37.2808, Calls: Religions - "Special Issue: Words of Widom, Words of Faith" (Jrnl)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2808. Thu Sep 03 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2808, Calls: Religions - "Special Issue: Words of Widom, Words of Faith" (Jrnl)

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Date: 02-Sep-2026
From: Cristina Pennarola [cpennaro at unina.it]
Subject: Religions - "Special Issue: Words of Widom, Words of Faith" (Jrnl)


Journal: Religions
Issue: Words of Widom, Words of Faith
Call Deadline: 28-Feb-2027

Since the start of history, human beings have proved themselves as
seekers yearning for an elusive and often mysterious good that will
answer our ultimate existential questions and help us find a sense of
purpose in life. Folk tales, legends and myths abound in the epic and
sometimes mock-heroic adventures of ordinary people and official
heroes who dedicate their quest to treasures made of gold, fame or
kingly power. What are the outcomes of their wanderings and brave
endeavours: contentment or restlessness? And when they have reached
their goal, do they feel fulfilled or are they ready to start a new
quest? As for Ulysses, the iconic traveller beyond “the utmost bound
of human thought”, will each achievement and the final homecoming
result in yet another mission “to seek, to find, and not to yield”
(Tennyson, Ulysses)?
If knowledge may finally liberate human beings from the traps of
ignorance and give us control of our living environments and life
choices, it is only wisdom that enables us make sense of the
overwhelming random diversity of human cognition and experience and
turn knowledge into a driving force of positive change (Gustafsson
2010). In fact, definitions of wisdom converge in identifying a
well-meaning intention and a virtuous action as its essential
characteristics: “wisdom involves using both one’s intelligence and
one’s creativity, as well as one’s knowledge base, for a common good.”
(Sternberg 2010, p. 5; see more definitions in Sternberg and Glück
2016).
Hence wisdom can be regarded as a form of performative knowledge, a
practical enactment and demonstration of learning (Perkins 2010): for
example, the wise virgins “brought flasks of oil with their lamps” to
keep them from “going out” (Matthew 25: 4-9, New American Bible); and
wise people will save their torches “when the sun and moon have risen
because it’s a waste of light!” (Chuang Tzu 2006: ch. 1); again, wise
people will recognize false prophets from their bad fruit and will
take care to avoid them (Matthew 7: 15-20), just like of “The great
master [who] follows his own nature and not the trappings of life/ It
is said, “He stays with the fruit and not the fluff”/ “He stays with
the firm and not the flimsy”/ “He stays with the true and not the
false”(Lao Tzu, ch. 38)
Different religious traditions and their holy texts describe wisdom
through a great variety of powerful images, drawing on nature, daily
experience, trading, policy-making and warfare (Dell and Keefer 2016;
De Roche 2022; Morrison 2024). These images have been arranged
erratically or methodically into stories, poems, riddles, letters,
prophecies, proverbs, dialogues and other genres of their own. Their
very text organization, narrative structure, language use, style,
inter- and intratextuality shape the way in which wisdom is seen to
operate and convey its high-stake or worldly lessons, about the
deepest meaning of life or commonsense recipes for success. The
discourse analysis of chosen pieces of wisdom can shed light on the
pragmatics of ‘wise sayings’: who is the addresser and what is their
status and positionality? Who are the addressees and how do they
relate to the addresser(s) and their words of wisdom? Is the response
of the community of that time one of faith, suspicion or scorn? And
what is the response of today’s community/ies? Are words of wisdom
still considered such and by whom?
This Special Issue welcomes papers integrating different disciplinary
perspectives and encouraging reflection on the following aspects:
 - The dialogue between faith and wisdom;
 - The relationship between wisdom and knowledge;
 - Contemporary views and re-readings of ancient wisdom;
 - Wisdom literature and wisdom genres;
 - Religious wisdom vs. secular wisdom;
 - God’s wisdom and human wisdom;
 - Wisdom variations within the same religion;
 - Comparative views of wisdom across faiths;
 - The culture-bound or universal nature of wisdom;
 - Translating wisdom across languages, cultures and times.
Before submitting a manuscript, interested authors are invited to
initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words
summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest
Editor Dr. Cristina Pennarola (cpennaro at unina.it), or to the Assistant
Editor Ms. Evelyn Zeng (evelyn.zeng at mdpi.com) of Religions. Abstracts
will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring
proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts
will undergo double-blind peer review.
Please check all the details for your submission at:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/53J7798YY0

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis
                     Pragmatics
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics
                     Translation




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