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Call for Papers: The Ritual Year 2014
Magic in Rituals and Rituals in Magic
10th Annual Conference of the SIEF working group on the Ritual Year.
25-27 September 2014, Innsbruck, Austria

Magical rituals today may be observed in formalized and regularly recurring religious and profane acts, i.e in cult and customs. Many of these acts are based on ancient rituals that were demonized with the advent of the Christianity. In many modern customs that emerged from early magico-religious rituals, survivals of the magical basis are preserved, but these are no longer understood and are explained by secondary rationalizations. Apart from the original magico-religious motivation and symbolism, today especially the social function comes to the fore. Modern festive ritual stabilizes social structure and creates identification with the community and, furthermore, we can observe an increasingly aesthetic dimension, especially in the form of ornaments and costumes, etc. But the whole richness of magic can be traced in the ritual year from ancient times till today in all civilizations.


The following questions and topics are of special interest:

1. How do magic rituals correlate with religious ceremonies in the course of the year?
2. What types of magic acts are most characteristic for the ritual year and why?
3. How are magic and witchcraft represented in the ritual year?
4. Magic, spells and incantations.
5. Magic in everyday life.
6. Magic in the Neo-Pagan movements.
7. Magic/religion vs science and rationalism.
8. Vegetation magic and the division of the ritual year.
9. Archaic magic as it operated in the past.
10. Archaic magic as background to newly invented rituals and their interpretations.

In addition, as usual at these RY meetings, papers are invited on any other topic concerning the ritual year.

Conference venue

The Leopold Franzens University of Innsbruck,
A-6020 Innrain 52, Innsbruck, Austria
www.uibk.ac.at/index.html.en

Organizers

Institute for History and European Ethnology of the University of Innsbruck
Prof. Dr. Leander Petzoldt em. (www.leanderpetzoldt.at), Innsbruck
Dr. Tatiana Minniyakhmetova, Innsbruck
Secretary Carina Osl, Innsbruck
Dr. Kamila Velkoborska, University of West Bohemia, Pilsen.

Fee & registration

Conference fee: 80 Euros
Excursion (optional): 20 Euros
Dinner (optional): 30 Euros

Membership fee for RY working group (payable at registration): 5 Euros

Further information about registration, conference activities, and publication plans, will be provided in a Second Circular, after the deadline date.

The deadline for proposals is the 30 November 2013.

Please send the title of your paper, an abstract (not more than 200 words), your first and last names, academic degree, academic affiliation, address and e-mail to: leander.petzoldt@uibk.ac.at

Response with acceptance of the papers: 15 January 2014
For further information please write to: tatiana.minniyak@uibk.ac.at

Travelling to Innsbruck

There is an airport in Innsbruck. All direct destinations to and from Innsbruck:
www.innsbruck-airport.com/en/map/

There are lower-price flights to Vienna. Vienna International Airport
www.viennaairport.com/jart/prj3/va/main.jart?rel=en&reserve-mode=active&content-id

Travelling by train from Vienna to Innsbruck takes 4 h. 15 min. or more.
The lowest prices are available if tickets are bought 3 or more months in advance: 19 Euros for a one-way ticket and 38 Euros for a return ticket. Please check the information for buying online-tickets at SparSchiene Österreich:
fahrplan.oebb.at/bin/query.exe/en
Limited allocation restricted to a specific train, no exchange, no refund, no cancellation.

There are lower-price flights to Munich (Germany):
www.munich-airport.de/en/consumer/index.jsp

For an online ticket by ÖBB (Austrian State Railways), see
fahrplan.oebb.at/bin/query.exe/en?

The lowest prices are available if tickets are bought 3 or more months in advance: Munich Airport to Innsbruck, 19 Euros for a one-way ticket and 38 Euros for a return ticket. Please check the information for buying online-tickets at SparSchiene Deutschland
fahrplan.oebb.at/bin/query.exe/en
Limited allocation restricted to a specific train, no exchange, specific refund terms.

There is also an Airport Shuttle „Four Seasons“ direct from Airport Munich to your hotel. A one-way ticket costs 45 Euros.
The prices given here are the actual costs for the tickets today.

Accommodation

www3.innsbruck.info/epaper/deutsch/preisliste/gesamt/#/8/
Information is given in German, English, and Italian.