Annual Meeting of American Academy of Religion (Ritual Studies Unit)

Saturday, Nov. 19th, 4:30 pm:  come pick up a postcard for our latest pilgrimage and chat with Dr. Kathryn Barush & advisory board member Dr. Cogen Bohanec about the project (GTU booth)

Saturday, Nov. 19th, 6:00 pm:  GTU Anniversary Event with a 6-minute PechaKucha-style presentation about BAIPP; the first 60 guests will receive free drink tickets!

Sunday, Nov. 20th, 12:30 pm, Ritual Studies Unit discussion panel on recent books in pilgrimage studies with Dr. André Brouillette, SJ (author of the Pilgrim Paradigm), Dr. Marion Grau (author of Pilgrimage, Landscape, and Identity), and Dr. Kathryn Barush (author of Imaging Pilgrimage); Prof. John Eade will respond (University of Roehampton, Visiting Professor at University of Toronto)

Sunday, Nov. 20th, 4:30 pm:  Society for the Arts in Religious & Theological Studies – another book panel featuring Imaging Pilgrimage and a number of other excellent titles – if you missed the 12:30 session, please do come along!  Chaired by Elizabeth S. Peña

Monday, Nov. 21st, 12:30 pm, Christian Spirituality unit:  panel discussion on pilgrimage in the time of pandemic, and how BAIPP pilgrimages can help with health and well-being.

Hope to see some folks there!  

This panel looks at some new publications within the study of ritual, sacred geography, and pilgrimage.  Kathryn Barush’s Imaging Pilgrimage (2021), Marion Grau’s Pilgrimage, Landscape and Identity (2021), and André Brouillette, SJ’s The Pilgrim Paradigm (2022) represent recent studies in contemporary pilgrimage and its complexity in Europe and the U.S.  This panel gathers a diversity of approaches to contemporary pilgrimage in its many forms. From the metaphorical use of the pilgrimage motif in spirituality and ecumenical movements to the physical movement either in a local or home context or abroad, this panel seeks to engage how contemporary people, both religious and non-religious, make sense and engage in pilgrimage as a spiritual practice. Panelists will discuss the links between pilgrimage and healing, engaging art as pilgrimage, pilgrimage and personal spirituality, interreligious and ecumenical aspects of religious travel, sacred geographies at home and the outdoors, the relationship between pilgrimage and sainthood, pilgrimage and religious and secular festivals, forms of activist pilgrimage, ethnonationalism, climate change, and discusses various theologies of pilgrimage.