Performing Renaissance History 1500-1660

[this from the LRS ...]

Filming and Performing Renaissance History 1500-1660 is an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded Research Networks project. It places in juxtaposition individuals and groups already addressing or interested in exploring representations of Renaissance history across and between genres, cultures and disciplines. Concentrating on all types of filmic and performative examples, the network investigates the corpus of representations of the years between 1500 and 1660 (such as the history film, the television period drama, television history, themed museum exhibition, reenactment experience and historically-situated theatre and opera).

The central aim of the network is to bring together individuals and groups from a range of disciplinary backgrounds (including literary studies, film, television, history, theatre and drama). Conversations will be encouraged between established academic representatives, practitioners (for instance, theatre directors, filmmakers, documentary makers and television commissioning editors) and museum officers and curators. The purpose here is to arrive, through meetings and exchange, at a genuinely interdisciplinary understanding of how the historical phenomenon known as the Renaissance‚ is represented and of how this changes in the light of time, place and mode of expression. In particular, attention will be paid to the contextual and political influences on artists and producers, and to the fluctuating aesthetics of visual interpretation. The network will foster a new interdisciplinary methodology which, pooling multiple perspectives, will work to provide a more generous and nuanced acknowledgement of the ways in which the Renaissance‚ signifies across disciplines and in relation to a whole gamut of events and personalities. Accessing the Renaissance in this fashion will generate a keen awareness not only of the means whereby the early modern period is interpreted in the popular consciousness, but also of the utility of the various disciplines' approaches and methodologies. 

Principal investigator: Professor Mark Thornton Burnett

Events: Symposia

1. 26-27 April 2008. Symposium 1: Players and Personalities‚, Queen‚s, Belfast. A two-day symposium devoted to assessing the significance of the ways in which all types of early modern historical figures and groupings, celebrated and quotidian, emerge into representational visibility. The symposium is envisaged as comprising shorter papers, plenary lectures and workshop sessions. One afternoon, organized by a team of local postgraduates, will be devoted to postgraduate interventions.

2. 20-21 September 2008. Symposium 2: Representing Conflict, Crisis and Nation‚, Queen‚s, Belfast. A complementary two-day symposium devoted to assessing the significance of the ways in which the myriad contests of 1500-1660 have been imaginatively reproduced. The form will be as above, including a designated postgraduate session.

3. 25-26 April 2009. Symposium 3: Temporalities and Materialities‚, Queen‚s, Belfast. A complementary two-day symposium devoted to assessing the significance of the ways in which temporal boundaries and material objects continue to be re-constructed. The form will be as above, including a designated postgraduate session.

4. 5-6 September 2009. Panel / Roundtable Discussions, British Shakespeare Association Conference, London. These will unite the network‚s players with contributors to the conference and comprise a) a panel of three of the most pertinent papers from each of the symposia and b) a roundtable discussion to which all of the project‚s participants will be invited. This will be an opportunity to clarify the final significance of the project and to profile its findings in an international context.

Postgraduate Bursaries Available

Deadline for expressions of interest: 28 February 2008

Contact Professor Mark Thornton Burnett, mark-burnett@qub.ac.uk