Mansfield Prize Award- 2018
The Religious History Association has decided to award the Mansfield Prize for 2018 (awarded to the best article published in the Journal of Religious History) to SUZANNE K. KAUFMAN “Les Miraculées de Lourdes: Sacred Celebrities in the Age of Mass Spectacle” published in the December 2018 (vol 42).
The adjudication committee (Katharine Massam, Shurlee Swain and Constant Mews) makes the following statement about the article of Suzanne Kaufman, Associate Professor at Loyola University, Chicago:
It examines the promotion of women as subject to miraculous healing as a remarkably successful strategy that created a new kind of religious celebrity: women healed through the grace of the Virgin. She looks at the medical figures who assisted in promoting scientific recognition of these female miraculées not just as a new phenomenon in the piety of the later nineteenth century, but as a marketing strategy, within the emerging mass media of the day. These women were able to create a new identity for themselves through belief that they had received miraculous healing.
The article fully conforms to the standards of religious history as established by the late Bruce Mansfield, founder of this journal.
CALL FOR PAPERS – RHA Stream for the 2018 Conference of the Australian Historical Association
Sensory Cultures and the Communication of Belief Canberra : 3 July 2018 Religious History Association (in association with the Australian Historical Association Conference 2-6 July 2018) The Religious History Association invites presentations that explore the material and sensory dimensions of the communication of belief. Our knowledge of devotional practices and rituals, and of beliefs and attitudes, can be enriched by exploring the material and sensory heritage through which religions are interpreted, expressed and...
read moreBook Release by Nicholas Griffiths – Sacred Dialogues: Christianity and Native Religions in the Colonial Americas 1492-1700 – revised
Second Revised and Fully Updated Edition 2017 of: Sacred Dialogues: Christianity and Native Religions in the Colonial Americas 1492-1700 by Nicholas Griffiths A Spanish conquistador who posed as a sorcerer and cured native Americans as he trekked across an unknown wilderness; a French Jesuit who conjured rain clouds in order to impress his indigenous flock with the potency of Christian magic; a Puritan minister who healed a native chief in order to win him for God; a Mexican noble who was burned at the stake for resisting the gentle...
read moreLuther and Dreams : Public Lecture, 4 December 2017
Public Lecture: Professor Lyndal Roper, Luther and Dreams, 4 December Luther regularly labelled superstition, Catholic dogma, and the beliefs of the Turks and the Jews, as ‘dreams’. ‘Lauter somnia’, pure dreams, was one of his favourite insults, and he liked nothing better than to debunk them. Yet Luther was also fascinated by signs and portents, and though he often joked about dreams, he too noted important dreams. Dreams also happened to be recorded at key turning points of the Reformation, and they give rare insight into Luther’s deepest...
read moreKeynote lecture : Luther and Dreams 29 November 2017
Keynote lecture for the Reformation at the University of Sydney Dreams also happened to be recorded at key turning points of the Reformation, and they give rare insight into Luther’s deepest anxieties and feelings. Discussed collectively, Luther and his followers used dream interpretations to communicate concerns they did not discuss explicitly. This lecture explores how historians can make use of dreams to understand the subjectivity of people in the past. THE SPEAKER: Professor Lyndal Roper is Regius Professor of History, Oriel College,...
read moreBOOK LAUNCH – John Luttrell
CARDINAL NORMAN THOMAS GILROY BIOGRAPHY by John Luttrell FMS entitled : Norman Thomas Gilroy: An Obedient Life Norman Thomas Gilroy was born in 1896 in a rented cottage in the working class suburb of Glebe in Sydney, Australia. His mortal remains now lie three kilometres away in the crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral among six other Archbishops of Sydney. His long career as Archbishop (1940‑71) and his appointment as Cardinal in 1946 made him a name familiar to generations of Australians. He presided over the most populous Catholic diocese in...
read moreHuguenot Society of Australia Conference and Dinner
The Huguenots: French Reformers Their Faith and Diaspora Venue: ’99 On York’, York St, Sydney Time: 10.0am – 6.00pm Dinner: 6.00pm Keynote speaker: Dr Robyn Gwynn, former Associate Professor of History at Massey University, NZ. Dr Gwynn is the world authority on Huguenots in Britain Full information available through this link: https://huguenotsaustralia.org.au/our-society/activities/ Enquiries to : Geoff Huard:...
read moreA postgraduate advanced training seminar (PATS) and Symposium
‘Devotion, Gender and the Body in the Religious Cultures of Europe 1100-1800’ Friday 18 August 2017 at : Monash University (Clayton Campus) : 11am-5pm and Saturday 19 August 2017 at: Pilgrim Theological College, College Crescent, Parkville : 9am-5pm A postgraduate advanced training seminar (PATS) and Symposium Devotion, Gender and the Body in European Religious Cultures 1100-1800: The Religious History Association is keen to promote the study of religious history across a wide range of chronological periods and religious...
read moreProfessor Thomas A. Fudge on: Martin Luther, Father of the Reformation
Martin Luther’s 500 Year Old Wax Nose Five hundred years ago, an Augustinian monk posted an announcement on a public bulletin board in a German university town. Hardly anyone knew him then. This rather ordinary event is still remembered. At the turn of the millennium, a group of reporters published a book listing 1,000 of the most important and influential people of the past millennium. Martin Luther (that obscure “drunken German monk” as Pope Leo X called him) was ranked third behind Johannes Gutenberg and Christopher Columbus. In 1934, a...
read morePostgraduate Advanced Training Seminar (PATS) and Symposium
Devotion, Gender and the Body in the Religious Cultures of Europe 1100-1800 A postgraduate advanced training seminar (PATS) and Symposium To be held on: Friday 18 August 2017 at Monash University (Clayton Campus) 11am-5pm and Saturday 19 August 2017 at Pilgrim Theological College, College Crescent, Parkville 9:30am-5pm The Religious History Association is keen to promote the study of religious history across a wide range of chronological periods and religious traditions. To this end, it is hosting a postgraduate advanced...
read moreCelebrating The Reformation 500th Anniversary
VDMA : Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum (The Word of the Lord Endures Forever) is the motto of the Lutheran Reformation, an expression of the perpetual power and authority of God’s Word. In 2017, Moore College, Newtown is planning to commemorate the Reformation 500th Anniversary by holding a series of public events. Dates for your diary are:Edit this page 26-27 May. Justification Summit 19 July. Public Lecture 3, 7-11 August. The Annual Moore College Lectures will be given by Carl Trueman, a well-known church historian who has...
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