Material Culture and Women’s Religious Experience in Antiquity, Brigham Young University, March 8–9, 2019

We are pleased to invite paper submissions to a symposium at Brigham Young University on the intersections of material culture and women’s religious experience in antiquity. This symposium seeks to highlight the importance of material and visual evidence in retrieving women’s religious experiences, perspectives, and activities so often overlooked in the literary record. The conference will approach antiquity broadly, from the time of ancient Israel into late antiquity and the early medieval period. It will also approach religion broadly, welcoming papers on early Christianity, Judaism, Greco-Roman traditions, and other varieties of religion in the ancient Mediterranean and ancient Near East. Our aim is to illuminate the critical role of material culture as primary source evidence through art historical, archaeological, comparative, and iconographic studies. Selected papers will be considered for publication in a collection of conference proceedings.

We invite the submission of proposals for papers that consider interdisciplinary topics in material culture and religions of antiquity in addition to meeting the increased need for scholarship concerning women’s religious experience. Student papers will be considered for a session devoted to student research.