CAS 2023 International Graduate Student Workshop | The Quotidian and the Divine: Early Modern Gendered Economies of Monasticism in the Eastern Christian World
Keynote Address
Over the decades, the Center for Armenian Studies at U-M has fostered a critical dialogue with graduate students around the globe through our annual graduate student workshops. Together with our faculty, graduate students, visiting and post-doctoral fellows we have pushed scholarship in Armenian Studies in new directions through our collective efforts. Our interventions in the study of Armenian history, literature, translation studies, materiality and the visual arts can be gauged by a carefully curated set of initiatives we have undertaken that will have a long-term impact on the field. The Twelfth Annual International Graduate Student Workshop is a great opportunity to bring together a wide range of disciplines that have engaged closely or obliquely with Christian monasticism.
Scholars of the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East have highlighted the complexities of cultural and social life in the empire’s provinces, yet monasticism and monastic life as a social institution remain unstudied. Monasteries have been explored as sites of state cooperation and their leaders as agents of the state, but how can a focus on the social and economic life of monasteries critically reassess themes such as piety, community, and empire?
The church was a critical institution for the physical and spiritual livelihood of Armenians and other Eastern Christian communities. Monasticism existed interdependent of the church; monks and nuns sustained the church’s labor as spiritual shepherds of their communities and served as material stewards of the land and holy spaces. Gendered aspects of monastic life, including the protocols of sexual and spiritual discipline that shaped intimacy and religious life (e.g., celibacy), offer rich vantage points through which the social fabric of confessional communities comes into view. The multiple social, sexual, and spiritual hierarchies that configured these spaces and the relationships they created have yet to be examined.
April 6th Keynote Address I
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
1014 Tisch Hall
Albrecht Diem, Syracuse University
Was the First Medieval Monk a Woman? - Reconsidered
Zoom Meeting ID:
959 3416 0523
http://umich.zoom.us/j/95934160523
This workshop, sponsored by the University of Michigan’s Center for Armenian Studies and funded by the Alex Manoogian Foundation, is organized by Kathryn Babayan (Department of History & Middle East Studies, U-M) and Kelly Hannavi, PhD Candidate (Department of History & Women’s Studies, U-M).
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at armenianstudies@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
Scholars of the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East have highlighted the complexities of cultural and social life in the empire’s provinces, yet monasticism and monastic life as a social institution remain unstudied. Monasteries have been explored as sites of state cooperation and their leaders as agents of the state, but how can a focus on the social and economic life of monasteries critically reassess themes such as piety, community, and empire?
The church was a critical institution for the physical and spiritual livelihood of Armenians and other Eastern Christian communities. Monasticism existed interdependent of the church; monks and nuns sustained the church’s labor as spiritual shepherds of their communities and served as material stewards of the land and holy spaces. Gendered aspects of monastic life, including the protocols of sexual and spiritual discipline that shaped intimacy and religious life (e.g., celibacy), offer rich vantage points through which the social fabric of confessional communities comes into view. The multiple social, sexual, and spiritual hierarchies that configured these spaces and the relationships they created have yet to be examined.
April 6th Keynote Address I
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
1014 Tisch Hall
Albrecht Diem, Syracuse University
Was the First Medieval Monk a Woman? - Reconsidered
Zoom Meeting ID:
959 3416 0523
http://umich.zoom.us/j/95934160523
This workshop, sponsored by the University of Michigan’s Center for Armenian Studies and funded by the Alex Manoogian Foundation, is organized by Kathryn Babayan (Department of History & Middle East Studies, U-M) and Kelly Hannavi, PhD Candidate (Department of History & Women’s Studies, U-M).
If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at armenianstudies@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
| Building: | Tisch Hall |
|---|---|
| Event Type: | Workshop / Seminar |
| Tags: | armenia, history |
| Source: | Happening @ Michigan from Center for Armenian Studies, Department of Middle East Studies, International Institute, Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS), Department of History |
