Narrating Power and Authority in Late Antique and Medieval Hagiographies from East to West - 15-16-1
In hagiographies, saints often confront a number of obstacles and it is their conduct in faith that marks them as saints; women and men who stand apart and are presented as exemplars to be modeled. Often, and this is especially the case of martyr acts, the obstacles are of a religiopolitical nature and the focus of the saint’s conduct is her/his defiance. However, there are
instances, especially within the medieval Sufi context, where the relationships between saints and rulers are more nuanced, depicting a symbiotic relationship, where both parties draw upon the authority of the other. There are also those cases in which authority belongs neither to the saint or the king but to ordinary people from across the socio-political and religious spectrum. In recent years, there has been interest in exploring these relationships as depicted in histories, hagiographies, and martyr acts and recent studies have shed light on the concept of sainthood, doctrine, and more generally, the history of various societies. However, the literary aspects of these narratives remain underexplored despite the wealth of information such analyses offer on the socio-cultural and political thought world of various courts and societies across the Indo-Mediterranean world.
This conference takes a diachronic and cross-cultural approach to the study of power and authority from above (courts/saints) and below (saints/ordinary people). We invite papers from
scholars who work on different types of late antique and medieval hagiographical narratives (Lives, Martyr Acts, hagiographical romances) working on Persian, Arabic, Syriac, Georgia.
FECHA/DATE/DATA: 15-16-17/02/2018
LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: Academia Belgica (Rome, Italy)
ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Ghazzal Dabiri
INFO: web - ghazzal.dabiri@ugent.be
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