CALL FOR PAPERS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN KRAKOW "Theory and Methods in the Study of Greek Ritual Terminology"

The Interdisciplinary Research Project Team Lexicon of the Greek Ritual Terminology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, in full partnership with University of Bologna, Complutense University of Madrid and University of Salamanca, is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the conference Theory and Methods in the Study of the Greek Ritual Terminology. The conference will take place during the 25th and 28th January 2024 at the Jagiellonian University. We kindly invite those interested in participating to send their proposals by September 30th 2023 to the address: lgrt2024@gmail.com.

The change of the Christian paradigm in modern culture has turned the attention of specialists and the broad community of researchers in the humanities and social sciences to the philosophical, linguistic, and cultural contexts of the roots of European religious and philosophical culture. The study of the ancient religion in the Greek world as well as in other ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, with a strong emphasis on their fundamental importance for understanding the religious phenomena of modernity, seems to be a flourishing and dominating area of research on antiquity. On the other hand, recent discussion in the field of the academic study of religion on the key categories draws our attention to the need for redefinition and re-description of the main theoretical concepts used in the field. Ritual is one of the best examples of the concept which were borrowed and adapted from classical language and introduced in our theoretical toolbar in the late 19th century. But at the same time the concept of ritual has undergone a deep change in the new context of modern scholarship. Now, ritual is the subject of a separate discipline, the ritual studies, but it is also the research topic in other disciplines such as performance studies, academic study of religion, or anthropology of religion. Since “ritual” as a modern concept is used for a classification of phenomena from an outsider point of view, it should be approached also from an insider perspective. The best way to achieve the goal is the complex analysis of emic terms concerning various performative practices regulating the relationship between humans and super-human beings. Discussions of the meaning of sacrifice, mysteries, rites of passage, funeral and wedding rituals, oath, prayer and other forms of religious worship focus on an awareness of paradigm shifts, the negation of established theories and an opening to cognitive science, narratology, anthropology and comparative approaches. The lexicographic description provided by standard dictionaries is insufficient to describe, understand and also render in translation the phenomena and concepts related to ritual and religiosity. In this perspective, the development of a professional lexicographic tool taking into account interdisciplinary anthropological, comparative and religious studies is a pressing need. Rituals as a communication event fulfilled a number of tasks: in addition to attracting the attention of the recipients of the action, they highlighted the intentions of social actors and articulated social order, ascribing the roles according to political status, age and sex, thus determining the boundaries of social groups.

The Greek technical terms of the language of ritual require linguistic, semantic, philological, and historical explication in conjunction with religious studies, anthropological, and cross-cultural descriptions. The first phase of the study, of critical importance, includes the methodological preparation, clear consideration and evaluation of the status quaestionis of the research on Greek ritual terminology and setting of further research directions, integration of researchers and students dealing with technical language of ritual.

Therefore, the team of the project Lexicon of the Greek Ritual Terminology realized within the framework of the Excellence Initiative Programme at the Jagiellonian University invites to participate in the Theory and Methods in the Study of Greek Ritual Terminology conference to be held in Krakow on 25-28.01.2024.

We are inviting proposals for lectures (up to 30 minutes) on related topics. In particular but not exclusively, we invite the following research topics:

- technical languages – history, theory and methodology of research;

- ritual terminology in ancient Greek religion;

- mapping the diversity of ritual terminology in cultural contexts;

- ancient terms and modern concepts: between philology and ritual studies;

- lexica as a key to understanding of Greek religion;

- ritual terminology: criteria for selection, inclusion and exclusion;

- lexicalization and contextualization of language in religious and ritual context; Greek Lexicography and Digital Humanities.

We hope that it will provide an opportunity for researchers and students focused on the study of ancient Greek religion and Greek lexicography and will become a good opportunity to meet and exchange ideas, plans and perspectives.

Key-note speakers:

Irene Polinskaya

Douglas Olson

Dariusz Piwowarczyk

Please send abstracts of 300 words max. (including bibliography) by emailing a word file to lgrt2024@gmail.com by September 30, 2023.

We aim to respond to submissions by October 15, 2023. In the body of your email, please include your name and affiliation.

Lectures delivered during the conference will enter a peer-reviewed post-conference publication in the form of a monograph in a high-impact publication or special issue (deadline for delivery of final articles for external review: 31 May 2024).