religion

Rhetoric and literature obviously have an intricate shared history in early modern studies evidenced by the likes of George Puttenham’s Art of English Poesie (1579) among other manuals and treatises, but studies continue to demonstrate that there is more to be examined at this scholarly intersection. By applying research in cognitive studies, for instance, Raphael Lyne offers a new perspective on Shakespeare’s use of rhetoric, and in a forthcoming piece Michael Ullyot and Adam Bradley employ digital technologies in order to study the applications of rhetorical tropes like gradatio in early modern drama more broadly. This panel seeks to discuss what other innovations or findings are possible with or without novel applications.

The latest research indicates that more than 400 million people embark annually on traditional pilgrimages in Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, and elsewhere, with the numbers steadily increasing. Pilgrimage is one of the most ancient practices of humankind and is associated with a great variety of religious and spiritual traditions, beliefs and sacred geographies. As a global phenomenon, pilgrimage facilitates interaction between and among diverse peoples from countless cultures, occupations, and walks of life. In the 5th Global Conference, we will continue to explore the many personal, interpersonal, intercultural, and international dimensions of these often profound events.

Recent scholarship has noted the importance of viewing medieval manuscripts at many stages of their “lives”, not merely confined to the mechanics of their production and the immediate contexts of their creation, but also viewing them within each cultural context that they encountered throughout their existence. This session aims to apply this approach to manuscripts of medieval mystical, visionary, or prophetic/revelatory texts, examining their reception and use long after their original composition and the lives of their authors. These genres produced some of the most provocative and controversial texts of the Middle Ages, with often complicated reception histories.

1st Global Conference
Spirituality And....Culture

including a guided tour of Belém and the Jeronimos Monastery, Lisbon

Saturday 17th March 2018 - Sunday 18th March 2018
Lisbon, Portugal

In his 1938 essay, “Figura,” Erich Auerbach asserts that a figura, unlike an eidosconveying static form, is inherently invested in a relation to time. As Auerbach's use of the figure was polemically mobilized in order to undermine the manufactured barbarism of fascist philology in his time, so might the figure in yet other chronotopes direct readership to structures of barbarism, power, or erotic desire, for example, and their material and philosophical lineages in the world.