medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Dear medieval-religion colleagues,

I am pleased to forward this on behalf of Prof. Ann Kuzdale
([log in to unmask]).

(Prof. Kuzdale has organized the session, detailed below, on Gregory
the Great, but as you will see there are several other sessions of
interest to many of us.)

Best wishes, George

--
George FERZOCO
[log in to unmask]

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Begin forwarded message:

http://patristics.org/annual-meeting/call-for-papers/

Call for Papers for Open Call Sessions, Prearranged Sessions, and
Individual Abstracts
Individual abstracts of approximately 300 words, including
submissions to be considered for one of the Open Call Sessions
(described below), and proposals for Prearranged Sessions can be
submitted between 1 November and 15 December 2009. Please note that
individual abstracts earmarked for but not accepted to an Open Call
Session will automatically be entered into the general pool.
Prearranged Sessions should be thematically consistent and will
typically include three or four papers; an abstract for each paper
should accompany the proposal submitted by the session’s organizer,
except in cases of book panels, translation workshops, and the
like.Notification of acceptance of all paper and session proposals
will be made in January.

Abstracts should: 1) present a clear thesis; 2) indicate knowledge of
the sources; 3) show awareness of relevant methodological,
historiographical, or philosophical issues; and 4) treat subject
matter that falls within the parameters of Late Ancient and Patristic
studies.

Only NAPS members in good standing may read papers.

Questions or suggestions for improving the call process, which
contains new components and deadlines, are welcome.

Dennis Trout ([log in to unmask]), Vice-President, NAPS, and Program
Chair

Open Call Sessions
1. Gender and Nag Hammadi
Chairs: Katherine Veach and Nathan Bennett

This session welcomes discussion of the role of gender in the
language, authorship, context, audience, narratives, interpretation
and reception of the texts of the Nag Hammadi library. The desired
outcome of such a discussion is a fuller appreciation of gender in
the school of thought represented by Nag Hammadi, as well as an
awareness of the role of gender in interpretations (both ancient and
modern) of these texts.

2. The Reception and Interpretation of Sacred Texts in Early
Christianity:The Transfiguration
Chairs: Jeffrey Bingham and Bogdan G. Bucur

A growing number of students and scholars work at the intersection of
the Bible (broadly defined) and Patristics. The intention here is to
harness this interest to explore the exegetical underpinning of the
doctrinal, liturgical, ascetic, visionary, and artistic expressions
of the various early Christian movements. For the purposes of this
session “sacred texts” encompasses the variety of texts belonging to
the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint, the New Testament, and the so-
called OT Pseudepigrapha, which were deemed sacred and authoritative
during Christian antiquity. Similarly, “early Christianity” embraces
a broad spectrum of religious movements, irrespective of the various
ancient or modern categories under which they are usually grouped.
For this session, we invite submissions that explore the reception
and interpretation of the synoptic Transfiguration account.

3. Religion and Society in Syrian Antioch
Chair: Wendy Mayer

The past decade has seen a resurgence of interest in the city of
Antioch on the Orontes in the late antique period as witnessed by the
Antioch exhibition organised by Christine Kondoleon in 2000; the
conference held in Lyon in 2001; the publication since 2006 of books
by Isabella Sandwell, Jacqui Maxwell, and Rafaella Cribiore; and the
forthcoming volume on the city’s churches by Wendy Mayer and Pauline
Allen. The day seminar on the city sponsored by the Center for the
Study of Early Christianity at CUA in March 2009 and the meeting in
Paris in January 2010 to launch the Lexicon Topographicum Antiochenum
project are further evidence of this increasing momentum. In 2010,
too, the results of the new archaeological survey by a joint Halle-
Wittenburg-Mustafa Kemal University team will be published and fresh
excavations in the city are scheduled to commence. The aims of this
session are to promote further scholarly interest in the city and
stimulate discussion and the exchange of ideas. Presenters are
encouraged to submit abstracts for papers on all aspects of the
connection between religion (not just Christianity) and society in
the city for the period from 100-800 CE.

4. The Rhetoric of Heaven
Chairs: Candida R. Moss and Taylor Petrey

This session invites papers on the construction of heaven and
heavenly bodies in ancient Christian literature. Papers may focus
either on the architecture and topography of the heavens or on
portrayal of heavenly occupants with a view to the way that these
depictions function rhetorically in Christian discourse. Suggested
topics include the role of gender, ethnicity, nationality, and
disability in the construction of heavenly bodies; the reproduction
and creation of heavenly hierarchies; the interpretation of
scriptural traditions in the portrayal of heaven; the rhetorical
function of appeals to heavenly authority; the relationship between
the heavenly and the terrestrial; and the way that constructions of
heaven function in martyrological, heresiological, and ecclesiastical
discourse.

5. Ambrosiaster (or "De-mystifying the ’Mysterious Ambrosiaster’")
Chair: David G. Hunter

The anonymous biblical commentator usually called "the Ambrosiaster"
has been one of the more enigmatic figures in Latin Patristic
literature. Recent studies by Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Marie-Pierre
Bussières, and Emanuele Di Santo have shed new light on important
aspects of his thought, but there is still much to be learned from
his extensive opera. This call for papers seeks contributions on all
aspects of Ambrosiaster’s work, including his identity and
provenance, the different recensions of his oeuvre, his relation to
earlier and subsequent biblical commentators, and all aspects of his
theology.

