Dragos Năstăsoiu (Relevance of the Humanities Fellow, Oct ‘23 – Feb ‘24) will give his talk on:

Constructing Gender on Pilgrimage: Transformative Experiences of Women from the Eastern and Western Christian Societies in the Crusader Holy Land (1099-1291)

on 19 October, 2023 (Thursday) at 16:30 h.

Moderated by Strahil Panayotov.

Abstract: My research project examines the pilgrimage experiences of Eastern and Western Christian women in the Crusader Holy Land (1099-1291), and analyzes the new behavioral patterns related to their gender roles that emerged as a consequence of the transformative character of these pious voyages. Regarding the performative aspects of gender and ritual, it explores the relationships between female pilgrimage practices and their male-authored descriptions. By analyzing the phenomenon cross-culturally and diachronically, the project analyzes the differences in pilgrimage experiences between Western and Eastern Christian female travelers, and provides an explanation for the popularity of Holy-Land female journeys in the Western world in the subsequent centuries and the disappearance of this practice in the Eastern Christian tradition. As a working hypothesis, it assumes that the shared communal experiences that distinguished the Western ladies’ journeys led to the pilgrimages’ acquisition of a touristic character, whereas the focus on monastic experiences of Eastern women caused a shift from the external travelling experience to the inner spiritual journey, and led to the disappearance of the actual pious voyages in the late-medieval period.