Fall 2025 Symposium

Changing Meanings of Pilgrimage: Contested Definitions, Competing Perspectives

November 7-8, 2025

Friday, November 7

Session 1, 10-11:45, Dogwood Room
“Pilgrimage and Social Justice” Moderator: John Riofrio

• André Brouillette. Pilgrimage as Social Movement and Resistance: Selma (1965) and Beyond
• Sadie Yates. Walking to the Wound: Pilgrimage on The Migrant Trail
• Brian Bouldrey. By Land, By Sea: Retracing two Underground Railroad Routes back to the South

Session 2, 10-11:45, Holly Room
“Revisiting Creative Works and Pilgrimage” Moderator: Joanna Homrighhausen

• Zachary Catalan. The Medieval Poet-Musicians as Pilgrims: Reimagining the Traditions
• Sarah McElroy Mitchell. Look, Think, Wonder: Object Encounters and the Pedagogy of Pilgrimage
• Joanna Homrighhausen. LeMers of the Romans: Remembrance of People Past as Art, Pilgrimage,
  and Sacred Memory

Session 3, 1-2:45, Dogwood Room
“Pilgrimage Experiences as Shaped by and Shaping Politics”
Panel Moderator: Susan Dunn-Hensley

• Susan Dunn-Hensley. Pilgrimage and Politics in Early Modern England
• Sharenda Barlar. Psalms of Exile and Pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago
• Pawel Plichta. The Heritage of Religious Mobility. Pilgrimages to Gietrzwald (1877–2027)

Session 4, 1-2:45, Holly Room
“Creative Voices and Pilgrimage” Moderator: David Hair

• Henry Skatvold. The Pilgrim and The Artist; Connections Through Liminal Space
• Ephriam Cooper. Deepening Perceptions of "Musicking" within Civil Rights Pilgrimage
• Alison Crocetta. No Separation

Session 5, 3-4:45, Dogwood Room
“Politics and Identity” Moderator: Ben Boone

• Kerry Adams. Walking Between Worlds: Cross-Border Pilgrimage between San Xavier del Bac, Arizona and Santa Magdalena, Sonora
• Boheng Zhang. On the Road to Mecca: Self, Nation, and Mobility
• John Moore. Black African Giants in the Saint James’s Eve Procession of Cabezudos y Gigantes
• Jonathan Pitts. Tracing Island Wisdom: Memory, Personal Narrative, and the Nature of Pilgrimage

Session 6, 3-4:45, Holly Room
“Evolving Understandings: Traditional and Unconventional Sacred Paths”
Moderator: Lisa Signori

• Carlos Mentley. Food Pilgrimage: Food is a Sacred Destination
• Alison Smith. Serendipity, the Sacred, and the Monkey Puzzle Tree
• Lisa Signori. On the Trail to the Black Virgin: The Voie de Rocamadour

5 p.m. Devotion in Motion: Dynamic Tradition and Lived Religion
Featured Speaker, Matoaka Woods Hall, First Floor
Professor Edward Wright-Ríos, Vanderbilt University

 

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Saturday, November 8

 

Session 7, 8:30 – 10:15, Dogwood Room
“Panel: A Pilgrimage to Save the World” Moderator: Steven Rindahl

• Steven Rindahl. History and Practice as a Unique Pilgrimage
• Lisa Landry. Seeking Peace for Others, Experiencing Peace for Self
• Brittany Wooten. Lives Changed –PMI (Le Pèlerinage Militaire International) Pilgrim Success Stories
• Kevin Smith. Pilgrims to Lourdes: Planning and Logistics of the American PMI Delegation

Session 8, 8:30 – 10:15 Holly Room
“Motives and Meaning” Moderator: Nicol Nixon Augusté

• Nicol Nixon Augusté. The Italian Way: Women, Pilgrimage, and the Jubilee Year
• Jay Steele. Pilgrimage as an Oblate Community
• Kristof Avramsson. Crossing-Over or Becoming: Sustainable Fashion as Pilgrimage

