International conference: Female Authority and Holiness in Early Christianity and Byzantium
Online via Zoom
Centre for Medieval Literature
International conference: Female Authority and Holiness in Early Christianity and Byzantium
Online via Zoom
Centre for Medieval Literature
The conference investigates the representation of women’s authority and holiness from a diachronic perspective. By underlining the connection between early Christianity and Byzantium, it brings together texts from different periods and genres, which have traditionally been studied in isolation (e.g. apocrypha, visions, hagiography). The conference centers around the notion of time, used to indicate not only temporal passing and its articulation, but also embodied, experiential time and its construction. By looking at time as intertwined with the construction and the experience of social and gendered roles, the conference explores motifs and narratives related to the different and often varying articulation of female authority, considered against the wider background of Christian ideals of holiness. Speakers will explore the interplay between temporality and traditional gender roles, the transmission and reception of female authority and sainthood between early Christianity and hagiographical texts, and the connection between temporality and female holiness in Byzantine hagiography.
Organisation and contact
For more information please contact organiser Maria Dell'Isola: mariadellisola@sdu.dk
To register and receive zoom link please write to cml@sdu.dk
Download conference poster here
Programme
Tuesday 11 May
| 14:00-14:15 | Welcome |
| 14:15-14:45 |
Introduction: Maria Dell'Isola (University of Southern Denmark/Centre for Medieval Literature) Women in Early Christianity and Byzantium |
| 14:45-15:15 |
Outi Lehtipuu (University of Helsinki) Suffering as an Immediate Resurrection: Times of Salvation in Ancient Christian Martyr Stories |
| 15:15-15:45 |
Ángel Narro (University of V alencia) Emulating Thecla: Migdonia, Xanthippe, and Polyxena. Different Conceptions on Conversion and Religious Life |
| 15:45-16:00 | Break |
| 16:00-16:30 |
Laura Carnevale (University of Bari “Aldo Moro”) A Portrayal of ‘Gendered’ Authority Across Time and Space: Mary of Cassobola in Two Epistles of the Ps.Ignatian Corpus |
| 16:30-17:00 |
Marijana Vukovic (University of Southern Denmark/Centre for Medieval Literature) Husband as a ‘Religious Other’: Family Discord from Early Christian Apology to Medieval Hagiography |
Wednesday 12 May
| 09:30-10:00 |
Luca Arcari (University of Naples “Federico II”) A Gendered ‘Colonization’ of a Visionary Body: the Montanist Prophetess and the Male Textualization of Her Visionary Account According to Tertullian’s De Anima (9.4) |
| 10:00-10:30 |
Stavroula Constantinou (University of Cyprus) Mothers' Time: The Temporality of Motherhood in the Life of Martha and the Life of Symeon Stylite the Younger |
| 10:30-10:45 | Break |
| 10:45-11:15 |
Aglae Pizzone (University of Southern Denmark/Centre for Medieval Literature) Girls, Interrupted. Persephone, Synchronicity and Genealogy in Tzetzes’ Hypomnema for Saint Lucia |
| 11:15-11:45 |
Christian Høgel (University of Southern Denmark/Centre for Medieval Literature) The Metaphrastic Female Saint: Time and Temporality in Rewritten Lives of Women Saints |
| 11:45-12:00 | Conclusion |