In conjunction with an art exhibition at Glasgow University Chapel celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Glasgow Jewish artist Hannah Frank, the Graduate School of Arts and Humanities and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow are planning a two-day symposium on Art, Religion and Identity for 23-24 September 2008

Keynote speakers are Professor Melissa Raphael-Levine (University of Gloucestershire), Professor Shulamit Reinharz (Brandeis University) and Dr. Laura Levitt (Temple University).

Organisers have issued a call for papers on any topic relating to the conference theme, with a focus on the 19th and 20th centuries, although they are open to proposals dealing with other periods. They welcome papers from any discipline, including but not limited to theology, art history, museum and archive studies, cultural studies, history, psychology, sociology, anthropology and literature. Abstracts of 150-300 words, for papers not exceeding 20 minutes in length, or proposals for posters (A1 size) should be addressed to Julie Clague and Alana Vincent no later than 20 July.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Art as (auto)biography
• Borrowing and appropriation of imagery
• Contested (religious) identities
• Hermeneutics, textuality, and ‘reading’ images
• Intersections between mythology and religion in visual culture
• Imagination and the fantastic
• Material memory and culture making
• Theological and/or religious aesthetics
• Tensions, transgressions, heresies, and idolatries
• Religious uses of art: devotion, illustration, midrash, protest
• Artistic uses of religion: themes, symbolism, tradition, power
• Visual markers of religious identity
• Gender in relation to any of the above

Further information is available here.