Call for papers for a small symposium in mid April, 2013 at the Monash Centre in Prato to explore continuities and changes in the correspondence between mothers and daughters over this extended period. The conference wish to investigate the ways in which mother-daughter relationships were mediated through correspondence in different periods. Papers are welcome from those interested primarily in the changing possibilities opened up in, and through, letters between mothers and daughters over time. In addition to the letters produced in actual familial relationships, papers discussing the letters between religious and spiritual mothers and daughters are also welcome.

Please send abstracts of about 500 words by 30 June to:

Barbara Caine
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry
University of Sydney
NSW 2006
Australia

Special issue of the Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft

„History does not only take place in time, but also in space“. This statement of the historian Karl Schlögel applies particularly to the history of Christian Mission in the 19th and 20th century. Whereas modern Catholic and Protestant proselytisation was initially very much connected to the European nation states’ colonial expansion of power, it became a subject of far reaching processes of transformation, showing national, ideological, institutional, cultural as well as individual dimensions after the Great War.

„Missionaries of the 19th and the incipient 20th century belonged to the probably most entangled professional group” (Rebekka Habermas). The Catholic missionary orders and Protestant mission societies they were members of, may be regarded as global networks for the exchange of ideas, persons and goods between their European home countries and the non-European territories and societies their missionary endeavour was concentrating on. Thus, not only geographical spaces were connected to each other, additionally new relational and communicative spaces emerged.

The term „missionary spaces“ refers to different physical, social and imagined spaces evolving from transnational, transregional and translocal missionary activities. Due to its interdependencies they are to be considered overlapping and entangled. They include concrete places of encounter and cultural exchange, concurrently serving the globally acting religious communities for internal communication and the transfer of products and perceptions. “Missionary spaces” are affected by hierarchic and hegemonic demands as well as by collective and individual negotiations. Mission periodicals, the home abbey, private correspondences and records, the mission station, a school or social projects, a mission museum or the missionary order itself can be understood in this way.

For a long time, mission history has been a domain of confessional church history and missiology. The planned special edition “Missionary Spaces” intends to present the topic from an interdisciplinary perspective merging current research works from the area of historical, social and cultural sciences and gender studies. In European archives of mission societies and missionary orders as well as in collections in the former mission territories substantial source material is to be found in order to explore missionary interdependencies between Europe and the world, interactions of missionaries and locals, reasons for missionary migration or social discourses and mutual perceptions.

The editors of the ÖZG special edition „Missionary Spaces“ invite to send in proposals for articles adapting debates on concepts, methods and theories or open up new fields of research. Contributions in German and English are accepted. The proposals will be selected by January 2012, the articles of 50.000-80.000 characters are to be handed in until May, 31st 2012.

Abstracts of 6.000-8.000 characters (includ. space characters, annotations and short CV) may be sent to Dr. Martina Gugglberger (Martina.Gugglberger@jku.at) and/or Christine Egger, M.A. (Christine.Egger@gsi.uni-muenchen.de) by November, 15th 2011.

From medieval female spirituality to modern Hindu or Muslim ‘fundamentalisms’, from Buddhist saints and African healers to nineteenth-century muscular Christianity, histories of gender and religion have attracted increasing attention from scholars over the last two decades. This special issue will highlight the rich diversity of ongoing historical work in this field and provide an opportunity to critically reflect upon contemporary theoretical, methodological and historiographical debates and issues within this burgeoning area of gender history.

The term ‘religion’ is both fluid and capacious in its meaning including, inter alia, an intellectual belief system, an interior source of personal motivation or mystical experience, an influential public cultural discourse, a platform for political action, a series of ritual performances or an organisational worship structure. Working with this ‘inclusivist’ notion of religion we are interested in proposals which explore any of these aspects, whether in so-called ‘world’ or ‘major’ religions, or in less well known or large scale areas of religious practice. We have no prescriptive definition of the boundaries between the ‘religious’ and the ‘non-religious’; indeed, the question of how such boundaries have operated, as and when they are thought to have existed, and their shifting and permeable nature is an open one with major implications for the gendered study of histories of religion and secularisation; we warmly welcome proposals dealing with such conceptual themes.

We are particularly interested in producing a multi-faith, multi-disciplinary volume which includes scholarship on a wide range of periods, places, and cultures, and in which anthropological, literary, political, theological or artistic approaches are brought to bear on historical treatments of gender and religion.  We welcome proposals using these approaches or others and also encourage transnational comparative studies and work on premodern and nonwestern cultures. Other issues might include religious affiliation and gender as markers of difference and/or inequity; the primacy or otherwise of gender in religious identity formations; the (re)periodisation of conventional religious narratives and the historical intersections between confessional or denominational loyalties, race, class and sexuality. In summary this special issue of Gender & History will critically examine the significance of gender as a methodological tool in eliciting news ways of reading the spiritual and the secular.

We plan to approach the creation of this volume via a colloquium to be held 17-18 September 2012 at the University of York (UK). Paper proposals (500-750 words maximum) are to be submitted by 31 October 2011 and invitations to present at the colloquium will be issued by January 2012. Papers must be submitted for pre-circulation to the editors by 15 July 2012 as a condition of participation. After the colloquium the editors will select papers for publication, and those accepted for publication will be expected to submit their revised text by 31 December 2012. This will allow the editors to work with authors to produce the final text of the issue by July 2013 for publication in November 2013 (which our UK colleagues will note falls within the REF timetable !!).

Send paper proposals to joanna.degroot@york.ac.uk AND s.morgan@chi.ac.uk by 31 October 2011.

As part of the Biblifram research project on libraries in medieval France, an international conference "Cistercians and the transmission of texts (12th-18th c.)" on the role of Cistercian abbeys and their book collections in the history of text transmission is organized at the Médiathèque du Grand Troyes (22-24 Nov. 2012).

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Liturgy as muse. Religious institutes as protagonists in renewing liturgy, sacred art and music and church material culture (1903-1962). International conference of the European Forum on the History of Religious Institutes in the 19th and 20th Centuries (RELINS-Europe)

At the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), ideas about lay participation in the Church and the ‘popularization’ of the service were definitively elevated to norms. The origins and implementation of this aspect of the Council’s decision have already been studied extensively by historians. By contrast, the tendencies towards reforming the service and Church material culture already apparent in the first half of the 20th century have received little attention. In these first few decades, debates were already taking place in church circles about reforming church music, church buildings, the stained-glass windows, church interiors and liturgical ornaments. Driving this call for change was the Liturgical Movement. Born in monastic circles in the second half of the 19th century as a reawakening to the liturgy, it came to full bloom in the 20th century. The Liturgical Movement strove for restoration of the liturgy and greater participation by the congregation in the service.

