The early modern reformations (XVI-XVII centuries) were a window of opportunity for Catholic and Protestant women who questioned the borders of religious orthodoxy and at the same time challenged the borders of their spaces of initiative and action. Prophetic charisma, appropriated during the long Renaissance by well-known figures such as Birgitta of Sweden, Catherine of Siena, and Girolamo Savonarola, represented a powerful tool to gain legitimation and sacralize one’s own theological and political discourse.
This conference brings together international scholars around the topic of female prophecy as a mode of authority, a political and theological tool, an instrument of history-writing and remaking of historical concepts (e.g., power, authority, community, melancholy, friendship, prudence) and a historical phenomenon that involved women and men, giving prominence to unexpected subjects. Prophecy is meant as a lens that helps to explore paths of women’s subjectivation, the relations between the sexes, within religious orders and communities. It is also a polemical field that originated theological and political debates over the holy status of the prophetic actor. In this conference we will discuss female prophecy from multiple angles and disciplines, to understand the wider implications of prophecy as a ‘creative force of history’ that is inescapable for scholars of the early modern era.
Particular attention will be given to understudied prophets and new research in the field; theological and political debates on the status of prophecy; overlaps between prophecy and politico-religious crises; explorations of original texts and sources; new theoretical proposals to study women prophets and their supporters and enemies. Global history approaches, transnational perspectives and mobility studies are welcome.
Please send a 300 words abstract, title, affiliation and 200 words bio to eleonora.cappuccilli@ifikk.uio.no by 31st of March 2026. Applicants will be notified of the selection results by 17th April 2026.
This conference is funded by the European Union, MSCA Global fellowship and the Norwegian Institute in Rome. Funds will cover accommodation and meals.