Call for Papers to the special issue of Slovenský národopis / Slovak Ethnology, volume 73, number 4/2025 – Marian Devotion in Europe: Historical Traces, Current Forms, Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Guest editors:

Tatiana Zachar Podolinská (ORCID: 0000-0001-6164-5740; Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia), tatiana.podolinska@savba.sk; 0

Agáta Šústová Drelová (ORCID: 0000-0003-3593-4228; Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia), agata.sustova-drelova@savba.sk

Kinga Povedák (ORCID: 0000-0003-1182-5836; Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Szeged, Hungary) povedak.kinga@szte.hu

The editorial board of Slovenský národopis / Slovak Ethnology invites submissions for a forthcoming thematic issue 4/2025 dedicated to exploring Marian devotion in Europe from ethnographic, anthropological, and interdisciplinary perspectives.

Scope and Focus

Marian devotion has played a pivotal role in shaping religious practices, cultural identities, and social movements throughout European history. This thematic issue seeks to bring together research on historical and contemporary aspects of Marian devotion, particularly focusing on its intersections with nationalism, cultural heritage, and religious practices connected to the Virgin Mary in diverse European and religious, spiritual and non-religious (secular) contexts.

We are particularly interested in contributions addressing (but not limited to) the following themes:

• Historical Aspects of Marian Devotion: evolution of Marian cults, pilgrimage traditions, and religious iconography;
• Nationalism and Marian Devotion: the role of Marian devotion in national identity formation, political mobilisation, and cultural memory;
• Morphology of Miracles and Sacred Narratives: comparative studies of Marian apparitions, miracles, and their cultural interpretations;
• Contemporary Forms of Marian Devotion: modern-day practices, digital religious expressions, and Marian festivals in a globalised world;
• Interdisciplinary Perspectives: theological, sociological, and psychological analyses of Marian devotion;
• Material Culture and Iconography: artistic representations, relics, and sacred spaces associated with the Virgin Mary;
• Virgin Mary in Pop-culture: depictions of the Virgin Mary in music, film, literature, and digital media, and their influence on societal perceptions;
• Spirituality, Conspirituality and Conspiracy Theories in Marian research: The intertwining of spirituality and conspiracy theories in Marian devotion, including the reinterpretation of Marian apparitions and symbols in the context of alternative spiritualities and conspiratorial thought;
• Non-religious and Secular “Virgin Mary”: cultural and contextual reinterpretation of the Virgin Mary beyond direct religious semantics.

Submission Guidelines

We welcome original research articles, case studies, and theoretical papers from scholars in ethnology, anthropology, history, religious studies, and related disciplines. Submissions should be based on well-documented research and follow the journal’s submission guidelines.

Key Dates:

• Abstract Submission Deadline: [28 February 2025]
• Notification of Acceptance: [7 March 2025]
• Full Paper Submission Deadline: [30 June 2025]
• Publication Date: [31 December 2025]

Submission Process:
Contributors are kindly requested to submit their abstracts and keywords (max. 200 words and 4 to 6 keywords) directly through the editorial system of the Journal Slovak Ethnology (https://journals.savba.sk/index.php/slovenskynarodopis/login) no later than  28 February, 2025.

The final manuscripts will be expected no later than 30 June 2025, through the same editorial system. They should not exceed 6,250 words or 45,000 characters, including spaces, notes, and references, and should follow the journal’s guidelines for authors accessible (HERE). 

For inquiries, please contact the guest editors: tatiana.podolinska@savba.sk and agata.sustova-drelova@savba.sk.

We look forward to receiving your contributions and engaging in a rich academic dialogue on Marian devotion in Europe.

Call for papers to the special issue of Slovak Ethnology/Slovenský národopis, volume 73, number 3/2025 – Suburbanisation: Community, identity and everydayness.

