Florovsky Tantur Symposium at Notre Dame
Feeling Teaching, Teaching Feeling: Affect and Pedagogy between God and Humans
Oct. 4-5, 2024
University of Notre Dame
Following the tradition of the original Florovsky Symposia at Princeton University, the Florovsky Tantur Symposia at Notre Dame seek to honor the legacy of the Orthodox theologian, Fr. Georges Florovsky, by providing a forum wherein adherents of different Christian traditions can explore core theological themes with reference to the shared theological witness of the first millennium.
The 2024 symposium—titled "Teaching Feeling, Feeling Teaching: Affect and Pedagogy Between God and Humans"—takes up questions of affect and emotion as they arise in theological study. Theology has often been conceived, at least in its academic forms, as an exercise in the transmission of content. Yet, in the humanities broadly there has been in recent decades a turn to the crucially productive role of affect and emotion in learning. This symposium seeks to engage these questions of affect and learning in the history of theology. We welcome reflections on the theological and the social aspects of this inquiry.
Theologically, how did questions of divine affectivity—of God's emotional life—develop? How has the prospect of divine emotion been understood philosophically, theologically, homiletically, or narratively? How can we correlate biblical language about divine emotion with doctrinal assertions of divine impassibility?
Socially, how have Christian catechists sought to use affect and emotion in their conveyance of theological teaching? To what extent has orthodoxy been conceived as a mode of affective disposition? To what extent can emotions be theologized? How do these questions break down according to genre, gender, geography, and chronological location? How do the ideas of early and late antique Christians reframe our contemporary reflections on these issues?
The 2024 Florovsky Symposium will feature keynote lectures by Natalie Carnes, Andrew Davis, Sarah Gador-Whyte, Dawn Lavalle, Michael Magree, SJ, and Jeff Wickes. These will be joined to panels featuring 20-minute, conference-style papers by graduate students.
We are now accepting submissions for graduate-student panels for the upcoming Florovsky Symposium.
Submission Guidelines:
- Proposals may only be submitted by current graduate students.
- No more than one proposal should be submitted for consideration.
- Proposals must include the title of the presentation and an abstract (not to exceed 300 words).
- Proposals must be submitted through the conference website:
- Presentations must be the scholar’s own original work.
- Presenters will be allotted a time of twenty minutes for their papers.
- Submissions must be received no later than 11:59 p.m. on May 15, 2024 in order to be considered.
Submit your proposal Travel and accommodations
Questions regarding proposals or general inquiries may be directed to John Kegley (jkegley@nd.edu).
Sponsored by Tantur Ecumenical Institute & Notre Dame's Department of Theology