Studies by Pierre-Antoine Fabre (Ecole des Hautes Etudes of Paris) have convincingly demonstrated how the Society of Jesus and other religious orders used images as an instrument of evangelization and propaganda, both in the Old World and the New World. Inspired by Fabre’s position as Visiting Professor at the Department of Education, Heritage and Tourism, our intention is to develop this collaboration by creating an international dialogue with other historians and art historians.

The conference will start with the presentation of a dossier concerning the collection of prints of the Evangelicae Historia Imagines, edited by Pierre-Antoine Fabre and Ralph de Koenick. This text was published in Antwerp in the years 1593-1595 on the initiative of Jeronimo Nadal, one of the most important figures in the Society’s first generation. The conference will then collect research by historians, art historians and scholars from other disciplines, in which images of various types (including mental, dreamlike and mystical) are used as historical sources in the analysis of different phenomena of religious history.

Particular consideration will be given to proposals that offer an interdisciplinary and methodologically innovative approach on the following themes:

  • Use of images in the evangelization of extra-European worlds
  • Images as a conversion tool
  • Catechisms and illustrated books
  • Inter-religious conflicts and wars of images
  • Religious iconography and political propaganda
  • Images and emotional manipulation

We invite proposals for papers by Monday, 7th January 2019. Proposals must include: 

  • title of the paper; 
  • a 1000-character abstract; 
  • a 500-character bio-bibliography of the speaker.

Proposals may be in Italian or English and should be sent to: [email protected] and [email protected] .

Acceptance status notifications will be communicated by Monday, 21st January 2019.
The selected papers will be peer reviewed and collected into a monograph.
The organizers of the conference will cover the accommodation costs for a night in hotel, a dinner and coffee breaks; travel expenses are not covered.