dear all
just popped in to read all the messages, having been away at the
AngloAmerican conference on Religion and Society at the IHR - and now
about to dash off to Leeds of course [my session no.616, tuesday
afternoon - just a small plug there!]
there was a lot going on at the conference, too much to relate in one
mail message, but i thought that i might tell you about a few things
that really grabbed me, if you want to know ...
Sarah Beckwith gave a stunning paper on the York Mystery plays, using a
very theorised insight into drama [i like theory, remember]
Gary Dickson, from our own fair electronic community, talked very
interestingly about "revivalism" over a very long period of history; i'm
very intrigued, but still not sure i have properly grasped what he was
going on about [Gary: that's a cue, if you want to take it ...]
Kate Jansen talked about Mary magdalen and the topos of her as "apostle
of apostles", and the reasons for its growth as an image
Alexander Murray, Catherine Carmichael and Sarah Williams gave papers
[ranging from 1100-1996!] on the subject of "popular belief", which
sparked an extremely interesting debate on the whole conceptual approach
to the area; this was the high point of the conference for me ...
Bernard Hamilton told us some very interesting things about Western
knowledge of Islam at the time of the Crusades
Richard Kieckhefer put forward some challenging ideas about popular
religion and social control [which inspired me, although i disagreed]
er - i haven't really done much more than you could have gleaned from the
conference programme; i guess the point is that if anyone is interested
in one of these things particularly, you could ask me for more
[extremely subjective] materials. Also, bits of gossip going if anyone
wants them [but not out over the whole discussion group!]
cheers
john arnold
Centre for Medieval Studies
Kings Manor
Exhibition Square
York YO1 2EP
ENGLAND
(01904) 433948
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