Conference | Keeping the Sabbath from Antiquity to Modernity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Time, Rest, and Cosmos

Event time: 
Thursday, March 18, 2021 - 11:00am to 3:30pm
Location: 
Online See map
Admission: 
Free, but register in advance
Open to: 
General Public
Event description: 

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Conference Schedule | Speaker Bios and Abstracts

Marie-Ange Rakotoniaina (2020–2021 ISM Fellow), conference organizer

Ever since Plato’s Timaeus and Augustine’s Confessions, up to Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking’s theoretical explorations, time has been an object of undeniable fascination. This daylong interdisciplinary conference will discuss the discourse and practice of the Sabbath rest in light of the mystery of time. 

The following questions will be explored:

  • What are the representations and practices of the Sabbath (both ancient and modern)?
  • How do the discourses surrounding Sabbath practice open new possibilities of living and thinking about time?
  • How does rest depend upon one’s conceptions of time and one’s place in the cosmos?

Exploring these questions, advancing answers from Greco-Roman culture to late antique Christianity, from ancient cosmogonies to contemporary calendars, from Jewish Shabbat rituals to the Christian day of rest—all this will pave a way to re-imagine a (meta)physics of time. Bridging disciplines, this conference will gather perspectives from liturgical scholars, historians, scholars of rituals, biblical scholars, experts in religious studies, Jewish studies, and philosophers. This event envisions as its task to let past evidence speak to (post-) modern concerns and to offer new ways of dwelling in time and rest.