In the early 20th century Pius X gave papal legitimacy to the growing concern for the liturgy, sacred art and church material culture. In his motu propio Tra le Sollecitudini, he referred to the importance of "the decorum of the House of God in which the august mysteries of religion are celebrated, and where the Christian people assemble to receive the grace of the Sacraments, to assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, to adore the most august Sacrament of the Lord's Body and to unite in the common prayer of the Church in the public and solemn liturgical offices". Later in his pontificate (1903-1914) as well, he continued to promote liturgy and the sacred and solemn character of divine worship as pillars of Catholic religious life. At the same time, he also continued the Church’s turnabout, begun by his predecessor, towards the people. These two policy lines constituted an important element of his battle against modernity. He considered the ensemble of church architecture, sacred art and liturgy as a sacred 'gesamtkunstwerk' and a buffer against the rational and ascetic ideas of the Enlightenment and dissident schools of thought within the Church.

Although some significant impetus to developments in liturgy, sacred art and material culture may have come from Rome, the religious institutes were at the very beginning of these innovative currents. The Liturgical Movement was strongly anchored in the monastic milieu. It was the Benedictines who took the lead in the debate about liturgical renewal and lay participation in many countries including France (Solesmes), Germany (Beuron, Maria-Laach), Spain (Montserrat, Silos), the Netherlands (Oosterhout) and Belgium. Belgium became an important centre of the Liturgical Movement in the 20th century, centred in the Benedictine abbeys of Maredsous, Keizersberg and Zevenkerken, and for many years personified by the figures of Dom Lambert Beauduin (1873-1960) and Dom Gaspar Lefebvre (1880-1966).

Possibly as a direct consequence of their participation in the Liturgical Movement, religious institutes also profiled themselves in changing church art and material culture. In many of the countries mentioned above, the Benedictines translated their urge to renew the liturgy into outspoken ideas about church architecture, sacred art and music. Monks from the abbeys of Maria-Laach, Zevenkerken, Maredsous and elsewhere promoted a church architecture and spatial organization that did full justice to the reinstated liturgy and the turn to the congregation, through their own artist studios, teaching posts and magazines. Other religious were also active in this area. The progressive French Dominicans and their journal l’Art Sacré may be the best known of them, but other monastics (including Franciscans, Capuchins, Norbertines, Jesuits and Carmelites) were also involved as artists, promoters or opinion makers in the innovations in religious art in the decades preceding Vatican II.

The intended focus of the 2012 Relins conference is the role – to which still too little attention has been paid – played by religious and religious institutes in the reform and renewal of religious art and the material culture of church architecture and of worship between 1903 and 1962, along three main themes.

1. Religious Institutes and national/international networks

The first aim is to get a better view of the religious institutes in Europe that were important in this area. Was there only interest from the ‘traditional’ orders or did the new institutes founded in the 19th century contribute as well? In which national and/or international networks were the religious institutes involved? Was the interest in renewing liturgy and church art grounded in certain religious traditions and/or outspoken (anti-modern) ideas?

2. Motives, ideas and significance of the religious protagonists

Secondly, the conference wishes to devote some attention to the individual religious protagonists, their ideas and how these ideas and concepts evolved throughout the years. Was the renewal of liturgy, sacred art and material culture purely a matter for men, or could female religious also profile themselves in this area? In what forms of art or craftsmanship or other aspects of material church culture did monastics have a defining impact? What were the motivations and the underlying ideas of those involved, and how did their ideas evolve during the period in question? How intense and decisive was the cross-fertilization with Catholic theology? Did the prevailing anti-modern discourse allow any room for interaction with the modern world and the contemporary art?

3. Conflicts and public perception

How important was the impact of the Vatican policymakers? Ultimately, some protagonists from the Liturgical Movement and the renewal of religious art and material culture clashed with the authorities in Rome. How were the ‘reformers’ perceived within their own religious institutes, by church authorities and lastly, by the outside world?

All these questions and themes will be discussed at the 2012  RELINS-Europe conference. RELINS-Europe (www.relins.eu) is an international forum that aims to foster international, comparative research on religious institutes in (Western) Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Previous conferences were organized in 2001 (Rome – Historiography of Religious Institutes), 2002 (Vallendar – Legal Position of Religious Institutes),  2004 (Rome – Religious Institutes and the Roman Factor), 2005 (Fribourg – Religious Institutes and Catholic Culture), 2006 (Rome – Missiology, Science and Modernity), 2008 (Leuven – Patrimony, Business and Management of Religious Institutes) and 2009 (Ravenstein – Educating a Catholic Elite).

The conference is scheduled to take place in Leuven (Belgium) on 8 and 9 November 2012 and will be hosted by KADOC-KULeuven. Proposals for papers (max. 500 words, including a title), together with a curriculum vitae and a list of publications, should be addressed to Kristien Suenens before March 1st 2012. Replies will follow no later than May 1st 2012.

Cities & Societies in Comparative Perspective

The conference sessions include topics that might interest historians of European religious institutes, such as The Evolution of Medical Provision in European Cities, from the Middle Ages to the Early Nineteenth Century (M9) and Les villes et les ordres militaires (S5).

Deadline for paper proposals submission: 1 October 2011

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La mission au cinéma

Appel à contribution pour le prochain colloque du Centre de recherche européen sur la diffusion et l'inculturation du christianisme (CREDIC), "Films missionnaires, missionnaires dans le cinéma : la mission au cinéma".

Call for Papers

International Nursing History Conference in Denmark

The Danish Society of Nursing History and the Danish Museum of Nursing History are pleased to invite scholars from all over the world to an international conference on the History of Nursing August 9 - 11, 2012. The conference is run jointly by the Danish Society of Nursing History and the Danish Museum of Nursing History and it is affiliated to academia by the Southern University of Denmark and the UC Danish Deaconess Foundation.

The conference will take place over three days from 9 - 11 August 2012 and will comprise plenary sessions and concurrent sessions. Keynote speakers include Professor Anne Marie Rafferty, Kings College London, England, Professor Christine Hallett, University of Manchester, England and Associate Professor Susanne Kreutzer, University of Osnabruck, Germany.

