The Divine Between Heaven & Earth

/ Termine

The Divine Between Heaven & Earth

Veranstalter
University of Alabama; Technische Universität Dresden (University of Alabama)
Ausrichter
University of Alabama
Veranstaltungsort
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
PLZ
35487
Ort
Tuscaloosa
Land
United States
Findet statt
In Präsenz
Vom - Bis
02.10.2024 - 05.10.2024
Website
https://tu-dresden.de/gsw/phil/ige/ma/ressourcen/dateien/pdfs/UA-History-Conference-Program-2024.pdf
Von
Matthias Guckenbiehl, Institut für Geschichte, Technische Universität Dresden

At the heart of medieval Christian culture lay the paradox of a transcendent God who was made flesh, a God who was beyond creation and yet ever present in the Eucharist and other sacraments. This two-and-a-half-day conference seeks to explore this paradox more deeply through the lens of three specific perspectives: "Access", "Use" and "Embodiment".

The Divine Between Heaven & Earth

At the heart of medieval Christian culture lay the paradox of a transcendent God who was made flesh, a God who was beyond creation and yet ever present in the Eucharist and other sacraments. Medieval people believed in a world of the soul and the spirit that was anchored in a world beyond, and the ultimate goal of their existence. Yet that world was subject, in this life, to endless theological reflection, and at the center of a legal, institutional, and political framework that laid claim to all of society. Medieval people also lived in a material world that was itself wondrously alive, a world of speaking statues and powerful relics, of stone and wood and metal charged with divine energy. That energy might be contained and harnessed in various ways, but it was always threatening to break beyond its own material boundaries.

This two-and-a-half-day conference seeks to explore this paradox more deeply through the lens of three specific perspectives. Through the perspective of “Access,” it will explore how women and men in the premodern era sought to approach and to encounter transcendent power, or sought to prevent others from doing so. Through the perspective of “Use,” it will explore how they sought to control, to deploy, or otherwise manipulate transcendent power in the pursuit of what were often all-too worldly interests of power, politics, family, and money. And through the perspective of “Embodiment,” it will explore how the transcendent, paradoxically, took root in this world, in sacred objects, spaces, and so on, and yet also pointed to the world beyond.

Programm

Wednesday, October 2
5:30-6:30 PM: Registration and Reception / University Club
Note: All conference panels on Thursday and Friday will be held in the Governor's Room of the Hotel Capstone on the UA Campus. All conference meals are free and open to registered conference participants and guests.

6:30 - 7:00 PM: Welcome
Chad Tindol (Chief Administrative Officer, University of Alabama)
Welcoming Remarks

James Mixson (Tuscaloosa)
The Divine Between Heavon and Earth: Conference Overview and Themes

Gert Melville (Dresden)
“An Introductory Reflection: Transcendence as Fake”“An Introductory Reflection: Transcendence as Fake”

7:00-8:30 PM: Dinner / University Club

Thursday, October 3
Note: All conference panels will be held in the Governor’s
Room of the Hotel Capstone on the UA Campus.

9:00-11:00 AM: Sacred Space

Bernd Schneidmüller (Heidelberg)
"Mapping Holy Space: Minsters and Cities as Patterns of Heaven in the Central Middle Ages”

11:30 AM-12:30 PM: Lunch / Gorgas House Lawn

12:30-2:00 PM: Tour of Gorgas House and President's Mansion

2:30-5:30 PM: Monastic Life and Culture

Nathalie Schmidt (Dresden)
"Thaumaturgy and Transcendence. The Antonite Order
and Saint Anthony’s Fire”

Guido Cariboni (Milan)
"The Presence of the Living and the Dead. Memorial
Practices and Institutional Mechanisms in Medieval
Monasticism"

Jörg Sonntag (Dresden)
"Interaction by Imitation. Access and Embodiment of the Transcendent in Religious Games"

6:00-8:00 PM: Reception & Dinner / Smith Hall

8:00 PM: Plenary Adress

Volker Leppin (New Haven)
"Transparent for the Transcendent. Objects in Late Medieval Religious Life"

Friday, October 4

8:30-11:30 AM: Materialty and Nature

Christine Caldwell (Columbia)
"Spiritual Terroir: Wine, the Divine, and Earth in the European Middle Ages”

Gregory Bryda (New York)
"The Entrenched Savior. Christian Materiality, Miraculous Wood, and Devotion"

Laura Smoller (Rochester)
"Embodying God’s Plan in the Stars: Astrology as Natural Theology in the Later Middle Ages"

11:30 AM-12:30 PM: Lunch / Hotel Capstone

1:00-3:00 PM: Order and Hierarchy

Nicolangelo D’Acunto (Milan)
"Between Heaven and Earth: Hierarchy and Freedom"

Rudolf Weigand (Eichstätt)
"Interference in the Divine Order of Creation: Punishment of Sin and Healing through Holiness"

3:30-5:30 PM: Faith, Doubt, and Discernment

Cornelia Linde (Greifswald)
"Turning the Page to the Divine: Books as Vessels of the Transcendent"

Michael D. Bailey (Ames)
"Accessing the Demonic in Late Medieval Witchcraft"

6:30-8:00 PM: Dinner / Dreamland, Northport

Saturday, October 5

9:00-10:00 AM: Between Theory and Practice

Gert Melville (Dresden) and Jennifer Feltman (Tuscaloosa)
“Rebuilding Transcendences. Restoration in Practice, and its Overarching Meaning, for the Damaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris”

10:00-11:00 AM: Concluding Discussion and Brunch

Kontakt

jörg.sonntag@tu-dresden.de

https://tu-dresden.de/gsw/phil/ige/ma/ressourcen/dateien/pdfs/UA-History-Conference-Program-2024.pdf
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