Imperial Mysticisms:
Piety and Power in Early Modern Empires
from a Global Perspective
November 27-30, 2019
Central European University
Budapest, Nádor utca 15
Auditorium B
Program
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November 27, 2019
Wednesday
17:00 – 17:10 Welcome
- Michael Ignatieff (CEU President and Rector)
17:10 – 17:30 Opening Remarks
- Carsten Wilke (CEU)
- Ute Falasch (CEU)
17:30 – 19:00 Keynote Address
- Alan Strathern (University of Oxford): Mysticism and Empire: Towards a Global Comparative Analysis
19:00 – 20:00 Reception
November 28, 2019
Thursday
9:30 – 10:50 Session 1: The Inner Empire: Political World Images in Mystical Thought
Chair: Nadia Al-Bagdadi (CEU)
- Shahzad Bashir (Brown University): The Power of Mystical Language
- Carsten Wilke (CEU): The Political Cosmology of Early Modern Kabbalah
11:20 – 13:20 Session 2: Precedents: Mystical Politics from Antiquity to Early Modernity
Chair: Matthias Riedl (CEU)
- Gábor Buzási (ELTE): The Neoplatonic Mysticism of Emperor Julian the Apostate
- Ilker Evrim Binbaş (Universität Bonn): The Articulation of Political Ideas in a Mystical Milieu: The Bistamiyya and Safaviyya in Syria
- Gábor Klaniczay (CEU): From Birgitta of Sweden to Joan of Arc. The Political Activities of Late Medieval Mystics
16:20 – 17:40 Session 3: Mystic Rulers and Esoteric Courts (I)
Chair: Günhan Börekçi (CEU)
- Dewei Zhang (Jinan University Guangzhou): Listening to the Unheard: Wanli Court Politics and the Involvement of Buddhism and Daoism
- Martin Scheutz (Universität Wien): Humble Servants of the Habsburgs: The Capucins in Austria in Early Modern Times
17:50 – 19:10 Session 4: Mystic Rulers and Esoteric Courts (II)
Chair: Robyn Dora Radway (CEU)
- A. Azfar Moin (University of Texas at Austin): Mughal Religious Policy of Sulh-i Kull (Total Peace) and the Biblical Problem of Oaths
- György Endre Szőnyi (University of Szeged / CEU)): The Magical-Mystery World of Rudolf II's Empire
November 29, 2019
Friday
9:30 – 11:30 Session 5: Mystical Networks in Imperial Space (I)
Chair: József Laszlovszky (CEU)
- Dániel Siptár (Hungarian Jesuit Archives, Budapest): Jesuit Confessors and Army Chaplains in Hungary and Transylvania during the Long Turkish War (1593-1606)
- Hüseyin Yilmaz (George Mason University Fairfax): Imperial Sufism: The Ottomans, Bektashis, and Mevlevis in Empire-Building
- Rula Jurdi Abisaab (McGill University, Montreal): Agency and Accommodation: the Lālāʾī Dhahabiyya Sufis of Safavid Iran
12:00 – 13:20 Session 6: Mystical Networks in Imperial Space (II)
Chair: Brett Wilson (CEU)
- Federico Palomo (Universidad Complutense Madrid): Spanish Female Visions in Portuguese Macao: María Magdalena de la Cruz, the Franciscan Missionary Politics in Asia and the Global Circulation of Mystical Piety in the 17th Century Iberian Empires
- Tobias Winnerling (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf): The Devil, the Enemy, the Demon, Lucifer: 16th Century Jesuits Coming to Terms with Evil in the Overseas Missions
14:50 – 16:10 Session 7: Mystics as Cultural Brokers
Chair: Carsten Wilke (CEU)
- Ines Aščerić-Todd (University of Edinburgh): Sufi Orders in Ottoman Bosnia: from Imperial Legitimacy to Voices of Discontent
- Ute Falasch (CEU): Promoting Mughal Politics: Abd al-Rahman Chishti between Pluralism, Inclusivism and Exclusivism
16:40 – 18:00 Session 8: Mystics of Religious Minorities
Chair: Vlad Naumescu (CEU)
- Orit Ramon (The Open University of Israel): Maharal of Prague: Mystical Construction of a Jewish Confession in a Multi-confessional Empire
- István Perczel (CEU): Pseudo-Dionysian and Patristic Mysticism in the Service of the Jesuit Missions in India (16th-17th century)
November 30, 2019
Saturday
9:30 – 10:50 Session 9: Subversive Mystics
Chair: Benedek Péri (ELTE)
- Jessica J. Fowler (IE University Segovia & Madrid): Policing Imperial Mystics: The Threat of “Silly Little Women” to Global Empire
- Matthias Riedl (CEU): Apostolic Christianity and the End of Empire: Thomas Müntzer’s Apocalyptic Platonism
11:20 – 12:40 Session 10: Decline and Periodization of Imperial Mysticism
Chair: Jan Hennings (CEU)
- Derin Terzioğlu (Boğaziçi University / Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin): Reconfigurations of Sufism and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, ca. 1580-ca. 1730: The End of Imperial Mysticism?
- Ata Anzali (Middlebury College): 'Irfan as a Category of Power during the Safavid Era
14:10 – 15:10 Final Discussion / Closing Remarks
- Moderated by Tijana Krstić (CEU)
