Society, Culture and Belief, 1400-1800

[this from Stephen Brogan]

The programme for the academic year 2008-9 continues our series on The Senses, with the theme Touch.

Convenors: Laura Gowing (KCL), Kate Hodgkin (University of East London), Michael Hunter (Birkbeck), Miri Rubin (Queen Mary), Adam Sutcliffe (KCL).

Seminars will take place in the Ecclesiastical History Room at the Institute of Historical Research on the following Thursdays at 5.30 p.m. All are welcome!

23 October 2008 Mary Kovel (IHR)
Ecclesiastical vestments and the tradition of the untouchable priest in early modern England

6 November 2008 Dr Jonathan Durrant (University of Glamorgan)
Contaminating to the touch’: the ambiguities of touching taboos in the early modern period

20 November 2008 Dr Peter Elmer (Open University)
The politics of touch in 17th-century England

4 December 2008 Dr Melissa Hollander (Open University)

Possessions and possessing: The politics of sex and touch in the early modern church courts


22 January 2009 Dr Alex Cowan (Northumbria University)
Touching her reputation: marriage, gossip and social networks in early modern Venice

5 February 2009 Dr Willem de Blécourt (Huizinga Institute, Amsterdam)
Touching witches and the witch’s touch

19 February 2009 Professor John Walter (University of Essex)
Gesture and the politics of touch in early modern England

5 March 2009 Stephen Brogan (Birkbeck)
The sacred touch: scrofula and the restored Stuarts, 1660-88

19 March 2009 Dr Lauren Kassell (History & Philosophy of Science, Cambridge)
The magical and medical powers of touch in early modern England