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Welcome!

Welcome to the blog for the Vernacular Devotional Cultures Group.

After sponsoring our first session for this new society at the Medieval Congress in May 2016, we are delighted to be expanding our reach and proposing several sessions of papers for May 2017. Our mandate for the Vernacular Devotional Culture includes making up for the loss of the Mystics Quarterly sessions no longer taking place at Congress by sponsoring sessions on medieval mystics and mysticism, fostering collaboration among societies devoted to religious cultures, and showcasing recent scholarship on vernacular spiritual traditions in medieval Western Europe.

The session topics we are proposing are:

  1. “New Approaches to the Helfta Nuns and Their Contemporaries” (Organizing Committee)
  2. Co-sponsored with the Syon Abbey Society: “Syon Abbey and its Associates” (Organizers: Stephanie Morley and Brandon Alakas)
  3. Imitatio Mariae in the Meditations vitae Christi traditions across Europe” (Organizers: Leah Buturain and Laura Saetvit Miles)
  4. “Vernacular Spiritualities in the Later Middle Ages: Adaptations and Transformations” (Organizing Committee)

Once approvals have been made then we will advertise the selected sessions – please stay tuned.

Inaugural Kalamazoo session 2016

[Post moved from trial site, May 10, 2016]

Kalamazoo 2016

The first VDCG-sponsored session takes place on Saturday May 14 at 3:30 in Fetzer 2040. The topic is New Perspectives on Catherine of Siena and Her Female Contemporaries, presided by Stephanie Amsel, Southern Methodist Univ.

The papers are as follows:

  • “Sponsa Hominis et Sponsa Christi: Sacramental Marriage and the Bride of Christ” Chelsea Skalak, Dickinson College

  • “The Orcherd of Syon and Native English Mystics” Carol F. Heffernan, Rutgers Univ.–Newark

  • ‘Catherine and Her “Figlie” as Women Writers’ Lisa Vitale, Southern Connecticut State Univ

We’re looking forward to an exciting inaugural session!