National Library of Lisbon, September 26-27, 2022
The conference Public Rituals and Alterity in the Portuguese Empire (1450-1822) aims to explore the articulation between ritual practices and notions of difference. The conference is part of the project “Public Rituals in the Portuguese Empire” (RITUALS, www.rituaispublicos.wordpress.com). Besides digitizing narratives of public rituals in the Portuguese empire between 1498 and 1822 and making them available online, RITUALS is dedicated to exploring various dimensions of rituals (e.g. public ceremonies, festivals, processions): the spaces of rituals; the political, social, and cultural imaginaries found in these rituals (and their narratives); the comparison between public rituals dominant in the Portuguese empire and those that occur in other contexts. The concept of alterity is here understood in a broad sense, encompassing ethnic, religious, social, political and cultural alterity and other forms of difference (for example, the changes introduced in rituals across time and space).
With these ideas in mind, Public Rituals and Alterity in the Portuguese Empire (1450-1822) invites papers that address the following and related issues:
a) How ethnic, religious, social, political, and cultural alterities were represented and incorporated into public rituals in the Portuguese empire, including the categories, symbols, and signs used to represent them;
b) The diachronic ways in which representations of difference persisted or changed led to new regimes of hierarchy and differentiation.
c) How narratives of rituals permit access to the rituals of “others”—not only those integrated into official public rituals but also those that occurred on the margins and were recorded by these narratives;
d) Other ritual alterities, such as spatial and temporal changes that permit the expression of distinct political and social discourses;
e) The relation between rituals and alterity, taking into account wider contexts, such as the other ritual languages and modalities in the territories under the dominion of the Portuguese crown.
The presentations should be 20 minutes long and can be delivered in Portuguese, English or Spanish. The preparation of a publication in Portuguese is being considered. Abstracts of up to 200 words and a brief CV (1 page) should be sent to publicrituals@gmail.com by May 31, 2022. The results will be communicated by June 15, 2022.