The Program in the Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World will host a conference provisionally titled Saints and Pilgrims around the Atlantic at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, from Friday, Feb. 20 to Sunday, Feb. 22, 2004.

We invite abstracts for papers that focus on the cult or veneration of saints, pilgrimage, or related topics. They might, for example, compare the cult of a given saint, or forms of devotion in general, in Europe and among immigrant communities in the US; discuss pilgrimage practices on either side of (or across) the Atlantic; examine the folklore associated with saints, or look at how vitae or motifs change with time and place. Studies of specific saints or cults in all regions washed by the Atlantic are particularly welcomed. Ideally, the conference should include a variety of disciplines and approaches -- historical, art historical, archaeological, etc. We would like to emphasize that the conference does not deal exclusively with Christian saints; papers on veneration of holy individuals from other religious traditions, or even more secular icons, will be welcome. Africanists, Latin Americanists, and Caribbeanists are encouraged to apply.

Completed papers must be submitted by December of 2003 so that they may be distributed to participants in sufficient time for them to be read before the conference. The conference itself will take the form of discussions of individual papers and/or panel discussions of papers on a given topic. We hope to submit a selection of the papers for publication soon after the conference.

By no later than April 29 please send, by email, fax, or regular mail, a 500-word abstract and copy of your CV (including, for graduate students or others not holding the PhD, the name of one or two individuals who can attest to their ability to produce a scholarly paper within the time frame required) to the address below.

Be aware that those reading the abstract may not be specialists in your field. Be sure to include enough information to enable them to understand the significance of your work. Longer is better than shorter! The Program Committee will meet on April 30 to make its decisions.