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POLIFEMO / POLIFEMO XXI SECOLO

CALLS FOR PAPERS

Spring/Summer 2016

With the integration of his own yearly Religious-historical observatory within the bundle distributed in Europe by Casalini the editor has strongly reduced his emphasis on the collection of time related (i.e. referring on events of the preceding year) reports in Polifemo XXI secolo, which will be however further welcomed if volunteered by other authors, both those dealing with religion and human rights, and those on other topics listed in our previous calls for papers: all these reports must however comply with our new standing rules.
Also welcomed are recurrent reports, agreed with the editor to cover systematically recent evolution in any relevant field in the XXI century with a series of papers, each dealing with a different aspect of the same problem (as in Langella’s series on Religious trends in most recent Italian literature. A specific emphasis is still given in this respect to religious aspects of art and literatures in the XXI century.

Polifemo XXI secolo is specifically calling for papers describing the religious situation in any given country (or specific region for semi-continental states: New York State, California, Texas rather the USA, Brazil, India) or the local life of its majority or minority denominations in the XXI century (no more than 10% of the text may be dedicated to former periods).
He is however also interested in papers on the last century (as the last 100 years before writing) in any given country or in the local life of its majority or minority denominations.
A specific call for papers concerns maps of Catholic religious movements in different lands: its underlining idea is that every national form of Catholicism has its own very peculiar form of normality, which is normally not perceived in its individual specificity for lack of comparison.

Polifemo is calling for papers on a specific topic concerning Religion and European / Western (i.e. literatures in the Americas or Oceania) over the centuries: religious disquietude as as a specific trait of Western Christianity and an ambiguous legacy of Augustine’s influence.

This is a new wide collection of papers launched by the editor of Polifemo with a paper, coauthored with Christian Herrmann, on Matthew 5-7 in German translations 1466-1900. Analogous papers are called for, systematically dealing in the same way with Bible translations of the same text in other languages: the division between and after 1900 appears necessary when a large number of translations are involved, may not be used for languages with relatively few Biblical translations. The paper defines per example how to collect all real variants (excluding different historical forms of the same word) improperly using the format of a critical edition. The author is responsible for a motivated choice of translations. The paper should contain an English linguistic and theological commentary of normal length (12-25 of our pages) plus obviously the “critical” text of variants, with the same arrangement of the first, model paper.

Polytheism is another topic specifically developed in Polifemo by its editor, whose scientific perspective is the innovative distinction and almost opposition between Greek oligotheism and most ancient polytheisms – a synthetic pantheon of a reduced number of great and complex gods being a fundamental part of the Greek miracle, but also one of its best products. Descriptions of the last living, and strong, polytheistic culture (India) in its local/regional forms is a topic as important for Polifemo XXI secolo as unusual in the scientific literature. All other papers do obviously belong to Polifemo, where they may count on a long tradition of studies collected over the years and now reprinted in Ricerche sul politeismo (a multilanguage collection with an Italian title).

Some topics already developed in the past are still of specific interest for Polifemo, even if no specific call for papers was ever proposed to collect them. Some already published papers may be quoted as examples of others that we would be glad to publish in the future.
Iconography: D. Castrizio, Note di iconografia siceliota I-IV, 2005-2010; F. Mora, Biblical icons I-II, 2014-2015.
History and simulation: F. Mora, Necessità storica e volontà divina, 2007, 1-24; Storia e simulazione, 2009, 1-204.
Ancient and moderns: F. Mora, Ripensare la democrazia, 2008, 1-39; Ripensare sessualità e famiglia, 2007, 55-99; J.A. Dabdab Trabulsi, La démocratie athénienne à notre usage, 2009, 309-338.
Sacred texts in a comparative prospective: F. Mora, Q in traduzione italiana, 2007, 235-252; Tre Scritture a confronto, 2008, 79-113.
Quantitative history, both religious and not: F. Mora, Statistiche storico-religiose, 2009, 363-395.

Although we further welcome papers on Greek and Roman religion, there is no preferential interest for these religions rather than other ancient (e.g. Celtic, Egyptian or German religion) or not European (e.g. Mesoamerican, Chinese or Hindu) religions.
Christianity externally observed as any other religion is a preferential topic and even more Jewish religious life, in all its historic forms. Objective description of varieties of Jewish religious life nowadays, even by objective insiders, is a very preferential topic for Polifemo XXI secolo.
Interdisciplinary research on profane history is an important element of Polifemo’s identity, which must however be better developed, esp. for the ancient world, in the future. We hope to give some more indications in the next updates.
Papers on topics listed in previous calls for papers are usually still welcome, even if there is no more active emphasis in their collection – but new rules obviously supersede older exceptions. The choice of a shorter version in the topics’ presentation is intentional, to offer the authors more freedom in dealing with the subject: older longer suggestions do not lose however their scientific value as a more detailed description of the editor’s interests.