Catholicism in Transit: Exploring Mobility and Exchange in the Early Modern World

The social, cultural, religious, and intellectual transformations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries changed the ways that Catholicism was lived and experienced. Developments in communication transformed practices of idea circulation and exchange, the redrawing of national and confessional lines influenced the movement of Catholic people across them, and missionary efforts transformed Catholicism into the first global religion. The organizers understand mobility and exchange to involve very literal things: travel, trade, the exchange of material things. It is also important to account for intangible forms of movement – shifts in worldviews, the exchange of ideas, movement between confessions and faiths through conversion.

The organizers welcome proposals therefore for papers of 20 minutes related to the Catholic world. Also welcome are shorter papers of 10 minutes which give presenters the opportunity to share on a specific primary source in a “show and tell” format and plan to dedicate a session to these. The aim is for this conference to be an informal event with plenty of opportunity to network with others working on these themes. Please indicate which format you would like to present in when sending in your abstract.

Topics

Papers may relate to, but are not restricted to some of the following:

• Travel, such as voluntary mobility, exile and migration, pilgrimage culture and leisure;
• Catholic expansion, such as the activities of missionaries, religious orders, colonialism and Catholicism, global Catholicism;
• The mobility of objects, such as trade, material culture, relics, artistic works;
• The exchange of ideas and identity, such as print culture, preaching, conversion, and proselytising, and inter-confessional and interfaith relationships, Catholicism “on the borders”;
• Conceptual and historiographical approaches to movement: “migrations of the holy,” enchantment and disenchantment, secularization, and current ‘movement’ of research.

How to submit

Catholicism in Transit will be a virtual event held on Zoom on Friday 20 September 2024 and there will be no cost associated with attendance. Please email abstracts c. 300 words and speaker bios of c. 100 words to [email protected] by July 31st. Accepted papers will be notified by mid-August.

Papers that will result in a diverse range of geographical regions related to the Catholic world being represented at the workshop will be prioritized.

Please don’t hesitate to contact the conveners at the above address with any questions.

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