Sacred Journeys: 6th Global Conference

Maynooth University, Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland
Wednesday 10 July – Thursday 11 July 2019

Call for Papers

More than 400 million people embark annually on pilgrimages with numbers steadily increasing. Pilgrimage is one of the most ancient practices of humankind and is associated with a great variety of religious and spiritual traditions, beliefs and sacred geographies. As a global phenomenon, pilgrimage facilitates interaction between and among diverse peoples from countless cultures, occupations, and walks of life. In the 6th Global Conference, we will continue to explore pilgrimage’s personal, interpersonal, intercultural, and international dimensions. This includes similarities and differences in the practice in Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Taoism, and other traditions, as well as secular pilgrimage. The impact of the internet and globalization, pilgrimage as protest, and pilgrimage and peace building, among others, are all topics of interest, as are the concepts of the internal pilgrimage and the journey of self-discovery. Other potential topics include: (1) pilgrimage and the marketplace (2) the metaphor of the journey as explored by writers, artists, performers, and singers, including humanists, agnostics, atheists, and musicians (3) pilgrimage and ‘miracles’ and the related topic of thanksgiving, and (4) ‘dark’ pilgrimages to sites of remembrance and commemoration.

Submitting Your Abstract

Proposals should be submitted no later than Thursday, 28 February 2019 to:

E-Mail Subject Line: Sacred Journeys 6 Proposal Submission

The following information must be included:

  • Author(s), Affiliation as you would like it to appear in the conference program, Email address, Title of proposal, Abstract (maximum of 300 words), Keywords (maximum of ten)

Evaluating Your Proposal

All abstracts will be double-blind peer reviewed and you will be notified of the Organizing Committee’s decision no later than Thursday, 14 March 2019. When a positive decision is made, you will be asked to promptly register online. Accommodation is available onsite. The conference registration fee is $250 US and $200 for students. You will be asked to submit a draft paper of no more than 3000 words by Saturday, 01 June 2019.

Publishing Your Work

We have established linkages with the International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, the journal Religions, and the University of the Philippines Manila’s The Reflective Practitioner. You will have the opportunity to expand your draft paper for submission to one of these three journals. If there are sufficient papers on a single theme or group of themes, we can consider a book proposal to a major publishing house.