Perhaps one of the best-kept secrets about Brooklyn College is that its School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) includes a remarkable collection of faculty immersed in studying and teaching about the world before 1700 from a variety of perspectives and approaches. Two members of this unique interdisciplinary community, Professor Lauren Mancia (Department of History) and Professor Brian P. Sowers (Department of Classics), have organized a two-day conference about premodern religious experiences. On June 5-6, “Fragments of Experience: Approaching ‘Lived Religion’ from Late Antiquity to the Central Middle Ages,” will assemble 13 experts in premodern religion from History, Medieval Studies, Classics, Islamic Studies, Studies in Religion, Judaic Studies, Art History, and Women & Gender Studies to discuss the everyday experiences of religious individuals who lived centuries ago. In addition to Mancia and Sowers, Brooklyn College’s Professors Karen Stern (History) and Jennifer Ball (Art) are also speaking at the conference. Professors Mancia, Sowers, Stern, and Ball are part of a unique and active consortium of scholars housed in HSS known as the Late-Antique-Medieval-Early-Modern (LAMEM) consortium. Organized and directed by Mancia since she joined the college in 2013, LAMEM includes over two dozen faculty from nine different departments and programs. Faculty from the History, English, Art, Judaic Studies, Modern Languages and Literature, Studies in Religion, Classics, Philosophy, and Earth and Environmental Sciences departments meet monthly to share their research projects, often on topics about the pre-modern world. LAMEM’s commitment to advancing the study of the premodern world is another uniqueness of Brooklyn College within The City University of New York (CUNY) system. Not only has it fostered a deep and consistent collaboration among faculty, students from around the tri-state area, including many CUNY campuses, have joined the LAMEM working group and are participating in its vibrant scholarly conversation. Past colloquia have featured topics such as: ” Law in Late Antique and Medieval Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Traditions,” “Theorizing ‘Race’ in Early Modern Spain,” “The Faces of Chao Gui: Fact and Meaning in the Historiography of the Warring States and Former Han,” and “The Making of a Black Panther: Plato’s Influence on Huey P. Newton.” “So often, the astounding achievements of humanities faculty members at Brooklyn College fly under the radar. This conference draws from one of the unsung areas of academic strength at the college and continues its legacy of great interdisciplinary humanists, some of whom are showcased in our upcoming exhibit in the Brooklyn College Library. The “Magisterial Feminae” exhibit opens May 2 and tells the story of just a few female premodernists who transformed Brooklyn College and CUNY through their groundbreaking study of premodernity and their deep academic commitment to the humanities,” Mancia said. “This event is an opportunity for some of the world’s leading scholars on premodern religion to come to campus and experience, perhaps for the first time, how amazing our faculty, students, and staff are,” Sowers added. “In 2016, the college hosted a similar conference on premodern literary depictions of the body. Participants in that conference still rave about how great an experience their visit to campus was. This is the type of reputation our campus and community should have.” For more information about the conference and how to attend, please email Professor Mancia (laurenmancia@brooklyn.cuny.edu) or Professor Sowers (bsowers@brooklyn.cuny.edu).