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This conference seeks to explore and re-evaluate medieval men’s relationship with religion, both professed religious men and laymen of any faith. Despite their centrality to ‘traditional’ histories of the Middle Ages, many aspects of the lives and representation of medieval men remain relatively unexplored. Only recently have scholars begun to consider what religion, belief and devotion meant to men as men and how these informed and intersected with other aspects of their identity (social status, gender, occupation, ethnicity, age, location, etc). We invite papers which consider the experiences, self-perception or depiction of individuals or groups from any faith, religious tradition, monotheistic, pagan, or heretical, or could focus on men who rejected faith and religion altogether. We encourage proposals from scholars working in any relevant field: history, literature and language, art history, musicology, archaeology, etc, and from any Medieval period (c. 500 – early 1500s) or geographical setting. We hope to publish a volume of essays based on a selection of the papers delivered at the conference.

Please email brief abstracts to Conference.presentations07@hud.ac.uk before 30 September 2011.

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H-WRBI Conference 2012

The History of Women Religious in Britain and Ireland Annual Conference will be hosted by the School of Education, University College Dublin, on 21-22 June, 2012.

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Colloque international organisé par Florence Rochefort, CNRS/GSRL [EPHE/CNRS] et Maria-Eleonora Sanna, Post-doc. GSRL [EPHE/CNRS]

Malgré l’importance reconnue des religions pour les questions de genre et la centralité du genre au sein des univers religieux, le champ de recherche qui croise Genre, religions et sociétés est encore largement à explorer. Pour confronter les recherches en cours et promouvoir cette problématique, le GSRL (Groupe Sociétés Religions Laïcités EPHE/CNRS) propose d’aborder la question des normes religieuses à l’épreuve des mutations de genre.
Les communications porteront sur trois thématiques :
1. Changements religieux internes
2. Religions, genre et sexualités
3. Genre et enjeux politico-religieux

Les propositions de communication sont à envoyer au plus tard le 1er octobre 2011 à :
R-Danielle Breseghello: r-danielle.breseghello@gsrl.cnrs.fr. Elles seront accompagnées d’une courte présentation des communiquant-e-s et de leur bibliographie.

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Glasgow, Scotland (UK)

Call for Papers for the European Social Science History Conference 2012 (ESSHC)

The European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC)12ESSHC stimulates dialogue between human sciences and is characterized by a lively exchange in many small groups, rather than by formal plenary sessions. The conference welcomes papers and sessions on any historical topic and any historical period. It is organized in 28 networks, which cover a certain topic, on of these being Religion.
In our network Religion we want to create crossovers and exchanges that cut through traditional divisions between disciplines, denominations, periods and regions. Hence we call upon you to formulate proposals for sessions, papers or themes that can deal with any historical era and any religious expression or denomination, inviting others to join. Please, do not hesitate to formulate bold proposals, and do not hold back from suggesting ‘incomplete’ sessions of only two presentations. We will help you to find suitable participants. Just to help you to formulate your thoughts but without any intention of limitation we would particularly welcome paper and session proposals on:

• Effects of globalization on religious identities;
• Cultures of mission; contemporary proselytizing
• Religion in ethnically mixed areas
• Religions as source of conflict or appeasement, war or peace (incl. the role of religions in and after wars)
• Religion and modernity
• Mysticism
• Secularization and re-enchantment
• Secularism as religion
• Religion and migration; Religious interactions with, between and within migrant communities
• Gender and religion
• Cultures of martyrdom
• Religion and material culture
• Religion and non-textual evidence: viewing, listening, touching and performing
• Ascetiscm, food cultures,
• ‘Secular spiritual’ practices: yoga, meditation, healing, food cultures (Ayurveda),
• Papers on methodological, conceptual and theoretical issues.

Apart from discussion sessions we intend to organize some sessions in a different format, around recently published major publications (‘meet the author’) or topical questions, e.g. on the ‘religious’ perspectives of Europe and its boundaries. Suggestions are most welcome.
The final deadline for paper and session proposals is 1 May 2011
but please send your proposals first to the network chairs preferably by 28 February 2011. We both will also be most happy to respond to any of your queries.

• Silvia Evangelisti (s.evangelisti@uea.ac.uk) and
• Patrick Pasture (Patrick.Pasture@arts.kuleuven.be)

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Spring Meeting of Women’s History Network

The topic is deliberately broad to encourage a wide range of papers and participants interested in the history of women’s health and welfare. In resonance with the CHR’s (Centre for theHistorical Record) remit to promote public history, the conference seeks to identify themes from history which resonate with women’s experiences of health and welfare today, and can inform policy makers. Proposals for papers are invited that relate to women either as receivers or providers of health and welfare, in any time period. We are particularly interested in papers which discuss these twin themes in women’s history in the context of public history, which may include a discussion of available archival sources and records. Conference themes might include but are not limited to:

Women and Health
Physical health – different understandings of ‘illness’ and the medicalisation of women’s bodies. Mental health - changing ideas about treatment and perceptions of women’s relationship with their inner selves. Sexuality and medical discourse.
Women and Welfare
The impact of welfare policy on women; The impact of women on welfare policy; Women as consumers of welfare.
Public History
How can women’s history direct or inform modern media debates in matters relating to women’s health and welfare? How can women’s history help inform current policy on women’s health and welfare? How well is women’s health represented in archives; and discussions on accessibility to relevant records?

Please send a proposal of 250 words and a short biographical note to Sue Hawkins (s.e.hawkins@kingston.ac.uk) or Nicola Phillips (n.phillips@kingston.ac.uk).

The deadline for the submission of proposals is 16 January, 2012.

Université Paris-1 Panthéon Sorbonne (Cemaf et Centre d’Histoire du XIXe siècle), Ecole Normale Supérieure, Lyon (LARHRA), New York University (Paris)

For decades, colonizing was perceived and analysed as a masculine undertaking. This is probably why historians of colonisation (and decolonisation) – who themselves were mostly men – paid little attention to the study of women, of gender relations, or of how gender identities and sexualities were constructed in colonial contexts.

Women were seen as negligible actors in colonial wars (both during or after the conquest), even though they were important actors within and victims of such conflicts. Moreover, as primary agents of the European “civilising mission”, whose alleged principles were to “educate, cure, moralise and convert”, women – both colonisers and the colonized – took part in the process of national assertion and of colonial domination. Last but not least, the colonial process created – and was constantly reshaped by – tensions as well as new forms of racial or social hierarchies and gender roles. Thus, the “colonial making of gender” proved to be a powerful vector of social transformation, both in metropoles and in colonies, as recent stimulating historical research has demonstrated.

The International conference on “Women and Gender in Colonial Contexts” seeks to assess the current state of historical research on this subject in a longue durée perspective, i.-e. from the late 18th-early 19th centuries to the decolonisations of Asia, Africa, and the South Sea Islands (second half of the 20th century). Participants are welcome to present research focusing on specific colonial contexts, both in terms of time and space. At the same time, studies of women’s experiences or of gender construction through a comparative perspective – between colonies or Empires – is strongly encouraged, as it will allow a better understanding of local versus global situations.

