Art and Religions of Antiquity
Program Unit Type: Section
Accepting Papers? Yes
Call For Papers: The Magic of the Crafted Image: Statues, Icons, Talismans
[Cosponsored by AAR Religion in Premodern Europe Group]
Papers are invited that consider statuary, figurines, poppets, processional sculpture, astral talismans, iconic/sacred books,as magical agents and/or ritual subjects:in the context of object-agency, ritual performance, and the lives of images. A sizeable theoretical literature has come to regard images not as passive objects of ritual or decorative activity but as agents in a world of vital things. We invite papers that can bring these new frameworks to bear on particular artifacts. Papers should interact with Laurel Kendall’s Mediums and Magical Things: Statues, Paintings, and Masks in Asian Places (Berkeley, 2021).
Passages and Doorways
Inspired by Emilie van Opstall’s recent volume Sacred Thresholds: The Door to the Sanctuary in Late Antiquity (Leiden 2018), we invite papers that address the iconography, epigraphy, and meanings of transition zones and passages in architecture: e.g., windows, doorways, lintels, thresholds, hallways, and approaches in temples, churches, synagogues, and other religious areas. How is a door a ritual object? How is a doorway a frame for theophany? How does writing function at transition points? What sorts of images cluster around entrances?
The Arts of Healing: Images and Crafts
While various crafts serve healing rituals (in the form of votive objects and healing images), iconography preserves both legends and the promise of healing miracles – on walls, icons, relief images, and pilgrims’ eulogiae. How do votive objects and healing iconography effect and sustain a culture of healing? How are different types of healing distinguished through craft and representation? Papers should address the artifacts of healing cults and stories ranging from antiquity to the early medieval/byzantine era, particularly papers that address the context of pandemics.
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