Call for papers, Brno, November 18. – 21. 2025

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Department of Czech Language and Czech Literature, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University and Institute of Ethnology, the Czech Academy of Sciences organizes conference

Christological Motives in Song Culture

Brno, November 18. – 21. 2025

In Christian faith, practice, and worship, Christological themes play a significant role. The person, being, and activity of Jesus of Nazareth have not only been a matter of theological debates since the time of the early Christians but have also played a key role in popular piety. Christological texts thus spread in Europe during the Early Modern period within popular print culture, especially chapbooks and broadside ballads. At the same time, however, the texts passed through various media, such as hymn books and pilgrimage books, and intertwined with the oral tradition.

The conference is organized under the umbrella of the project Christological Broadside Ballads in the Oral Tradition (GA25-15545S) and it is intended for all specialists for whom cheap prints, chapbooks and broadside ballads are a relevant source – be it librarians,

literary scientists, linguists, musicologists, ethnologists and cultural anthropologists, historians, art historians and museum workers.

The conference organizers especially welcome interdisciplinary contributions and contributions concerning methodology used for this type of research. The following topics, presented in song culture, are highly welcome:

• The life of Christ
• Christological religious services and cults
• Christological pilgrimage sites
• Iconography (visualisations of Jesus Christ in chapbooks and broadside ballads)
• Folk piety
• Materiality of cheap prints
• Motifs and their relations to both official literature, and religiosity
• The role of Christological motives within different confessions
• Oral rendition and the regional setting in the dissemination
• The relationship between oral and written (printed and hand-written) sources
• Language analysis
• Research into contrafacta and contrapositives, reused and transnational melodies
• Analysis of the tunes in terms of regional musical dialects, and their relationship to songs from hymn books
• The intermediality and reception of the songs

Invited speakers:

Prof. David Hopkin, University of Oxford, Great Britain

Dr. Siv Gøril Brandtzæg, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Dr. Matthew Laube, Baylor University, USA

Prof. Hana Urbancová, Slovak Academy of Science, Slovakia

The conference language is English.

Abstracts should be submitted in PDF format through the Google form:  https://forms.gle/T7cDBwHx7MResMD27

The submission deadline is April 30, 2025.

Abstracts should not exceed 300 words + additional page with references. Each talk is allotted 20 minutes + discussion.

Important dates

April 30, 2025 – abstract submission deadline May 31, 2025 – notifications

September 30, 2025 – registration + conference fee payment

The conference fee is 1000 CZK (40 EUR).

We do not plan conference proceedings; however, selected contributions could be included into an English written collective monograph.

The organizers

PhDr. Markéta Holubová, Ph.D.

prof. Mgr. Pavel Kosek, Ph.D.

Mgr. Michaela Boháčová, Ph.D.

PhDr. Věra Frolcová, CSc.

Mgr. Marie Hanzelková, Ph.D.

Mgr. Tomáš Slavický, Ph.D.

Mgr. Kateřina Smyčková, Ph.D.

Organizers participated in following books related with the history of Czech broadside ballads:

Patricia Fumerton, Pavel Kosek, Marie Hanzelková, eds.: Czech Broadside Ballads as Multimedia Text, Art, Song, and Popular Culture, c. 1600–1900. AUP: Amsterdam, 2022.  https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/59158/9789048553341.pdf?sequen ce=1&isAllowed=y

Hana Glombová, Michaela Boháčová, eds.: The Wide Road to Brno. Broadside Ballads with Secular  Themes.  Exhibition Catalogue. Moravian Museum: Brno, 2021.  https://www.phil.muni.cz/kramarskepisne/en/exhibitions/the-wide-way-to-brno-broadside- ballads-with-secular-themes

Michaela Boháčová, ed.: A Twelve -Top Tree Czech Religious Broadside Ballads and Pilgrimage Chapbooks. Exhibition Catalogue. Moravian Museum: Brno 2022.  https://www.phil.muni.cz/kramarskepisne/en/exhibitions/a-twelve-top-tree-czech-religious- broadside-ballads-and-pilgrimage-chapbooks

Czech  broadside  ballads  in  the  international  context  (Bohemica  litteraria, special issue). In Bohemica litteraria. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2023.  https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bohemica-litteraria/issue/view/2553

Download pdf here.