Touching Mary: Marian Devotion and the Senses in the Middle Ages, session at the 2023 International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 3–6, 2023

This session seeks to explore the sensory approach of the Marian cult as reflected in Eastern and Western Christianity. It aims to examine the private/collective expressions of Marian devotion in relation to the senses (touch, smell, sight, taste, and hearing) that generate forms of spiritual entanglements and mutual dependencies between human devotional practices, artefacts, and sites.

Suggested topics, on any geographic area or time period (between 300-1500) may include, but are not limited to:

• pilgrimages to Marian shrines/holy sites (incubation, dreams, and Marian miracles);
• devotion gestures based on: touch (e.g. touching the floor, kneeling, kissing), smell and its healing properties, sound, etc.;
• active/passive use of the senses in Marian devotion;
• inner senses/external senses in relation to Marian devotion;
• Marian devotion, the senses, and the liturgy (ceremonies, sermons);
• architecture/church interiors in relation to sensory effects and Marian devotion;
• personal/collective devotional practices;
• religious objects, the senses, and Marian devotion;
• sensory deprivation, mystical experience, and Marian proximity;
• visual representations and the senses: books and illustrations, paintings, mosaics, marbles, statues;
• literature: liturgical dramas/plays; books.

Submissions from a variety of disciplines are accepted including but not limited to: history, art history, visual culture, social history, cultural history, hagiography, religious studies, cultural studies, textual studies in a transdisciplinary perspective.