Religious Embodiment and Conversion Practices in Early Modern Europe and Beyond from 1500 to 1800

Two day conference.

The purpose of this conference is to discuss various forms of practical religiosity that existed in Europe and the wider World in the Early Modern Period, and sought to enable the performing of one’s faith or the conversion of others to one’s faith. The proposed time frame for papers is approximately from 1500 to 1800.

Third table with Sophia works of Jakob Bøhmen

Keynote speakers

	Professor Rebekka Voss, Jewish Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt
	Professor Emily Michelson, Early Modern History, University of St. Andrews.

Programme

Conference Day 1

8:30	Welcome by the organizers
9:00 - 10:30	Keynote Prof. Rebekka Voß (Goethe University, Frankfurt) “Conversion and Translation in the Pietist Mission to the Jews”
10:30-10:45	Coffee break
10:45-12:45	Panel 1: Jewish philosophical and religious encounters Dr. Ariel Hessayon (Goldsmiths University, London) “Mutable religious identities in early modern England: Judaizing Christians, crypto-Jews and Jewish apostates” Prof. Alexander Van der Haven (University of Bergen) “The Soul of a Wicked Jew: Race and Conversion to Judaism in Early Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam” PD Dr. Elke Morlok (University of Hamburg) “Embodied Mediatrix: Practical Religiosity and Feminine Intermediality in Jewish and Christian Kabbalah” Dr. Ariane Viktoria Fichtl (University of Copenhagen) “Divine self-manifestation within and without: the secularising theory of Jacob Böhme’s Christian Kabbalah”
12:45-13:45	Lunch break
13:45-15:45	Panel 2: Christian conversion and the colonial sphere Dr. Lucky Igohosa Ugbudian (Alex Ekwueme Federal University) “Religious Embodiment and Conversion practices in early modern Benin and Warri Kingdoms” Prof. Giorgos Plakotos (University of the Aegean) “The Convert’s Body, the Performing Self, and Conversion to Islam: Venetian and English perspectives” Dr. Benedikt Brunner (Leibniz Institute for European History, Mainz) “‘Indian Converts’ (1727) and the Requirements of Puritan Perfection. Native American embodiment of Christianity under scrutiny” Prof. Joanna Kodzik (Universities of Versailles/Paris Saclay) “Conversion of the Inuit in Moravian Indigenous Life Stories”
16:00-18:00	Panel 3: Female religious devotion and embodiment Rimliya Tariq Telkenaroglu (McGill University) “From Vessel to Vessel: Communication of the Spirit Through the Female Quaker Itinerant Ministry” Fanny Bäckman Wingborg (University of Gothenburg) “The role of the Virgin Mary in shaping identification with the Lutheran faith” Océane Brigitte (University of Geneva) “Who whispers to women’s ears? Performative aspects of female agency within the inspired and pietist movements in French-speaking Switzerland in the 18th century” Prof. Juliane Engelhardt (University of Copenhagen) “Feminine Christianity in Germany and Scandinavia: three communication strategies”

Conference Day 2

9:00-10:30	Keynote Prof. Emily Michelson (University of St Andrews) “Conversion and the body in a multi-faith Reformation”
10:30-10:45	Coffee break
10:45-12:45	Panel 4: Performative preaching, chanting, and prayer Dr. Yaakov A. Mascetti (Bar-Ilan University) “Sensing Grace: Embodied Sensation and Spiritual Transformation in Early Modern English Sermons” Prof. Seán D. Vrieland and Dr. Iliana Kandzha (University of Copenhagen) “‘En catolsk Bønnebog’ - the continued use of medieval prayer books in Reformation-Age Denmark” Dr. Niels Nykrog (Huygens Institute/University of Copenhagen) “A Poetic Rhythm for Lutheran Orthodoxy: Confessionalism in Danish Psalters (1600-1630)” Prof. Wolfgang Breul (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz) “Child Conversions in Pietism and in the Moravian Church”
12:45-13:45	Lunch break
13:45-15:45	Panel 5: Embodiment practices and narratives in early modern Christianity Julian Konrad (University of Vienna) “Embodied Piety in Early Modern Urban Society. Ritual and Liturgy of Religious Confraternities as Embodied Practices” Dr. Lennart Gard (Free University, Berlin) “Luther’s Chin and Böhme’s Forehead. Depicting Conversion in Early Modern Protestantism” Elisabeth von Baumbach (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz) “The Embodiment of Faith in Zinzendorf's Thirtyfour Homilies on the Litany of the Wounds” Prof. Arne Bugge Amundsen (University of Oslo) “Embodiment Strategies of 18th-Century Lutheran Pastors”
15:45-16:00	Coffee break
16:00-17:00	Panel 6: Religion and the natural world Dr. Lorenza Gianfrancesco (University of Chichester) “Devotional practices and notions of divine agency in the context of early modern natural disasters: the 1631 eruption of Mount Vesuvius” Dr. Vincent Roy-Di Piazza(Jyväskylä University) “Science as a path to conversion: Swedenborg’s religious turn reconsidered”

Conference report

Find the conference report here (pdf).

Registration

Registration for the conference is now open. Please register for the conference here.

Deadline for registration is 14 April 2026.

Call for papers - closed

We encourage submissions for papers related to questions such as which motivations underpinned the creation of religious embodiment and conversion practices and how they were made manifest, as well as about their performative aspects more broadly.

Motivations can include political and social domination (such as practices tied to colonisation, enslavement, or the inclusive exclusion of minority groups), religious enthusiasm, or religious apathy as a form of social protest, missionary and social reform efforts to achieve the salvation of oneself and others, etc.

Manifestations can include different aspects of bodily manifestations, or hexus (appearance, e.g. sartorial, coiffure, non-verbal expressions, e.g. moving, gesturing, physical displays of emotions, etc.), rhetorical manifestations (sermons, speech acts - meditations/prayers, prophecies, etc.), or other types of manifestations that adopt elements of the two formerly mentioned types of manifestations (e.g. descriptions of visual/emotional practices, such as specific forms of mentalization and their bodily or rhetorical expression, including emotional mirroring).

We aim to bring together researchers from a plurality of disciplinary backgrounds, including (but not limited to) cultural and intellectual history, art history, history of emotions, gender, and material cultures (e.g. archaeology), as well as from post-colonial and slavery studies.

We are mostly interested in contributions that centre on practices rooted in monotheistic religions/theosophies, but do not exclude or rule out practices tied to polytheism, or embodiment and conversion practices that focus on atheism as a counter-religion, as well as secularising movements more broadly.

Please submit your proposals, including an abstract of approximately 200-300 words and a short biography, to the organisers, Prof. Juliane Engelhardt, or Dr. Ariane Fichtl by 26 November 2025.

Accommodation and subsistence will be provided.