The Conference will also offer a significant opportunity to explore new sources, new approaches and new historiographical trends (notably through the combination of various epistemological tendencies such as micro-history, social history, subaltern studies, post-colonial studies or gender studies), in order to show the vitality of this field of research.

The organisers encourage scholars to submit papers that investigate, within the framework drawn up by the Conference title, relevant aspects of the following : politics and policies, work, religion, education, health, family, mobilities, sexualities, body/bodies, war, slavery, violence, masculinities…

Proposals in French or English (300 words) should be sent by May 31st, 2010, to: christelle.taraud@wanadoo.fr. Please attach a short CV stating your institutional affiliation.

Missions en Afrique (XVIe – XXIe siècles)

Initialement prévu par Henri Médard et Hervé Pennec, nous reprenons ce projet d’anthologie des éditions Brepols. Nous gardons l’esprit général rappelé par Chantal Paisant (août 2009) : « Le principe de la collection est de sélectionner des témoignages de missionnaires inédits ou difficiles d'accès, à l'intention d'un public d'étudiants et d'amateurs éclairés. Le directeur de l'ouvrage travaille en lien avec une équipe de contributeurs chargés de construire chacun un chapitre ou deux, de les introduire, de sélectionner et d'établir les textes, de les annoter. Le directeur fait une présentation générale. » Les volumes concernant les autres continents que l’Afrique ont déjà été publiés. Il faut donc réaliser ce dernier tome qui englobera toute l’Afrique, au gré des contributions : francophone ou non (mais si les textes sont dans une autre langue, il faut que celui qui les a choisis puisse fournir une traduction), l'Afrique du Nord comme subsaharienne, protestante comme catholique. Il s’agit de réunir des documents écrits et/ou iconographiques relatifs à la vie des religieux en terre de mission pour permettre à des spécialistes d’aires géographiques différentes de mettre en commun une documentation peu connue, mais plus encore inédite, qui n’a jamais fait l’objet d’une vraie publication. L’essentiel se trouve donc dans les fonds d’archives consultés par des chercheurs ou des étudiants. D’un point de vue chronologique, l’intention est de réunir une documentation sur la longue durée, du XVIe siècle à maintenant, sachant qu’à partir des années 1950 on est réduit à publier de la correspondance ou des documents personnels, des fonds privés en raison des conditions d’accès aux archives. Tout type de document est bienvenu : correspondances, journaux personnels, rapports, récits de voyages, dessins, photographies mais aussi entretiens recueillis auprès d’acteurs.

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Modern architecture for the Roman Catholic Church in the twentieth century could be experimental, transgressive or progressive, comforting or shocking; sometimes it appeared within a culture of intense theoretical and theological dialogue between architects and clergy, and sometimes it challenged orthodoxy and innovated at the fringes of the Church’s complex structure. At various significant moments, modern architecture was either repressed and quenched, or welcomed and widely adopted. Architects could be concerned with the symbolic potential of modern architecture to evoke newly emphasised ideas in theology. In church architecture throughout the twentieth century, the liturgy was a central focus of development, as space and ritual were intimately connected. Monastic life was subject to modern interpretations of ancient ideals. Mission stations far from Rome might echo modern architecture’s development of a ‘critical regionalism’. Conventionally, the Second Vatican Council has been seen as a pivotal moment in the shift towards a modern form of church space, but increasingly scholarship is revealing the Council to have been only one marker of broader trends. More recently, architects have sought continuity and reattachment to the past instead of innovation. This symposium seeks to present new research on specific manifestations of these larger historical currents.

Paper proposals might address the following themes:

• Church architecture and liturgy, at any point in the twentieth century
• The effects of patronage on architectural production
• Catholic theology, soteriology and eschatology and architecture
• Approaches to the past in twentieth-century Catholic architecture
• New materials and building techniques and their effects on Catholic space
• New spatial forms of pilgrimage, monasticism, or popular devotion
• Symbolism and modern art in Catholic architecture
• Politics, identity, nationality and ethnicity in Church buildings
• Architecture and ecumenical engagement.

Keynote speaker: Prof. Richard Keickhefer, Northwestern University

Proposals for papers of around 15-20 minutes, should be a maximum of 300 words, accompanied by a one or two page CV (to include full contact details and a list of any relevant publications or projects).

Deadline for receipt of proposals: 21 April 2011
Deadline for decision and advice on proposals: 10 June 2011
Symposium dates: 9 and/or 10 December 2011

Venue: Mount Street Jesuit Centre, London Please send proposal and CV as a single MS Word or PDF file by email only to : catholicspace@ntu.ac.uk

The Symposium organisers are: Raymond Quek (Architecture, Nottingham Trent University), and Robert Proctor (Mackintosh School of Architecture, University of Glasgow).

How to Study Knowledge Exchanges in a Historical, Transnational Perspective

[22-23 September, 2011 – Bergen (Norway)]

The deaconess movement, professional nursing, Christian missions and early forms of ideas of humanitarianism were all central in the transnational history of knowledge production. This call for papers invites contributions that investigate international knowledge exchanges related to these fields and how ideas, knowledge and processes have travelled across geographical, cultural and political borders in the last two hundred years. How did the various interpretations of, for example professional nursing, translate around the globe? We want to explore in what ways knowledge is produced, communicated, received, translated and adapted by all parties involved in its movement. A central question is how to grasp the relationship between national and international developments.

The aim is to understand the manifold and multidirectional movements of influence and ideas transmitted, not only through individual actors` experiences, but also through transnational circulation of ideas and sources of influence. We welcome papers that utilize methodologies that pay close attention to the Western as well as the non-Western world as reference and comparison while studying inter-crossings and transfers of knowledge. The contributor`s own research should generate a basis for methodological reflections.

The conference will take place at the University of Bergen, Norway, September 22-23, 2011. In accepting papers, the organizers will cover travel and accommodation expenses. The contributions will be published if approved by external referees.

