Women in the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition

Call for Papers
International Medieval Congress, May 7-10, 2020

Interested in giving a paper at Kalamzoo next May? WIFIT (Women in the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition) will sponsor two sessions at the International Medieval Congress, May 7-10, 2020

1.) Franciscan Women and the Saints They Loved (Co-Sponsored with the Hagiography Society)
This session proposes to explore the variety of devotions to various saints that Franciscan women--vowed and lay--cultivated and expressed through pious practices, speech, and writing as documented in hagiography, canonization testimonies, and other sources. By focusing on the piety around particular saints of these women, this session will allow a deep focus on how saints motivated and inspired Franciscan women who in turn worked with their preferred saints, even manipulating their reputations to build on the saints' traditions and images.

2.) Knowing Women Biblically: Franciscans and Women in Scripture
This session focuses on the use of female figures in Scripture made by members of the Franciscan family (men and women; vowed and lay) in order to explore how women in the Bible featured in Franciscan piety, teaching, and spirituality. The opportunity to explore the meaning made of women in the Bible speaks to the variety of models used by the different members of the Franciscan family will likely lead to rich discussions on gender, lived faith, and expressions of religious authority.

Both topics sound provocative, don't they? If you're interested in presenting a paper in one of these sessions, please submit to me by email a title and abstract to Darleen Pryds by September 1. Her email address is dpryds@fst.edu

She will be back in touch with you after the selection of papers around September 4 (The Feast of Rose of Viterbo) with the requisite paper work. There already are a couple interesting presenters lined up for each session so far, so please consider joining in on what is predicted to be stimulating conversation following interesting papers!

Got questions? Contact Darleen Pryds at dpryds@fst.edu She'll get back to you soon.

Who we are

Women in The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition (WIFIT) is a network of scholars who study Franciscan women and their contributions to the Franciscan tradition. The focus of WIFIT has been to further research on the impact and influence of early Franciscan women, including the vowed, cloistered sisters, the vowed women of the Third Order, as well as the lay women who are affiliated with the tradition without taking any formal vows.

Through annual meetings at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, members of WIFIT share research interests, plan conference sessions and special conferences, and relate publishing endeavors. The group implemented a listserve to give scholars an opportunity to communicate with one another and to make this mutual sharing, planning, and strategizing more frequent and more visible. While the focus of the group has been to date on early Franciscan women, there is a willingness and interest in expanding beyond the first two centuries of the Franciscan tradition.

If you have suggestions for the site or if you would like to post relevant information, please contact Dr. Darleen Pryds at dpryds@fst.edu. To subscribe to the WFIT listserv, send an email to WIFIT.LIST@gmail.com.