Islands of Thought

Early-Modern Mentalities and Politics
An interdisciplinary postgraduate conference
Friday 10th October 2008

‘No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent,
a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by Sea, Europe is the lesse…’
John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
Call For Papers
Cardiff University’s Renaissance Seminar is holding a postgraduate one-day conference to discuss island thought as a textual, historical, physical and metaphorical construct. The conference seeks to form some bridges or trade routes between different postgraduate research areas to better understand our own islands of thought on early-modern times. The plenary speakers will include Dr Richard Sugg (Durham University) and Dr Lloyd Bowen
(Cardiff University).

Postgraduate students – from any discipline – are encouraged to give 20 minute papers, and abstracts of about 300 words can be sent to islandsofthought@cf.ac.uk before JULY 31st.

Topics exploring the early-modern era might include, but are not restricted to:
- Island identities and the British Isles
- Institutions as islands
- Visualising communities
- Islands in political and national discourse
- Welsh islands, or Wales as an island
- Ireland
- Legal islands
- Schools of thought, sects and denominations as islands
- Mapping bodies, minds and the globe
- Exile
- Metaphoric, metaphysical and textual islands
- Holy islands, island chains and treasure islands
- Lost, imaginary and phantom islands

The event has been funded by Cardiff University Graduate Schools.
For further information email islandsofthought@cf.ac.uk