The conference is part of the project ‘Methodological approaches to international idea- and knowledge exchange’ at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion (AHKR), University of Bergen. It is funded by the Norwegian Research Council 2010-13. The project arranges three workshops; the other two deals with knowledge-transfer in economic, semi-economic and non-economic organizations and knowledge transfer via informal networks.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words must be submitted by February 20, 2011 to Inger.Marie.Okkenhaug@hivolda.no

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Aspasia, vol. 7 : International Yearbook of Central, Eastern and Southeastern European Women’s and Gender History

In the past two decades, many societies in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe have experienced an increase in the writing, publication, and scholarly analysis of autobiographical works by women. But these works have not been available to a broad international audience. Volume 7 of Aspasia will focus on the autobiographical writings of women in CESEE, including their diaries, memoirs and correspondence. We seek original research based on such sources, analyzed in the context of the social, political and cultural histories of the region. We particularly encourage reflection on methodological and comparative issues. What barriers and incentives have women faced in recording their stories ? How have these changed over time ? Which women were able to write such texts, and how or where have their texts or correspondence been preserved ? How have political realities affected the shape and reliability of women’s self- representations ? How do women’s autobiographical writings compare across cultures, across time, and across different historical contexts ?

In addition to the specific theme of women’s autobiographical writings, we welcome submissions about all topics related to women’s and gender history in CESEE on an on-going basis.

Submissions of up to 8,000 words (including notes) can be sent to Melissa Feinberg (Acting Editor-in-Chief for Aspasia 7) at mfeinberg@history.rutgers.edu or to Francisca de Haan at dehaanf@ceu.hu.

For more information, please write to one of the editors or visit http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/asp/, where you can also download the Aspasia Guidelines for Authors.

Project and HWRBI – Consecrated Women: Identities, organisations and exile

Day 1 and the morning of day 2 will focus on invited papers related to the ‘Who were the Nuns? Project’.The remainder of the conference will be organised by the History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland (H-WRBI) who invite both individual and panel proposals on the themes of identities, organisations and exile. Proposals from postgraduate students are particularly welcomed. H-WRBI encourages papers on consecrated women from all historical periods and from different religious traditions.

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Special Issue of Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, edited by Anna Battigelli and Laura M. Stevens

This special issue of Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature will focus on English Catholic women’s imaginative work as it was inflected by Catholicism or through self-identification with a Catholic minority culture during the long eighteenth century. Most of the essays will concentrate on women writers, but proposals for essays on other forms of women’s imaginative work, particularly the visual and domestic arts, are welcome. All essays should be informed by the rich repository of recent work in early modern Catholic studies. Articles on eighteenth-century Catholic women from the British Isles, including exiled English women working abroad or in the colonies, are sought exploring topics including, though not limited to, the following:

1. the strategies English Catholic women used to express, promote, or protect their faith
2. the intersections of gender and faith, particularly in the face of anti-Catholic polemic equating all Catholics with women or with the feminine
3. women’s education
4. the role of religious houses or religious orders within literary texts or as sites of literary or artistic production
5. the reciprocal influence of Anglo-Catholic culture and Gothic literature
6. Catholic women’s political engagement as Torries or Jacobites
7. their literary, artistic, or political responses to the Catholicism of the Restoration Court, the Stuart kings, the Revolution of 1688, the Whig ascendancy, or Catholic emancipation
8. their representation of English national history or English national identity
9. their participation in the minority press.

Articles should not exceed 25 pages (6250 words) and should conform to the 15th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. All submissions should be in Microsoft Word. Initial queries and abstracts are encouraged, though final acceptance will be determined by the completed essay. Please send abstracts by June 1, 2011 and final submissions via e-mail by September 1, 2011 to both: Anna Battigelli (SUNY, Plattsburgh), a.battigelli@att.net AND Laura M. Stevens (editor, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, University of Tulsa), laura-stevens@utulsa.edu.

Over the past fifty years, nursing history has moved from studies with an institutional and biographical emphasis to those with more complex and critical evaluations of nursing practice. Following these developments, the theme of this conference is conflicts in nursing history. This can include difficulties between nurses and patients, clashes between nurses and doctors, conflicts between the nurses and hospital administrations and tensions between nurses. This conference will bring together scholars of nursing history from English and German speaking countries and aims to create a form for the development of comparative perspectives. The conference is organized by the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart and in cooperation with the Berlin Medical Historical Museum.

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Le Centre d’histoire des sociétés, des sciences et des conflits de l’Université de Picardie – Jules Verne, en collaboration avec le Centre de recherche en histoire atlantique et littorale de l’Université du Littoral (CRHAEL-HLLI), organise à Amiens les 27 et 28 janvier 2011 un colloque sur le thème de Guerre et clergés aux époques moderne et contemporaine.

Appel à Communications

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Congolese independence and the 125th anniversary of the Congo Free State, KADOC, KULeuven’s Centre for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society, will organize a major international conference in order to take a fresh look at religion, colonization and decolonization in the Congo between 1885 and 1960.
Proposals for contributions should address one of the following four themes: religions and the colonial state, religions in colonial African society, religions in metropolitan Western society, religions and Independence.

The conference is scheduled to take place in Leuven from 8 to 10 November 2010. The conference languages will be English and French. Proposals for papers (min. 500 to max. 1000 words, including a draft structure) should be addressed to Vincent Viaene before 31 March 2010. Replies will follow no later than 30 April. The proceedings of the conference will, subject to peer review, be published by Leuven University Press in the series KADOC-Studies on Religion, Culture and Society.

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Royal Holloway University of London

This one-day research symposium will explore the relationship between residential institutions and living practices in Britain between 1700 and 1950. Residential institutions, whether for temporary or permanent habitation, inevitably hosted everyday living practices. This cross-disciplinary research day will explore the intentions, practices and material cultures of institutional everyday life. Although often designed to remove inmates from the family home, the semi-public world of the institution overlapped and collided with the (so-called) private sphere of the home in a number of ways.  The symposium will explore how domestic paradigms were adopted, transformed and sometimes rejected. In addition to considering the intentions of authorities we wish to explore how institutions were inhabited by their residents, including staff and both voluntary and involuntary inhabitants. This includes how residents experienced institutional living, but also the extent to which they were able to exercise agency in influencing spatial and material provision to accommodate their own needs and desires. We hope to consider how inhabitant experiences differed according to class, gender, age and religious grouping, and the extent to which institutions could provide continuity or security for transient groups. We welcome papers on all types of institution including asylums, prisons, workhouses, hospitals and schools, religious or charitable institutions, clubs, military barracks or quarters, and organizations such as the commercial, municipal and charitable lodging house, which might be considered on the boundaries of institutional life.

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Annual conference of the History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland (H-WRBI), in cooperation with KADOC-KULeuven.

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The next European Social Science History conference will take place at the beautiful Bijloke Site in Ghent, Belgium.