6. Syriac Homiletic Biblical Exegesis
Chairs: Robert A. Kitchen and Kristian S. Heal

Among the most creative and imaginative aspects of Syriac patristics
is the Biblical exegesis found in the homiletic writings of a wide
diversity of Syriac authors.Much research on Syriac Biblical
exegesis, however, focuses upon a single author or work, seldom
analysing broader patterns and hermeneutical approaches among a range
of authors and traditions.This session aims to draw together studies
of Biblical exegesis from different genres of sermons:extended
exegeses of Biblical episodes and personalities in longer homiletic
discourses; poetic homilies on Biblical themes; expository
commentaries on particular Biblical books; and the numerous anonymous
dramatic dialogue poems. Likely candidates for consideration include
Aphrahat, Ephrem, the Book of Steps, Isaac of Antioch, Narsai, Jacob
of Serug, Daniel of Salah, and Isaac of Nineveh.While the range of
possibilities is broad, two primary themes are suggested: (1)
typology of Biblical personalities or events and (2) exegesis/
interpretation of a Biblical passage in which the author relates at
least one significant detail at variance from the canonical version
for homiletic purposes.

7. Love, the Mind, and Books: exegetical pedagogy and noetic exegesis
Chairs: Blossom Stefaniw and Michael V. Niculescu

A large section of late antique religious life was cultivated in a
complex interaction between individuals in the roles of teachers or
students and texts credited with possessing a noetic or divine
content.Origen’s complex exegetical pedagogy has been analysed by
Karen Jo Torjesen and, most recently, Vlad Niculescu, for example.
The spiritual aspect of interaction with such texts in Evagrius
Ponticus, understood as contemplative reading, has been investigated
by Luke Dysinger, a circle around Didymus the Blind has been studied
by Richard Layton, and Blossom Stefaniw has most recently produced a
study of noetic exegesis in Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius.These
examples of exegetical pedagogy and noetic exegesis have in common
the belief in a divine/noetic deposit in the books being studied and
in the spiritual/noetic ability of the process of learning to
perceive and engage with that deposit. We intend to focus on the
transformative relationship between student, teacher and text in
Origen, Evagrius and anyof their contemporaries from the earliest
third to the latest fourth centuries, on the educative aim of
cultivating the moral, mental, and spiritual capacities of the
person, and on the textual strategies that make possible this goal’s
attainment.

8. The Reception of Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Predestination and
Divine Sovereignty
Chairs: George Kalantzis and Patout Burns

The commentators on Romans generally take an approach significantly
different from Augustine’s reading of this text, which struggled with
and then affirmed both a divine control of human willing and a
limited intention to save. Most writers assumed that God granted
autonomous self-determination to humans; the divine will to save was
therefore taken to be conditional upon human cooperation with the
means provided by God. Divine foreknowledge of a negative human
response to an offer of the means of salvation was used to justify
the denial or withholding of those means. Even those, such as Origen
and Gregory of Nyssa, who affirmed some form of universal salvation
protected the autonomy of the human agent.The instances of divine
election of one person or group over another that are affirmed in the
Hebrew Bible were brought to bear in the Letter to the Romans. Paul
reflected not only on the gratuity of the divine preference for Jacob
and Esau in chapter 9 but also on the divine plan which used the
temporary Jewish rejection of Christ as an instrument for the
salvation of both Gentiles and Jews.That session invites papers that
explore both the strategies used and conclusions in this regard
reached by writers in the patristic period and the use of these
interpretations for dealing with theological issues and pastoral
practice.

9. The Reception of Gregory the Great in the Middle Ages
Chair: Ann Kuzdale

Next to Augustine and Jerome, Gregory the Great (590-604) was one of
the most cited and influential authorities in the Middle Ages.
Gregory’s ideas shaped not only a spirituality that emphasized the
miraculous power of the living holy man, but also a mentalité that
came to be identified as particularly medieval in its synthesis of
the physical and spiritual worlds. In works such as his Moralia,
Dialogues, andPastoral Care, Gregory wrote on the nature of the moral
life, miracles, grace, eschatology, ecclesiology, monasticism, and
the afterlife. Many of these works as well as his homilies on the
Gospels and Ezekiel circulated during his lifetime and his reputation
as an authority for preachers was well-established within one hundred
years of his death. By the ninth century, some of his works were
translated into Greek.The goal of this panel is to bring together
scholars working on various aspects of the influence of Gregory’s
thought upon later writers and thinkers, with special attention to
the ways in which such figures adapted Gregory’ ideas to create new
works meaningful in their own context.

10. Touching Religion in Late Antiquity
Chair: Douglas Boin

It’s become de rigeur to characterize the three great monotheistic
religions (Judaisim, Christianity, and Islam) as “religions of the
book,” holding, as they do, certain sacred writings in common. Our
modern shorthand, however, rarely accounts for the fact that during
most of antiquity—at least during those centuries when the first two
of these religious groups flourished side-by-side-books, as we would
call them, were a very rare thing indeed. Religion, then, at least
for most people in the ancient Mediterranean world who were neither
rabbis nor theologians, was for a long time intricately bound up with
other things. This session is concerned with the physical traces
which Greco-Roman, Jewish, Christian religious practices left behind
in the ancient and late ancient world (c. 150 B.C.E.-600 C.E.).
Seeking papers that address how tangible things (like altars,
statues, and dining halls, not to mention sacred sites) helped people
of antiquity construct diverse ideas about their religions, this
session is particularly keen to explore how the wide array of
historical artifacts — from amulets to mosaics, sculptures to
architecture — often nuance or directly challenge Jewish or Christian
theological assumptions developed, passed down, and codified in later
textual sources.

11. The “Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy” Research Project
Chair: Charles A. Bobertz

This session invites papers for a session that is part of a larger
international project on Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy
(sessions are also held at the SBL and ISBL meetings). Papers may
focus on any aspect of the relationship between Early Christianity
and the Ancient Economy, demonstrating both similarities and
differences in attitudes, approaches to problems, and attempted
solutions.

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