Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies (PMR) at Villanova University invites you to participate in its
38th International PMR Conference
October 18-20, 2013
As always, the PMR makes an OPEN CALL to scholars, institutions, and societies to propose Papers, Panels, or Sponsored Sessions in all areas and topics in late antiquity/patristics, Byzantine Studies, Medieval Studies, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, and Renaissance & Reformation Studies.
The PMR committee this year makes a special invitation to scholars from all disciplines in these fields to address our plenary theme:
Deep Unto Deep: Exploring Mystery, Human and Divine
Featuring
Bernard McGinn, University of Chicago Divinity School
Amy Hollywood, Harvard Divinity School
We do not know what God is, and are united to God as to one unknown. These words of Thomas Aquinas name a deep paradox at the heart of the traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – if God is truly God, then God abides in unfathomable mystery, and yet we cannot help but speak of God. Is this true only of God? Mystics and theologians from all corners of the medieval and early-modern Mediterranean world began to see the veil of mystery guarding the inmost being of humans themselves, giving new sense to the psalmists’s “deep cries unto deep.” The intent of our “conference within a conference” this year is to explore these questions of human and divine mystery through the prisms of philosophy, theology, art, architecture, poetry, and cultural history.
We invite scholars of European, Byzantine, and Islamic and Jewish studies to join in our exploration of so significant a paradox in the pre-modern Mediterranean world.
Deadline for submissions: June 15, 2013
Notice of acceptance will be made by July 15, 2013
Send all abstracts and panel proposals to:
PMR Conference c/o Anna Misticoni
The Augustinian Institute
Villanova University
800 Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, PA 19085-1699
OR as a Word or WordPerfect attachment to: pmr.conference@villanova.edu
