The conference on The Cosmography of Paradise is to be held next week at the Warburg Institute, University of London. There will be a keynote lecture by Jan Bremmer at UCL on 4th March (Wednesday evening) and a two-day colloquium at the Warburg on the 5th and 6th March (Thursday and Friday). The British Institute for the History of Iraq and the School of Advanced Study, University of London, have also contributed to the event.
Here is the programme, but you can also see it on the Warburg website:
THE COSMOGRAPHY OF PARADISE
THE OTHER WORLD
FROM ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA TO MEDIEVAL EUROPE
organised by Alessandro Scafi (The Warburg Institute) with the co-operation of Mark Geller (Institute of Jewish Studies, UCL) and the support of the Institute of Jewish Studies, UCL, the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and the British Institute for the Study of Iraq
Wednesday 4 March
6.15 p.m. Wine reception in the Terrace Restaurant UCL
followed by Evening Lecture at 6.45 p.m.
in the Chadwick Lecture Theatre, UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
The Birth of Paradise: to Early Christianity, via Greece, Persia and Israel
by Jan N. Bremmer, University of Groningen
Admission to lecture free
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Thursday 5 March
in the Lecture Room at The Warburg Institute, Woburn Square,
London WC1H OAB
9.45 Doors open
10.15 Mark Geller, UCL: Sumerian Concepts of Heaven
11.00 Coffee
11.20 Nicolas Wyatt, University of Edinburgh: A Garden for the Living – Cultic and Ideological Aspects of Paradise
12.05 Annette Y. Reed, University of Pennsylvania: Paradise and Heavenly Ascent in Enochic Literature
1.00 Lunch for invited guests
2.15 Antonio Panaino, University of Bologna: Around, Inside and Beyond the Wall. Names, Ideas and Images of Paradise in pre-Islamic Iran
3.00 Emilie Savage-Smith, University of Oxford: Paradise in Medieval Islam
3.45 Tea
4.15 Nanno Marinatos, University of Illinois at Chicago: Passages to Paradise in the East Mediterranean
/continued
5.00 Dimitris Kyrtatas, University of Thessaly (Volos): Seeking for Paradise in the Desert
5.45 Einar Thomassen, University of Bergen: Gnostic Revelations on the Passage to the Beyond
7.00 Supper for invited guests
Friday 6 March
in the Lecture Room at The Warburg Institute, Woburn Square,
London WC1H OAB
9.45 Doors open
10.15 Michael Paschalis, University of Crete: Roman ‘Paradise’: What is it Like?
11.00 Coffee
11.20 Veronica Della Dora, University of Bristol: ‘The Heavens Declare the Glory of God’: Mapping the Cosmos on Byzantine and post-Byzantine Icons
12.05 Florentina Badalanova-Geller, Royal Anthropological Institute/UCL: Paradise in Slavonic Tradition
1.00 Lunch for invited guests
2.15 Danuta Shanzer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Food and the Senses in Paradise
3.00 Jens Braarvig, University of Oslo: Paradise in Buddhism
3.45 Tea
4.05 Corin Braga, University of Cluj: Fisi. Ecstatic Voyages in the Afterworld in Irish Celtic- Christian Mythology
4.50 Anders Hultgård, University of Uppsala: Valhalla and Heaven: Scandinavian Images of Paradise in a Period of Religious change
5.35 Rudolf Simek, University of Bonn: Visions of Paradise in Western and Northern Medieval Europe
Early registration is recommended. Conference registration fee: £40.00 (£20.00 for students)
The fee can be paid at the door in cash or by UK bank cheque but not by credit card.
To register please contact Elizabeth Witchell at the Warburg Institute: elizabeth.witchell@sas.ac.uk
For further information, please contact Alessandro Scafi (Alessandro.Scafi@sas.ac.uk)
Full programme at: http://warburg.sas.ac.uk
Warburg Institute
School of Advanced Study, University of London, Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AB.
Tel: (020) 7862 8949 Fax: (020) 7862 8955