During the 2008 ESHCC in Lisbon the Religion network took a thrilling new start, with no less than 13 sessions organized within the network, several of which in co-operation with other networks, involving more than 60 scholars from around the world. They engaged in particularly lively discussions, and many papers are in the process of being published. We want to pursue in that direction, creating crossovers and exchanges that cut trough traditional divisions between disciplines, denominations, periods and regions.

Hence we call upon you to formulate proposals for sessions, papers or themes that can deal with any historical era and any religious expression or denomination, inviting others to join. Please, do not hesitate to formulate bold proposals, and do not hold back from suggesting ‘incomplete’ sessions of only two presentations. We will help you to find suitable participants. Just to help you to formulate your thoughts but without any intention of limitation we would particularly welcomes paper and session proposals on:
- Religion and modernity
- Gender and religion: beyond the ‘Feminization Thesis’
- Religions in comparative perspective
- Effects of globalization on European religious identities
- Religion in ethnically mixed areas
- Cultures of martyrdom
- Religious interactions with, between and within migrant communities
- Secularism as religion
- Religion and material culture
- Religion and non-textual evidence: viewing, listening, touching and performing
- Papers on methodological, conceptual and theoretical issues.

Apart from discussion sessions we intend to organize some sessions in a different format, around recently published major publications (‘meet the author’) or topical questions, e.g. on the ‘religious’ perspectives of Europe and its boundaries. Suggestions are most welcome.

For more information on the ESSHC see http://www.iisg.nl/esshc/. The final deadline for paper and session proposals is 1 May 2009, but please send your proposals first to the network chairs Silvia Evangelisti (s.evangelisti@uea.ac.uk) and Patrick Pasture (Patrick.Pasture@arts.kuleuven.be), preferably by February 28. We both will also be most happy to respond to any of your queries.

An der Philosophisch-Theologischen Hochschule der Pallottiner in Vallendar.

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A conference celebrating the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Franciscan movement

Presented by the Yarra Theological Union, Melbourne College of Divinity and the Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology, Monash University.

Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) is perhaps the most charismatic saint of Christian tradition. In 1209, Francis first gathered a group of followers around him, to live a life committed the Gospel and evangelical poverty. Not only did he establish in 1209 a community of friars minor or 'little brothers', but he also attracted the attention of Clare of Assisi (1194-1253), daughter of a prominent noble family. In 1212, Clare escaped from a marriage planned by her parents, to join Francis and the community that he sought to establish. This conference explores the many different ways in which both women and men have sought to interpret the message of Francis of Assisi, within a society marked by diversity of interpretations of religious life, within and outside of Christianity. Papers are invited that will relating to Francis and the Franciscan movement to a multi-religious environment within history, culture, art, music and literature, whether in Europe, Asia and the New World, or Australasia.

Call for Papers

Those interested in submitting a paper should contact constant.mews@arts.monash.edu.au as soon as possible, sending an abstract (around 200-300 words) no later than Friday 22 May 2009. Notification of acceptance of proposals will be by Tuesday 2 June 2009.

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Venue: BAR CONVENT, YORK, England

The Historians of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland (H-WRBI) invite both individual and panel proposals on the history of women religious of Britain and Ireland. The conference organisers hope to present a wide range of approaches to the history of women religious of Britain and Ireland. The overarching theme of the conference is Crossing Boundaries.  Papers are invited for the following conference strands:

1. Internationalism
2. Gendered spaces
3. The specificity of place
4. Relationships between the centre and peripheries

Abstracts of not more than 300 words are requested and proposals from postgraduate students are particularly welcomed. H-WRBI encourages papers on consecrated women from all historical periods (medieval, early modern and modern) and from different religious traditions within the history of Britain and Ireland.
Please send all proposals to Dr Caroline Bowden c.bowden@qmul.ac.uk
Or Dr Carmen Mangion c.mangion@history.bbk.ac.uk
Deadline for proposals: 28 February 2009

Programme and booking forms will be found on our website shortly after this date
http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Bedford-Centre/history-women-religious/ 

For those of you who are intending on attending the H-WRBI conference on 18-19 September 2009 and wish to stay at the Bar Convent guesthouse, it is best to book as early as possible (before Christmas if possible) as the guesthouse is popular.  There are eighteen guest bedrooms situated on three floors that cater for a maximum of 30 guests - 9 single, 4 twin, 1 Double & 1 family room, plus 1 Double, 1 triple & 1 twin en suite. Each room has its own hand-basin, towels, liquid soap, tissues & hairdryer.  More information is on the website:  http://www.bar-convent.org.uk/guest_rooms.htm Bookings for guesthouse accommodation will be done individually with the Bar Convent.  Please contact the convent at 01904 464902 from 9am to 5pm.

Please contact the York Visitor Information Centre http://www.visityork.org/information/tourist-information.asp for alternate accommodation.

CREDIC - Centre de recherche européen sur la diffusion et l’inculturation du christianisme

Lieu : Maison Notre-Dame du Chant d’oiseau, Bruxelles.
Voir site Web

Les propositions de communication sont à envoyer à Olivier SERVAIS (olivier.servais@uclouvain.be)
et Caroline SAPPIA (caroline.sappia@uclouvain.be) pour le 15 mars 2009.
Texte de entre 1500 et 2000 caractères, espaces compris.

Plus d'information.

Het Historisch Onderzoeksnetwerk Religieuze Instituten in België organiseert op vrijdag 24 april 2009 een tweede studiedag in Leuven rond het thema Identiteit(en) en Religieuze Instituten.

Graag willen we de studiedag afsluiten met de voorstelling van lopend onderzoek over de geschiedenis (in ruime zin geïnterpreteerd) van religieuze instituten in België.

Wie een onderzoeksproject wenst voor te stellen (maximum 15 minuten), kan een korte abstract van tien regels doormailen naar Patricia.Quaghebeur@kadoc.kuleuven.be tegen 1 februari 2009.

Le 24 avril 2009, le Réseau de Recherches Historiques des Instituts Religieux en Belgique organise une deuxième journée d'étude à Leuven sur le thème Identité(s) et Instituts Religieux.

Nous voulons clôturer la journée avec la présentation de recherche en cours sur l’histoire (au sens large) des instituts religieux en Belgique.
Ceux qui veulent présenter une recherche en cours, sont priés d’envoyer un résumé de dix lignes à Patricia.Quaghebeur@kadoc.kuleuven.be avant le 1 février 2009.

