Claudia Jetter and Benjamin Pietrenka (Faculty of theology at Ruprecht-Karls-Univ. Heidelberg and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies) (Web)

Time: 19.-20.03.2021
Venue: virtual space, via Heidelberg
Proposals by: 20.12.2020

In recent years, the rise of populist movements in the Western world has stoked academic interest in both why and how charismatic leaders come to command authority in various social domains. Religious motivations and gender dynamics have typically played significant roles in fostering and perpetuating these phenomena. This conference will focus on the intersections of charismatic authority, gender, and religion in historical and contemporary contexts. In these colloquia, conference participants will present and discuss topics related to the operational dynamics and long-term effects that “gendered charismas” have had on society in general and churches in particular.

When Max Weber first conceptualized his ideal types of charismatic leadership, his examples of charismatic authority among religious leaders included the Mormon founder Joseph Smith Jr., Native American shamans, and the Dalai Lama. However, he did not consider female examples and, thus, neglected the gendered resonances of religious charisma. Historians of religion in their analyses of exceptional women, such as the medieval mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg or Ellen G. White (foundress of the Seventh-Day-Adventists), have both utilized and moved beyond Weber’s relatively narrow and exclusively male-oriented concept to present the various ways in which charismatic women shaped confessional and denominational theologies, altered social cultures, and promoted innovative agendas. Historians of gender have noted how charismatic authority can promote progressive personal and public empowerment, and work to limit progress in these areas through the machinations of toxic masculinities and appropriations of hegemonic power and patriarchy.

The organizers seek papers that investigate different approaches to and elements of ‘gendered charisma.’ Read more and source … (Web)

Funded by: Graduiertenkolleg Authority & Trust (GKAT) and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)

Amelia Bonea (Heidelberg) and Irina Nastasa-Matei (Bucharest)

Venue: virtual space, via Heidelberg
Time: 07.-08.05.2021
Proposals by: 15.01.2021

The 20th century has often been hailed as a period when women became important in science, but their participation in scientific inquiry and practice often remains buried, quite literally, in the footnotes of specialist publications and studies of the history of science. Even today, national statistics about women in science are not always easily available. The data that does exist suggests there is significant regional and cultural variation in how women engage with science globally.

Recent UNESCO surveys, for example, point to a contrast between the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, where almost half of the researchers employed in science are female, and East, South and West Asia, where that proportion drops significantly to 23 percent or less. Similarly, in Eastern European countries female researchers tend to be better represented in science fields than their Western European counterparts.

Perhaps ironically, that relationship is reversed when we turn our attention to studies of the history of science in the twentieth century: the scientific pursuits of women in Western contexts have consistently enjoyed more visibility than those in regions like Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe. The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science (2000) is emblematic of these trends, listing as it does a mere 17 scientists from India, China and Japan, as opposed to more than 500 from Great Britain, and featuring entries up to the 1950s, a period that roughly overlaps with decolonization in Asia.

This two-day virtual conference, accompanied by a roundtable discussion, brings together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds to address two main, interrelated questions:

• How did women contribute to the making and communication of scientific knowledge in the 2oth century?
• How do we study the history of women in science during this period? Read more and source … (Web)