CFP for Vergilian Society Affiliated Group Panel at SCS 2021 – reposting with new deadline
Virgil and Religion
From the mysterious young god introduced in Eclogue 1 to the human sacrifice that ends Aeneid 12, Virgil's concern with many facets of religion, both Roman and "foreign," is evident throughout his works. Thanks in part to the Christian reading of the Fourth Eclogue, Virgil himself also occupies a unique role in intellectual and religious history as a bridge between pagan antiquity and Christianity. In recent years, more scholars have begun to suggest that Virgil not only had some acquaintance with Judaism, as educated Romans of his era unquestionably did, but meaningfully engaged with its ideas and its texts within his poems.
This panel seeks to explore all of these aspects of Virgil's relationship to religion. Topics might include, without being limited to, Virgil's depictions of Roman rituals and gods; his points of contact with or divergence from other Mediterranean or Eastern religions; his relationship with Judaism; or his afterlife as a "pagan prophet" in the Christian tradition.
Abstracts for papers should be submitted electronically as Word documents by May 10, 2020 to Julia Hejduk (Julia_Hejduk@baylor.edu), preferably with the subject heading “abstract_religion_SCS2021”. The abstracts will be judged anonymously and so should not reveal the author’s name, but the email should provide name, abstract title, and affiliation. Abstracts should be 650 words or fewer and should follow the guidelines for individual abstracts (https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/guidelines-authors-abstracts), except that works cited should be put at the end of the document, not in a separate text box.