Religious institutes, Catholicism, and gender in Catholic secondary education in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth century

International workshop of the European Forum on the History of Religious Institutes in the 19th and 20th Centuries (RELINS-Europe)
Study Centre Soeterbeeck, Ravenstein, the Netherlands, 5-7 February 2009

In the nineteenth century religious orders and congregations set to work in education on an unprecedented scale. Self-assured, they set about creating a Catholic intellectual elite, which they tried to imbue with their own religious beliefs, social views, and gender concepts.  For many decades they were very successful in this field, both quantitatively and qualitatively, turning out a crop of well-educated Catholic men and women every year. Not until after the Second World War did they feel the need to change their educational strategy. The RELINS-workshop offers a forum to explore their endeavours from three perspectives:

• Strategies and problems of Catholic elite formation
• Faith and knowledge in Catholic secondary education
• Gender in Catholic secondary education

All proposals for contributions to the RELINS-workshop will be judged by their pertinence to one or several of these aspects.

Call for Papers

Proposals of at least 500 words in French or English can be submitted before 15 October 2008 to ms. Patricia Quaghebeur, KADOC, Vlamingenstraat 39, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium; ++32 16 323503; patricia.quaghebeur@kadoc.kuleuven.ac.be

The organization of the RELINS-workshop 2009 is in the hands of the Dutch participants of RELINS-Europe: Stichting Echo (Echo Foundation) and the research group History of Dutch Catholicism, History Department at the Radboud University Nijmegen. Proposals will be evaluated by the board of RELINS-Europe and the Dutch participants. The programme will be determined in October. The RELINS-workshop will take place from 5-7 February 2009 at Study Centre Soeterbeeck, Ravenstein, the Netherlands. The proceedings of the workshop will be published.

More information:
For more information, please contact Patricia Quaghebeur (KADOC, Leuven, patricia.quaghebeur@kadoc.kuleuven.ac.be), Joos van Vugt (Echo Foundation, j.v.vugt@soeterbeeck.ru.nl), or Marieke Smulders (research group History of Dutch Catholicism, Radboud University Nijmegen, m.smulders@let.ru.nl).

Leuven

Interest in the economic aspects of religious institutes among historians of the modern period is growing. In 2004 the European Forum for the Research on Religious Institutes in Europe called for more research on Catholic orders and congregations from an economic point of view, provocatively speaking of ‘religious business companies’. The possible tension and interaction between aspects of the religious life and temporal issues form an important backdrop for the discussion of the theme. This workshop wishes to focus on the economic history of Catholic orders and congregations during the period from the French Revolution to the First World War. The diverse world of orders and congregations offers perspectives for comparisons. Proposals that address this issue from the following historical perspectives will be considered.

Practical information
Proposals for papers (max. 300 words) should be addressed by e-mail to Maarten Van Dijck by 15 March 2008.
The deadline for the proposals is extended to 15 March 2008. Papers from central Europe and Italy are welcomed in particular, but proposals dealing with other regions will also be considered.

Contact: Maarten Van Dijck

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Although revisionist gender history has raised doubts about the novelty and relevance of the concept of ‘separate spheres’, ‘domesticity’ appears as a powerful ideal propagated widely, and particularly by Christians, throughout the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century religious practice indeed apparently more and more moved into the private world of the family, creating the archetypical image of the mother as ‘angel in the house’, particularly among the (new) middle class. One should question though to which extend this model was propagated and imitated among rural and working classes, or if these did not develop different, even opposing models and practices. Recent historical research tries to reintroduce men into the domestic sphere and pays attention to the patriarchal domesticity and its pious responsibilities. Nevertheless, not all families were ‘households of faith’: particularly among farmers and the working class the ideal of domestic piety only slowly manifested itself. Religion could also function as a demarcation line between the male and female members (e.g. France). Hence this workshop will assess the multiple ways in which men and women organised their religious life in the domestic sphere in different social, national (regional) and confessional contexts. Papers may address the private expressions of faith of women and/ or men at home, the home religious education, the role of reading (incl. children’s literature) in the construction of gendered religious identities, investigate the architecture and design of the home as well as the interactions of the home with the outer (public?) world, via transgressions of home boundaries (such as the role of visitors, lay and religious; of the doorstep as the boundary allowing transgression and negotiation; gossiping) and the impact of home culture on the public sphere. Also papers that deal with the representations of the home in public discourse or that question the chronology and validity of the formulation and reality of the domestic ideal are welcome. Geographically the focus is on Europe, though for the sake of comparison papers on North America will also be considered.

Proposals for papers (max. 300 words) should be addressed by e-mail to Prof. Dr. Patrick Pasture by 15 August 2007 (extended deadline). The organisers will make a selection of proposals. Anyone who submitted a proposal will be informed by 15 September 2007. After reviewing the papers will be published.

This workshop is the second of two workshops organised in the framework of a research project of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO). The organising committee consists of Prof. dr. Jan Art (University of Ghent), Thomas Buerman (University of Ghent), Prof. dr. Jan De Maeyer (Kadoc, KU Leuven), Prof. dr. Patrick Pasture (spokesperson), Prof. dr. Leen Van Molle, Tine Van Osselaer and Prof. dr. Vincent Viaene (MoSa, KU Leuven).

Venue: University of Leuven (Belgium) 4-5 September 2008

Prof. dr. Patrick Pasture
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
MoSa - Modernity & Society 1800-2000
Blijde Inkomststraat 21, box 3307
B-3000 Leuven
Belgium
Phone: +32 16 32 49 73
Fax: +32 16 32 49 93
Email: patrick.pasture@arts.kuleuven.be

Free University of Brussels (VUB).

According to French republican deputy and campaigner for secularisation of the hospitals Bourneville, catholic monks and nuns were ‘the irreconcilable enemies of the Republic’, because the Republic was ‘the regime of civil society’. The bottom line of his argument was that the Catholic Church was no part of Civil Society and could never become one: a bold but widespread militant statement heard throughout 19th Century Europe. In a workshop to be held in Brussels on the 23rd and 24th May 2008, we would like to bring together new research on the socio-political position of orders and congregations in Europe between 1789 and 1918.

This workshop will therefore not take an interior view on the religious life or the organisation of a specific order or convent. The chosen focus is the outside, socio-political viewpoint that sees religious institutes as social actors. This includes research of the popular perceptions of religious institutes, but it also covers the specific discursive patterns and lines of argument carried by their representations in the build-up of a European anticlerical political culture.

Practical information

Proposals for papers (max. 300 words) should be addressed by e-mail to Rik Röttger by 31 January 2008.

