RELIGION IN THE HISPANIC BAROQUE: THE FIRST ATLANTIC CULTURE AND ITS LEGACY

[this via the LRS...]

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Foresight Centre, Liverpool, 12-14 May 2010

This interdisciplinary conference will look at the role of religion in the Hispanic Baroque. We propose to explore the Baroque not merely as a specific and historical set of literary, artistic and architectural styles. Rather we seek to study it as a complex cultural system that emerged from early modern transatlantic interaction and exchange of knowledge and imagination, and that continues to shape the political, social and cultural reality of the Atlantic world and beyond to this day. We invite the submission of proposals from every disciplinary background interested in one or both of our two main strands of investigation.

Our first strand focuses on religion as a media through which political and social conflict in the early modern and modern Hispanic world are exacerbated as well as negotiated. We want to examine the ways in which religion shaped individual and collective identities and was in turn shaped by conflict and compromise arising from colonization, resistance and mestizaje. This strand seeks to deepen our understanding of the mutually transformative relationship between religion and society in the Hispanic world from the fifteenth century to the present by looking at religion as the means, medium or obstacle to the creation of social, political and cultural stability. We thus hope to be able to pinpoint the features of interaction between religion and society that are specific to the Hispanic Baroque.

In our second strand of investigation we want to compare complex transatlantic technologies and patterns of interaction characteristic for the Hispanic Baroque with those of other cultural spheres. For instance, in how far can we describe Baroque religion as a cultural system and system of communication transcending the boundaries of confession, nation, language and mode of artistic expression? Can we regard Baroque religion and also the Baroque generally as cross-cultural phenomena producing and sustaining patterns of cultural interaction that are dynamic and stable over long periods of time? What can the study of Baroque cultures and their modes of conflict and resolution tell us about the need and the ways to balance complex societies?

POSSIBLE THEMES FOR PANELS include:

· The Universal Baroque?

· Baroque Media from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century

· Baroque Science

· Baroque Arts

· Baroque Spaces

· Religion, Conflict and Identity in Baroque Societies

· Religion, Culture, and Commerce

· Complex Legacy: Enduring Patterns of Baroque Religion


PROPOSALS for papers should include a title, an abstract of about 250 words, and your full contact details (including an e-mail). We welcome the proposal of panels and we warmly encourage postgraduate submissions. Please send your proposals by 30th November 2009 (post or email) to:

Dr Harald E. Braun

School of History

University of Liverpool

9 Abercromby Square

Liverpool

L69 7WZ

UNITED KINGDOM

h.e.braun@liv.ac.uk

Professor Jesús Pérez-Magallón

Department of Hispanic Studies

McGill University

688 Sherbrooke Street West

Montreal, QC,

H3A 3R1

CANADA

jesus.perez@mcgill.ca

REGISTRATION The registration fee will be £100.00 for the full three-day-conference (including all coffee/tea breaks and lunches). The day-rate will be £35.00. There is a small subsidy of £10.00 for the subsidised conference dinner. A limited amount of financial support for postgraduate research students may be available. You can find the REGISTRATION FORM and more INFORMATION on the conference website at: http://www.liv.ac.uk/iberianatlantic/2010conference.htm

LOCATION and TRAVEL the Venue is the Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool: http://www.foresightcentre.co.uk/ For how to get there see: http://www.foresightcentre.co.uk/location.html

ACCOMMODATION Information on accommodation for all budgets will be made available on the conference website in early November 2009.

This conference is generously supported by The Hispanic Baroque (http://www.hispanicbaroque.ca), a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Major Collaborative Research Initiative.