To celebrate the opening of the exhibition Agents of Faith: Votive Objects in Time and Place (on view September 14, 2018–January 6, 2019), this one-day symposium will explore how votives mark the most intimate moments in human existence and question the nature, role, and function of one of the most fundamental aspects of the relationship between people and things—the imbuing of objects with sentiment.
11 am
Welcome
Peter N. Miller, Bard Graduate Center
Nina Stritzler-Levine, Bard Graduate Center
Introduction
Ittai Weinryb, Bard Graduate Center
11:20 am
Remedial Options and Votive Culture in Early Modern Italy
Fredrika Jacobs, Virginia Commonwealth University
11:40 am
Boons and Blessings in Early India
John Guy, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
12:00 pm
Observations on a Tyrolean War Votive, Its Destination and Function
Mitchell Merback, Johns Hopkins University
12:20 pm
Questions & Discussion
12:40 pm
Lunch Break
2 pm
How Some Yoruba Live Forever: Ẹbọ Arts as Living Votives
Suzanne Preston Blier, Harvard University
2:20 pm
Votive Practice as Sacred Economy
David Morgan, Duke University
2:40 pm
The Politics and Poetics of an Ex-voto in Lourdes
Catrien Notermans, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3 pm
Conclusions
Gerhard Wolf, Kunsthistorisches Institut - Max Planck Institute, Florence
3:20 pm
Questions & Discussion
3:40 pm
Reception
