Realizing Sacred Spaces in Religions of the Global Middle Ages
This is a call for papers for the 2020 International Congress on Medieval Studies to be held in Kalamazoo, MI (May 7-10, 2020) at Western Michigan University.
All religious traditions organize and define certain physical loci as sacred spaces: for the most part, those areas are considered ‘sacred’ which appear to be liminal places in/on or near which some kind of spiritual transformation occurs, or evident thresholds for believers into alternative realities or altered modalities of being. Religions are able to map out in both the physical and the metaphysical worlds hallowed topographies that can be populated by the customary (souls of the departed) as well as the fantastic (angels, fairies, jinn and other numina).
This session requests papers on any aspect of sacred space (its creation, its meaning, its identity, its population, its power, movements to and from the sacred space) in medieval religions other than Christian since this panel will convene in support of the academy’s turn to the global Middle Ages.
Please note:the format of the session will allow for traditional papers but multi-media/ interactive modalities of presentation are also welcome.
June-Ann Greeley, PhD
Associate Professor, Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies
Sacred Heart University
Fairfield CT 06825