Session 9, 10:30 – 12:15, Dogwood Room
“Pilgrimage, Healing, and the Therapeutic” Moderator: André Brouillette

• Emma Bleasdale. Health and Human Healing: A Theological Reframing through the Lens of Pilgrimage
• Zachary Beckstead. The Rise of Therapeutic Language in the Modern Pilgrim’s Path
• Lourdes Noemí Jiménez. A Salvific Journey: Pilgrimage Through Hospice Caregiving

Session 10, 10:30 – 12:15, Holly Room
“Layering Sacred Sites” Moderator: Michael Cronin

• Ian McIntosh. In Search of the Sacred in the Pilgrimages of Paul Brunton and Olaf Stapledon
• Nichole Lariscy. Sampling the Complex Layers of Contemporary Pilgrimage in Ireland
• Cole Thornton. The Climate of Pilgrimage: Landscape Architectural Methodology and the Camino
  de Santiago
• Meg Muthupandiyan. Walking Hadrian’s Wall with the Ghosts of Goethe and de Tocqueville/Or,
  How Sites of Antiquity Offer Pilgrimages to Possible Futures

Session 11, 1:30 – 3:15, Dogwood Room
“Digital Forces” Moderator: Brennan Harris

• James Gehrke. Walking the Ancient Way in a Digital World: The Virtual Pilgrimage of the Via de la Plata (Camino de Santiago)
• Andrew Davis and Kyle Sweeney. Capturing the Camino: Simulation and Immersion through
  Virtual Reality
• Gabrielle Arterburn. Thru-Hike or Pilgrimage? Meaning and Motivation through the Lens of
  YouTube on the Camino de Santiago, 2019

Session 12, 1:30 – 3:15, Holly Room
“Theoretical Perspectives” Moderator: Jim Barber

• Daniel Olsen. A Curvilinear Attempt at Straightening Out the Pilgrim-Tourism Dichotomy
• Mark Minster. Pilgrimage Is Metabolism: Lessons from Shikoku and Santiago
• Kip Redick. Transactionality and Its Absence in Pilgrimage

Session 13 1:30 – 3:15 Location TBD
“Camino Family” Moderator: Annie Hesp

• Annie Hesp. Family Ties: The Uses of Setting, Dialogue, and Metaphors in First-Person Camino Narratives WriMen by Parents and Their Adult Children
• Maryjane Dunn. It's a miracle! Family dynamics of 12th-century pilgrims
• Lynn Talbot. Camino Angst: “Will I Find a Camino Family?”
• Kathleen Jenkins. Digital Kinship and Sacred Others

Session 14, 3:30 – 5:15, Dogwood Room
“Camino Layers” Moderator: Kip Redick

• Anne Born. Joseph Bedier's Treasure Map: Americans Collecting Churches on the Camino
• Christianna Soumakis. So Much Farther, So Much BeMer: Walking with a Relic of Phil Volker
• Jennifer Elsdon. From Saint James to Dr. John de la Howe: A peregrino’s deliberate encounter
  with a complicated past and hopeful present in South Carolina’s Backcountry

Session 15, 3:30 – 5:15, Holly Room
“Mapping Routes” Moderator: George Greenia

• Armando Miguélez. Via Künig (siglo XV) del Camino de Santiago
• James R. Thobaben and Jason Horstman. Providing Pilgrimage: Mapping Routes Acceptable for Doctrinally Orthodox Protestants
• Tom Poynor. The Fool's Journey: Mapping the Arcana of the Tarot onto a Franciscan Pilgrimage

5:30 – 6:00 Refreshments & Student Presentations, Matoaka Hall, First Floor
Student Poster session
Maggie Munday Odom & Casey Weisman from Northwestern University
Walk Along: A New Musical

Closing Banquet 6:00 – 8:00, Matoaka Hall