In Search of the Desert

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

Denva Gallant

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. of Delaware

Presider Name

Erika Loic

Presider Affiliation

Univ. of Toronto

Paper Title 1

The Perfect Penitent: Mary Magdalen in the Wilderness of Provence

Presenter 1 Name

Sarah S. Wilkins

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Pratt Institute

Paper Title 2

In Pursuit of an Eremitic Ideal: The Construction of a Collective Identity in New York Pierpont Morgan, MS M.626

Presenter 2 Name

Denva Gallant

Paper Title 3

The Origins of the Edinburgh Tabernacle: A New Proposal

Presenter 3 Name

Amelia Hope-Jones

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Univ. of Edinburgh

Start Date

9-5-2019 10:00 AM

Session Location

Schneider 1320

Description

In Search of the Desert aims to explore contemporary interest in the eremitic life, whether as historical authority or as living exemplar with analyses of early visual representations of the desert which emerged in Italy, in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

In the third and fourth centuries AD, the barren deserts of Egypt, Syria and Palestine witnessed the birth of Christian monastic life among saints who came to be known as the Desert Fathers. The heroic self-discipline and devoted ascetic endeavors of St Antony the Abbot, St Paul of Thebes and St Macarius, among others, became emblematic of an original and authentic form of the religious life. This eremitic tradition, transmitted to the west through hagiography and ascetic literature, exerted a profound influence over the formation of western monastic life in the fifth and sixth centuries, and continued to function as an ideological authority well into the late medieval period and beyond. Denva Gallant