“Considerations of Audience in Medieval & Early Modern Studies”

Deadline Extended to 10th October 2008

Call for Papers: Postgraduate Humanities Colloquium, University of Kent, Saturday 6th December 2008

Besechyng yow that ye audience therof not disdeigne
But consider the trew intent of my hert in euery veyne

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Raluca L. Radulescu, University of Bangor

The aim of this postgraduate interdisciplinary colloquium is to explore the nature and character of audience to foster a greater understanding and utilisation of strategies that can be employed to construct audience in relation to Medieval and Early Modern studies. Ultimately audience is a topic that unites rather than divides us.

Audience forms a vital consideration for all postgraduate students of the Medieval and Early Modern Period embracing studies of literature, history, art, architecture and artefacts. The evidence and sources around which enquiries are centred, regardless of discipline, topic or approach, be those sources, textual, visual or physical are created with an intended audience in mind. This primary audience forms a significant component that is inseparable from considerations of form and function. There is also a second audience - that is the actual audience. Yet inevitably both the intended audience, who often are only a projection in the mind of the creator, and the actual audience rarely leave us the information that we seek. Thus although an appreciation of audience is encompassed in all relationships between producer and recipient(s) this appreciation and anticipated appreciation mostly has to be constructed afresh. Therefore, although identifying the Medieval & Early Modern Audience secures the foundation of our understanding of the period’s culture paradoxically this knowledge and awareness of the audience is frequently assumed with the result that neither the intended or actual audience is explored, clearly identified, or even alluded to.

Proposals for papers of strictly twenty minutes delivery are invited for this friendly, relaxed day that is particularly targeted at novice speakers. Suggested topics may include, but are not limited to:

The difficulties in identifying audience
Individual case studies
How important is the consideration of audience?

* Selected papers will be put forward for publication by Skepsi [the peer reviewed, interdisciplinary, online journal of European Thought & Theory in the Humanities & Social Sciences based in the University of Kent.

Please send a 200-word abstract of your proposed paper by 10th October 2008 to Gaynor Bowman at gb212@kent.ac.uk and Julia Cruse at jcc25@kent.ac.uk