Religious World of Late Antiquity

Call For Papers: Religious World of Late Antiquity Section will cosponsor four sessions in 2014. For one session, cosponsored with Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism, we invite proposals on “Fun, Games, Laughter and Play in the Religious Worlds of Late Antiquity.” It can be argued that religious ritual is an elaborated form of play, and that many cultural dynamics and art forms gain new meaning when considered as games, in the context of other games. What kinds of entertainments, games and jokes and forms of play were part of the religious expression of people in Late Antiquity? What is the role of “fun” within the structures of religious establishment? Or are fun and play, by their very nature, always transgressive and dangerous to authority? We welcome papers on “frivolous” behaviors and activities that religious authorities complained about in their writings, as well as on the kinds of jokes or entertainments that they, themselves, enjoyed; on surviving games or texts about them as well as visual representations of feasting, frolicking, and comical creatures in the “religious” environment of Late Antiquity. We also welcome methodological explorations of how to identify and discuss “fun” in ancient sources. Please submit copies of a single proposal for this session to both cosponsoring sections. Three additional invited sessions will include: a book review session, cosponsored with Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity, that will consider recent work on religion, power, and urban space in late antiquity; a panel cosponsored with History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism on “Wealth: Theology, Social Vision, and Self-Fashioning from the Bible to Late Antiquity”; and a session cosponsored with the new International Quranic Studies Association, that will highlight recent scholarship exploring the links between the late antique empires, Arabia, and the rise of Islam.

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