Reading and Writing in Provincial Society 1300-1700

Call for Papers for the Renaissance Colloquium: Canterbury Christ Church University & Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library
Saturday 22nd September 2007

[info from Mike Pincombe's Tudor Mailing]

'...To understand the use of the materials we are investigating within the precise, local specific context that alone gave them meaning. This context might be ritual, political or at once religious and national.' Roger Chartier The Culture of Print (1989)

Papers are invited for the Second Annual Renaissance Colloquium. Working collaboratively with Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library, the day will draw together scholars working on a range of source material including, book lists and inventories, literary manuscripts, early printed books, common place books, letters and civic documents. Papers are particularly welcome from but not restricted to scholars who have worked on material housed at Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library.

Key themes include: types of literacy and the status of the literate, orality, dis/continuities between manuscript and print culture, reading and writing practices, issues of methodology, materiality, book ownership/access, coterie writing, reading communities, metropolitan and continental influences.

Please send a 300 word synopsis of your paper to Claire Bartram, cb203@canterbury.ac.uk, by 30th June 2007.