Call for Papers: Women in Religion: from Spiritual Leadership to Female Empowerment

The conference is to be held on 8th and 9th May 2023 at the Università degli Studi di Milano, via Festa del Perdono 7 – 20122 Milano, Italy.

We are pleased to invite you to the 5^th International Conference on Arts and Humanities, organized by the International Centre for Studies of Arts and Humanities (ICSAH) and the Dante Alighieri Society of Nicosia in cooperation with the Università degli Studi di Milano and the Pontificia Università Salesiana. In continuation of our dialogue dedicated to women and gender-focused research, this year our aim is to explore the gender inequality within various religious systems and movements, by focusing on women of faith. The conference is to be held on 8th and 9th May 2023 at the Università degli Studi di Milano, via Festa del Perdono 7 – 20122 Milano, Italy. We warmly welcome all papers broadly relevant to the subject without predefining chronological and territorial limitations, as the major goal of the conference is to address social issues that involve more than one research field and promote multidisciplinary dialogue and cooperation. The papers will be published online and in a dedicated volume.

It is more than a cliché that gender plays a crucial role in religion, as most religious orders in the world were, and currently are, dominated by men. The role of women in cultic settings is, as a rule, secondary, as is also the authority of female ministers of religion, while the social benefits of those appointed with religious duties are also incomparable with the privileges received by men. This year, we invite proposals that explore the female share in leadership roles related to religion (saints, prophetesses, priestesses, nuns, preachers, witches, shamans, gurus, heads of religious orders and more), and emphasize how their achievements are reflected in history and art. How prominent female figures have compromised men’s secured positions of power in socio-religious structures? What was their role in shaping gender-responsive societies? We also encourage papers that examine through gender lens the impact of religion on civic life by analysing the deeds of women of faith from a political perspective, or deal with cases of political power over religion, in cases of women who achieved to change traditional religious concepts, practices, customs or symbols. We welcome papers that deal with all religious systems from ancient to present times.

Submission Rules

To submit a proposal for a paper of approximately 20 minutes or a poster, please send an abstract of 350 words or less to icsahcy1@gmail.com by March 30th, 2023.

The proposed contributions should not have been previously published or accepted for publication elsewhere. Abstracts should include a title, a summary of the presentation, name of the author/s, institutional affiliation and email.

Conference languages: English, French, Italian.

Conference fee: 50€.

For further information about the conference, please see our website www.icsah.eu/  Please address any further enquiries to icsahcy1@gmail.com.