Natalie Zemon Davis Annual Lectures: Divine Presence in Spain and Western Europe 1450–1980; Visions, Religious Images and Photographs

The long history of people and their relation to divine beings in the modalities of supplication, identification, and representation, as exemplified in visions of mysterious wayfarers in rural Spain, the seeming vivification of religious images in Spanish homes and churches, and the use of photography throughout Europe to express divine-human relations.

William Christian is an independent scholar who lives in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. He has taught Anthropology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, The University of Pécs and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, Early Modern History at the University of California, Berkeley, and Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books address the relation of people to saints in contemporary and historical communities, and include Person and God in a Spanish Valley, Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain, Local Religion in Sixteenth Century Spain, and Visionaries: The Spanish Republic and the Reign of Christ.

Toribia La Vaquera and the Mysterious Wayfarer of Casas de Benítez

Thursday, November 11, 2010, 6.00 p.m., Auditorium

 Images as Beings: Blood, Sweat and Tears

Monday, November 15, 2010, 6.00 p.m., Auditorium

Presence, Absence and the Supernatural in Postcard, Press, and Family Photographs

Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 6.00 p.m., Auditorium

This year's Natalie Zemon Davis Annual Lecture Series is part of the Hungarian Science Festival, organized by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences