We are very pleased to tell you about three Marian events that will take place in the first half of 2023.
1st February 2023
Candlemas Eve Lecture in Honour of the late Dr Cathy Oakes
We have invited art historian Dr Cecelia Dorger, who is an adjunct professor at the Mount St. Mary Seminary and School of Theology in Cincinnati, USA, to give our online Candlemas Eve lecture in honour of our late colleague Dr Cathy Oakes.
Dr Dorger, whose research focuses on Medieval and Renaissance sacred art, specializes in images of the Virgin Mary. Her presentation, entitled "Soul Sisters: Late Medieval and Renaissance Nuns’ Devotion to the Nursing Madonna Image", will analyse the drawing entitled Seated Madonna Nursing (Uffizi Gallery) by Suor Plautilla Nelli (1524 –1588), known as the first Renaissance female painter. She will discuss the questions raised by this exquisite (but rebellious) image. Her paper will examine the motives for nuns’ devotion to the Madonna lactans motif and how, as imitators of Mary, nuns used the image in prayer to establish an intimate reciprocal relationship between Christ and the devotee.
This free event will take place via Zoom at 7pm (in the UK). If you would like to attend, please use the button below to register:
25th March 2023
New Beginnings: A Celebration of Marian Scholarship
The Feast of the Annunciation will be an opportunity to celebrate our new home at St Mary's University and the establishment of the Marian library collection in the crypt of the university chapel. It will also be the occasion on which the Centre for Marian Studies will welcome its first Honorary Fellows: Rev. Professor Andrew Louth, Professor Tina Beattie and Rev. Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch.
They will share their expertise during this one-day conference, alongside presentations by Dr Chris Maunder and Dr Sarah Jane Boss, who co-founded the Centre for Marian Studies in 1995.
We hope that as many people as possible will join us for this in-person event (but there will also be the option of attending via Zoom).
Please visit the Events Page at St Mary's University to book your place:
10 - 12 May 2023
More Universal than Catholicism? Mary among Asian Religions
The Centre for Marian Studies and the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics (ISAC) are organising an online conference to investigate the many ways that Mary is understood by Asian people around the world.
It will explore how Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Asian devotees from various faiths approach her. It will discuss the rituals, collective practices, and artistic expressions they deploy in relation to her. At a more theoretical level, this conference seeks to question what those Marian devotions say about the notions of religion, migration, interreligious relations, gender, and popular religiosity.
Please see the Call for Papers here: