Doctoral Conference in Religious Studies
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Sacred Locations

Spaces and Bodies in Religion

June 13-15, 2019 / Szeged, Hungary

Organized by
The Department for the Study of Religion
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
University of Szeged
http://www.arts.u-szeged.hu/vallastudomany

The Center for Religious Studies
Central European University
http://religion.ceu.edu

Spaces and bodies carry religious meanings. In history as well as in contemporary society, territories are organized through religious markers, creating hierarchies of sanctity or oppositions between spaces that are appropriated or unappropriated through religious symbolism. Borders between groups have been understood as religious in nature and expressed in normative terms, such as the sacred and the profane. Not only countries, states, cities, neighborhoods, national and ethnic groups, but even our own bodies are canvasses on which religious meanings can be painted through items of clothing or ritual. Conversely, spatial and corporeal representation underpins patterns of religious belonging and imagination. Such orders of space have been subject to constant negotiation and redefinition, both by those involved in religion-based distinctions and differentiations in their everyday lives and by the scholars analyzing the spatial aspects of religion. What is the consequence of giving a religious meaning to a physical space or a physical representation to a religious idea? Can religion only serve the purpose of separation and distinction, or is it equally employed for the blurring, mixing, or negation of differences between groups or between individuals and their environment? What justifications have been used in order to legitimize the existence of religiously framed differentiations and border-making? The conference invites contributions on the conceptualization, interpretation, management or instrumentalization of religion with regard to space, geographical or personal.

Opening Keynote Address 
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Thursday, 13 June
17:30 – 19:00

Carsten Wilke
(Central European University) 

Location: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Egyetem u. 2, Szeged, Hungary
Kristó Gyula classroom

Panel Sessions
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Location: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Egyetem u. 2, Szeged, Hungary
Conference room

Friday, June 14

9:00 – 11:00 / Panel 1: Symbols and Sacred Spaces

Panel Speakers:

• Gabriel Badea (University of Bucharest)
  Symbols, Symbolic Forms and Sacred Spaces (Eliade, Cassirer, Langer)

• Csaba Szabó (Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu) 
  Space Sacralisation as Strategy of Roman Religious Communication during the Principate

• Csilla Gyöngyösi (Musafir Centre of Languages and Cultures, Cluj-Napoca) 
  The Early Debate in Islam about Allah’s Throne and Locative Descriptions

11:30 – 13:00 / Panel 2: Religion, motion, space

Panel Speakers:

• Sára Heidl (University of Szeged)
  Event Religion: a Type of Faith Tourism

• Omid Vatandoost (Imam Sadiq University, Iran) 
  Identity Memory of Pilgrims Versus Historical Collective Memory: a Comparative Analysis of Arbaeen Walk and Uganda Martyrs Day

• Abolfazl Alishahi Ghalehjoughi (Yasouj University, Iran)I
  nvestigating the effect of cover on creating peace in dome buildings in Islamic lands

14:00 – 15:30 / Panel 3: Bodies – Meeting places of transcendent and immanent

Panel Speakers:

• Ksenia Kolkunova (St Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow)
  Reinventing Body in Russian Channeling

• Jan Trtilek (Masaryk University, Brno)
  Astral Body Made in Mind: Out-of-Body Experiences and Meditation;

• Zsuzsanna Szugyiczki (University of Szeged) 
  Inside and Outside – Directly Experiencing Reality as It Truly Is

16:00 – 17:30 / Panel 4: Politics of space

Panel Speakers:

• Fadime Yilmaz (University of Szeged) 
  State Forced Religion in Hungary and Turkey

• Omid Vatandoost (Imam Sadiq University, Iran) 
  The Geopolitical Role of Middle-East in Apocalypse: From Abrahamic Religions Views

• Barnabás Szabó (Central European University)
  TBA

Saturday, 15 June

9:00 – 10:30 / Panel 5: Bodies and Rituals

Panel Speakers:

• Gabrielle Hegedűs (University of Szeged) 
  Religion vs. Social Structures. Funeral Rites in Prehistoric Times;

• Krisztina Bodzásné Csényi-Nagy (Eötvös Loránd University)
  ‘Skyclad’ Worship in Wicca: The Phenomenon of Ritual Nudity in Neopaganism

• Anastasia Papushina (Central European University)
  Spaces and Bodies in Revolution: Moscow "Cemetery Crisis" 1918-1920

11:00 – 13:00 / Panel 6: Sacred buildings and Arts

Panel Speakers:

• Kseniya Medvedeva (Freie Universität Berlin)
  Reconstruction of Boundaries at Eastern Orthodox Monasteries in the USA;

• Michal Puchovský (Masaryk University, Brno)
  Paganism, music scene and Pagan Music in the Czech Republic: Theoretical

• Flora Ghazaryan (Central European University)
  Hidden Printing Presses, Catholic Armenians, and West-East Iconographical Transfers in the Seventeenth Century Istanbul

14:00 – 15:30 / Panel 7: Sacred space and community

Panel Speakers:

• Gabriele Maria Masi (University of Milano Bicocca)
  Building a Community: The Case of Tabligh Jamaat in the North of Italy

• Martin Špirk (Masaryk University, Brno) 
  Mind and Body of Humanistic Buddhism: Case Study of Temple and Community of FGS Vienna

Closing Keynote Address 
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Saturday, 15 June
16:00 – 17:30

Klára Sándor
(University of Szeged) 

Location: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Egyetem u. 2, Szeged, Hungary
Kristó Gyula classroom