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CIHEC - British-Dutch Colloquium, Canterbury

Religious leadership has been a contentious issue within the Christian church ever since its inception. Current debates over the direction in which Pope Benedict XVI is taking the Roman Catholic Church, or the ability of Archbishop Rowan Williams to keep the Anglican Communion united, are in a long tradition which can be traced back at least to the New Testament confrontation between Peter and Paul. Over the centuries leadership has been expressed and contested in many ways. The activities of saints, heresiarchs, sectarian leaders, and founders of religious movements focus attention on individuals. The contests of papalism and conciliarism in the Middle Ages, arguments over the best form of ecclesiastical governance in the post-Reformation churches, the more modern focus on ecumenicalism, raise general issues about what kind of leadership is actually appropriate within the Christian religion. The moral challenges which Church leaders have offered to secular rulers and politicians over the centuries also merit consideration. Leadership can be expressed from the international level down to the parochial, by men and women, within and against institutional structures, as a conservative or progressive force, offering a multi-faceted field for investigation.

Offers of Communications (to be delivered in 20 minutes) are invited on any aspect of the theme within the history of the Christian Church. Please submit the form no later than 1 November 2007.

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Contact: r.n.swanson@bham.ac.uk

Die diesjährige Tagung findet vom 16.-18. November 2007 in bewährter Zusammenarbeit mit der Katholischen Akademie Schwerte statt. Die offizielle Einladung einschließlich Programm und Anmeldeunterlagen wird nach der Sommerpause verschickt werden.

Im Mittelpunkt soll wie gewohnt die Vorstellung und Diskussion laufender Arbeiten zur Katholizismusforschung stehen. Einige Meldungen dafür liegen bereits vor. Besonders diejenigen, die an Qualifikationsarbeiten (Master-, Diplom-, Magisterarbeit, Dissertation und Habilitation) sitzen, sind herzlich eingeladen, ihre Projekte vorzustellen und bis zum 1. Juli 2007 ihre Themen und Wünsche weiterzugeben.

Die Generaldebatte wird sich in diesem Jahr mit dem Thema "Feminisierung der Religion im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert - Zu Stärken und Schwächen eines Erklärungsmodells" beschäftigen. Hierfür konnten wir Bernhard Schneider (Trier) und Relinde Meiwes (Berlin) als Referenten gewinnen. Wir möchten damit über methodische Konzeptionen eingehender diskutieren und aktuelle Forschungsperspektiven aufzuzeigen. Im nächsten Jahr wird in Gent und Leuven (Belgien) ein Workshop zum Thema "Christian Feminisation and Masculinisation in Europe: Comparative Perspectives" angeboten, was die Aktualität des Themas unterstreicht sowie weitere Vernetzungen ermöglicht.

Für die laufende Bibliographie sei auch auf unsere Homepage hingewiesen. Sie findet sich unter: www.katholizismusforschung.de Ergänzungen für die Bibliographie des Schwerter Arbeitskreises senden Sie bitte an Gisela Fleckenstein ( gfl@wtal.de ). Bitte senden Sie nur die Titel von bereits erschienenen Beiträgen.

Kontakt:

Nicole Priesching
Seminar für Mittlere und Neuere Kirchengeschichte
Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät
Johannisstraße 8-10
48143 Münster
nicole.priesching@uni-muenster.de

Andreas Henkelmann
Lehrstuhl für Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit
Katholisch-Theologische Fakultät
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
ahenkelmann@web.de

From the Old World to the Antipodes, 1400-1900

Against the backdrop of the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the canonisation of Angela Merici (1475-1540), and the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Ursulines in Australia, it is proposed to hold a conference on the theme of the spiritualities of female religious orders. This conference will address two important questions: 1. What were the distinctive characteristics of the spiritualities of such medieval and early modern women’s religious orders as the Benedictines, Poor Clares, Loretos and Ursulines? 2. How did nineteenth-century women religious adapt and re-shape these and other spiritual traditions to the context of colonial Australia?

The conference will be held in Melbourne, May 11-12, 2007. Venue to be confirmed.

Co-convenors: Dr Claire Renkin and Dr Katherine Massam

Postgraduate students are especially welcome. The conference encourages interdisciplinary approaches, and possible paper topics may address one or more of the following themes:

1. Women’s religious orders acted as transmitters of cultural identity from Europe to its colonies. These women and the institution they represented, the Roman Catholic Church, remained a visible embodiment of the Europe from which they had emigrated. In what ways did European heritage impact on women’s religious orders in Australia?
2. What was the role of religious women in establishing important social and educational institutions in Europe and Australia? In what ways did religious women contribute to the implementation of technological innovation?
3. How is the plurality of women’s religious spiritualities expressed  in written and visual sources? 

Further details please contact Dr Claire Renkin: claire@betterlink.com.au

Philosophisch-Theologischen Hochschule der Pallottiner in Vallendar

Dieser Brief möchte Sie ermutigen, bei der nächsten Tagung das eigene laufende Forschungsvorhaben oder ein Thema aus dem Bereich der Ordensgeschichte vorzustellen. Erwünscht sind auch Beiträge über noch nicht bearbeitete Archivbestände und zu Orden in den Medien.
Jedem Referenten/jeder Referentin steht eine Stunde für Vortrag und Diskussion zur Verfügung. Der Vortrag sollte 30 Minuten nicht überschreiten, damit genügend Raum für die Diskussion bleibt. Wir sind ein selbstfinanzierter Arbeitskreis. Das bedeutet auch, dass wir leider für die Referierenden weder Übernachtungs- und Tagungskosten noch Honorar übernehmen können – es sei denn, wir finden kurzfristig noch Sponsoren.

Interessenten und Interessentinnen setzen sich bitte mit ihrem Themenvorschlag bis spätestens 31.Oktober 2006 mit Prof. Dr. Joachim Schmiedl Jschmiedl@pthv.de in Verbindung.
Für weitere Auskünfte stehen Ihnen auch Dr. Antonia Leugers, München (E-Mail: ALeugers@t-online.de) und Dr. Gisela Fleckenstein, Brühl (E-Mail: gfl@wtal.de) zur Verfügung.

Das Programm und die offizielle Einladung zur Tagung erhalten Sie Ende des Jahres.

Encouraged by the growing interest in the field of female Catholic spirituality, the editors are issuing a call for contributions for an edited collection of essays entitled Gendered Spiritualities: Catholic Women’s Experiences of the Divine (1520s-1900). This collection will examine British and Irish Catholic spiritualities, focusing on female relationships with piety and religious vocations and exploring, in particular, the concepts of norms and margins. Papers dealing with institutional or vocational orthodoxy, and with notions of faith and gender are particularly welcome.

Abstracts (maximum of 400 words) should be sent by Friday 30 March 2007

to either Carmen Mangion: c.mangion@history.bbk.ac.uk or
to Laurence Lux-Sterritt: sterritt@up.univ-aix.fr


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