Religion, Mysticism and Heresy in Italian Culture

Palazzo Pesaro Papafava, Venice

16-17 April 2010

Programme (download in PDF format)

In the light of the increasing importance that religion has assumed as a subject of research within the academy, the topic of the next SIS interim conference – to be held in Venice on 16-17 April 2010 at the Palazzo Pesaro Papafava – is religion, mysticism and heresy in Italian culture. With particular attention to literature, film, the visual arts, philosophy and theology, as well as the social and political sciences, the conference aims to explore the role that religion and religious ideas have played in shaping Italian culture from the medieval period to the present. It aims also to consider examples of mysticism and constructions of the notion of heresy that have circulated down to the present.

Keynote Speakers:
Stephen Milner (University of Manchester)
Mary Laven (University of Cambridge)
Emilio Gentile (University of Rome)

Suggested topics may include but are not limited to:

• representations of religious belief in literature and the visual arts from the medieval to the modern; religion and gender; religious practice and the everyday; language and religion; rhetorics of conversion
• religion and politics; secular religions (the Risorgimento, Fascism, Marxism, nationalism); revolutionary messianism
• philosophy and religion: idealism, materialism, ethics, nihilism and weak theology (Croce, Gramsci, Eco, Vattimo)
• religious diversity in Italy; the reception in Italy of beliefs and concepts drawn from world religions and religious traditions; multiculturalism and religious hybridism
• mysticism from medieval to modern literature; representations of the sacred; millenarianism; concepts and representations of martyrdom and pilgrimage
• magic, the marvellous and the supernatural in medieval, Renaissance and modern literature, philosophy and theology; Italian engagement with the classical world; occultism and the supernatural in literature and film (scapigliatura, decadentismo, magical realism, futurism, surrealism, postmodernism)
• representations and discourses of heresy in literature and the visual arts from the medieval to the modern

All proposals and enquiries should be directed to the conference organizers, Fabrizio De Donno (fabrizio.dedonno@rhul.ac.uk) and Simon Gilson (s.gilson@warwick.ac.uk). See this page for the call for papers. Conference participants must be members of the SIS: see this page for details of how to join the Society. Further information about the venue is available at: www2.warwick.ac.uk/international/world/venice/facil/.