Affects, Meanings, and Transformations

Seminar in Turku, Finland: 31 October – 1 November 2024

The Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures’ research project Pilgrimage in Motion invites submissions for the seminar Pilgrimage in Motion, to be held at the University of Turku, Finland, from 31 October to 1 November 2024.

This seminar will explore the multifaceted nature of pilgrimage across Finland and other Nordic/Baltic countries, tracing its historical trajectories from medieval times to the present. By examining pilgrimage in diverse secular, religious, and spiritual contexts, the symposium will shed light on the transformations that have shaped these journeys over time. Additionally, it will delve into the affects and aesthetics of pilgrimage, as well as the role of motion and movement in the evolving practice of pilgrimage throughout history. We wish to discuss motion and movement both at the physical and mental/spiritual levels, as well as that of transformation of tradition.

The keynote speakers of the seminar are Avril Maddrell and Sari Katajala-Peltomaa. The keynote lectures are open to all interested.

Professor Avril Maddrell (University of Reading)

Professor Avril Maddrell is a social and cultural geographer interested in historical and contemporary issues. She has specialised in emotional-affective geographies, deathscapes, sacred mobilities, and place, landscape and heritage. Her most recent research focuses on funerals, cemeteries and crematoria in Europe. She has written extensively about pilgrimage. She is the co-editor of Contemporary Encounters in Gender and Religion: European perspectives (2016), Sacred Mobilities (2015) and Christian pilgrimage, landscape and heritage: Journeying to the sacred (2015). See: https://www.reading.ac.uk/ges/staff/avril-maddrell

Professor Sari Katajala-Peltomaa (University of Turku)

Professor Sari Katajala-Peltomaa is a cultural and social historian specializing in medieval Europe, with a particular focus on lived religion, gender, family, and childhood. She is an expert on pilgrimage studies, exploring how these rituals were practiced and understood in the late medieval period. Her work delves into the complexities of lay religiosity, examining how ordinary people engaged with religious practices and interacted with saints. She is the author of Demonic Possession and Lived Religion in Later medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020) and Gender, Miracles and Daily Life: The Evidence of Fourteenth-Century Canonization Processes (2009), and co-author of Lived Religion and Gender in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2021). See: https://www.utu.fi/en/people/sari-katajala-peltomaa

The seminar is multidisciplinary in nature, and we welcome proposals from all fields of study such as general/cultural history, study of religion, study of cultures, anthropology, human geography, tourism studies, culture and health studies, etc. Contributions may focus but are not limited to the following:

Pilgrimage in Finland and other Nordic countries as well as the Baltic area

Historical trajectories of pilgrimage

Pilgrimage in different secular, religious, and spiritual contexts

Transformations within pilgrimage

Affects and aesthetics of pilgrimage

Pilgrimage and motion/movement

Please send your proposal for a 20‐minute paper including your title, an abstract of up to 200 words, and a brief biographical statement to: cscc@utu.fi

Submissions are due 23 September 2024. Notifications of acceptance will be sent in by 30 September 2024.

The seminar will be held in English as an on-site event. Unfortunately, we cannot provide for online attendance. The seminar is free of charge and will include coffees during the two seminar days. Travel, accommodation and lunches are at participants’ own expense. The symposium dinner on 31 October will be charged separately for those wishing to attend.

Seminar website: https://sites.utu.fi/pyhiinvaellus/seminar/

For more information, contact: cscc@utu.fi

Please forward this call for papers to anyone interested!