
Sari
Katajala-Peltomaa
Professor, History and Archaelogy
PhD
Areas of expertise
Cultural history, medieval Europe
lived religion, gender, family and childhood, pilgrimages and rituals, (interaction with) saints, hagiographic material, canonization processes
Teaching
Masters' seminar for Cultural history
Research
My research focuses on late medieval religion on a comparative European level. I have focused mainly on lay religiosity and lived religion within the context of hagiographic sources and especially canonization processes. I have studied rituals like pilgrimages and most recently cases of demonic possession, which is also linked to the ideas of mental disorder. Other areas of interest are gender, family and childhood.
Publications
Sensing the Devil – Creating the Sacred? Sensory Elements of Demonic Possession in Canonization Processes (Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries) (2025)
(A3 Vertaisarvioitu kirjan tai muun kokoomateoksen osa)An Imagined Experience? Dancing as Intercorporeality in the Fifteenth-Century Pastoralia of Vadstena Abbey (2025)
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
(A1 Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä lehdessä )
Experiencing the Miraculous: Lived Religion in the Depositions (2025)
(A3 Vertaisarvioitu kirjan tai muun kokoomateoksen osa)A Companion to Medieval Canonization Processes: New Contexts, Perspectives, and Comparisons (2025)
(C2 Toimitustyö tieteellisen lehden erikoisnumerolle)Lived Religion and Shared Experience in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2025)
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
(A1 Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä lehdessä )