Guest editors:

Pavol Šuška (Institute of Geography, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava) pavel.suska@savba.sk

Marcela Káčerová (Department of Economic and Social Geography, Demography and Territorial Development, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava) marcela.kacerova@uniba.sk

Suburbanisation is an ongoing trend in developing post-socialist cities, expanding into their hinterlands. Research in this area has predominantly focused on quantitative analyses of fundamental processes such as migration, construction, and changes in landscape structures. These analyses have typically been approached from the perspective of the metropolitan area. However, significant social and cultural transformations occur within a dynamic environment influenced by intense migration. New identities are being negotiated and created, relationships to locality are being reassessed, and individual experiences of home are being redefined.

What remain insufficiently explored thus far are the specific place-making processes and relations that individuals and groups of different socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity, religiosity, social status, etc.) engage in. These processes are further translated into preferences, ideas, or norms, which confront and change the socio-cultural and institutional environment of the suburbs.

We welcome papers that engage with the following themes:

• local communities in suburban space,
• old and new in a process of dynamic change,
• the future of suburban spaces,
• demographic transformations of the city versus the suburbs,
• processes of identification with place, the making and remaking of home,
• housing versus home,
• the growth of suburban space and the environment,
• identity of place and belonging.

Contributors are kindly requested to submit their abstracts and keywords directly through the editorial system of the Journal Slovak Ethnology (https://journals.savba.sk/index.php/slovenskynarodopis/login) no later than January 20, 2025.

The final manuscripts will be expected no later than 31^st March, 2025, through the same editorial system. They should not exceed 6,250 words or 45,000 characters, including spaces, notes, and references, and should follow the journal’s guidelines for authors accessible (HERE). 

Call for papers to the special issue of Slovak Ethnology/Slovenský národopis, volume 73, number 2/2025 on the topic Ethical and Methodological Uncertainties in Studying the Eastern Bloc Ethnology and Folkloristics.

Guest editors:

Nikola Balaš (Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague), nikola.balas@eu.cas.cz

Kaisa Langer (TU Dresden, Germany), kaisa.langer@tu-dresden.de

The history of the Cold War era ethnology and folkloristics in the Eastern Bloc poses many pressing questions related to the range of fundamental uncertainties that arise when discussing the socialist past. While the number of works on the topic has been steadily growing in the past decades (Hann, Sárkány, Skalník, Eds, 2005; Bošković, Hann, Eds., 2013; Mihăilescu, Naumović, Iliev, Eds., 2008; Zachar Podolinská, Popelková, 2023; Ķencis, Bronner, Seljamaa, Eds., 2024), not many authors paid attention to the variety of methodological uncertainties arising when studying this specific period.

Without losing sight of the specifics of the socialist era, our special issue aims to give priority to ethical and methodological issues.

We would like to encourage prospective authors to focus on the issues such as:

• What kind of source criticism is needed when working with the documents produced under the socialist power structure?
• What uncertainties are there when one does not have all the relevant archives fully available?
• How should we approach lacunae and omissions in interlocutors’ narratives?
• Is it possible to reconcile interlocutors’ right to privacy and personal rights with research objectives especially when the interlocutors were involved in the ‘problematic’ past and are still alive?
• Are there tactful ways to deal with apparent misdeeds (such as plagiarism or sharecropping) of accomplished scholars?

Seemingly limited to the past, these questions have a substantial bearing on our present as several scholars who began their careers during the socialist period continue to be active today, usually as power holders with the capacity to influence academic careers. So, how complicated is it to write about „skeletons in the closet“ and „elephants in the room“?

We welcome theoretical articles as well as case studies that discuss ethical and methodological uncertainties in striving to find a nuanced way to describe the disciplinary past.

Contributors are kindly requested to submit their abstracts and keywords directly through the editorial system of the Journal Slovak Ethnology (https://journals.savba.sk/index.php/slovenskynarodopis/login) no later than 1st December 2024.

The final manuscripts will be expected no later than 28th February 2025, through the same editorial system. They should not exceed 6,250 words or 45,000 characters, including spaces, notes, and references, and should follow the journal’s guidelines for authors accessible HERE.