IMC 2025: 'Emotions and Devotions: Cultivating and Experiencing Feelings in Mystical and Devotional Texts'
We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on any aspect of affective expression in medieval mystical and devotional texts. These papers will compose a series of panels to run at the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 7-10, 2025.
Potential themes could include – but are not limited to – the following:
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Experiencing divine grace/consolation
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Longing for God
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Compassionating Christ’s Passion
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Mystical ecstasies and affective transports
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External perceptions of mystics’ emotionality
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Gendered and racialized dynamics in affective devotion
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‘Inappropriate’ devotional affects: anger, depression, indifference, etc.
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Teaching emotionality in devotional manuals and pastoral texts
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The dynamics of specific religious ‘emotional communities’
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Medieval criticisms of affective devotion
Please send abstracts of no more that 200 words with an accompanying bio to Rowan Wilson (rowan.wilson@univ.ox.ac.uk) and Amanda Langley (a.j.langley@qmul.ac.uk) by September 20, 2024.