‘Continuities: From “Medieval” to “Early Modern” in English Literature (1400-1650)’

A Two-Day Postgraduate Conference, Trinity College Dublin, 25th and 26th June 2009

The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Trinity College Dublin, is pleased to announce a forthcoming conference for postgraduates in the field of English Literature.

Confirmed keynote speaker: Prof. Andrew Hiscock (University of Wales, Bangor)

Call for papers: In recent decades academics have attempted to demonstrate that the period between late medieval and high renaissance was not the barren cultural wasteland which previous generations of literary critics deemed it to be. Medievalists have become more forward-looking: no longer taking Chaucer as a boundary beyond which they cannot venture and identifying many ongoing historical, literary and religious traditions which unite their era with the one that follows. ‘Early modernists’ have begun to question the term ‘renaissance’ (with its associations of value and teleology) in order to envision the period of artistic achievement as one which began long before the emergence of Shakespeare.

‘Continuities’ seeks to tap into this general movement towards synthesis and co-operation between medievalists and early modernists by calling upon the future generation of critics (postgraduates) to present papers which emphasise these literary linkages and which continue to interrogate the notion of a discernible ‘break’ between the two eras.

The conference organisers especially welcome papers on the following subjects: the afterlives of medieval texts (editions, translations, receptions); texts and authors of the fifteenth century; the rediscovery and rehabilitation of forgotten or maligned texts/authors fl. 1400-1550; developing world views and travel narratives; surviving traditions (the liturgical year and parish life, mysteries, yule plays and moralities); the appropriation and transformation of medieval texts, genres and literary models.

Those whose work focuses on the later early modern period are welcome to submit papers dealing with earlier sources and analogues for ‘renaissance’ texts; early modern conceptualizations of the (medieval) past; historiography and history plays; fictional constructions of the past; memory and cultural heritage in literature; tradition and innovation; interrogating the terms ‘medieval’/‘renaissance’/‘early modern’; the renaissance ‘canon’.

Papers are required to be no more than 20 minutes in length. 150-word abstracts should be sent to the conference organisers (Darragh Greene, Emily O’Brien and Kate Roddy) at continuitiesconference@gmail.com by Friday 3rd April 2009. Further information available at the conference blog: http://continuitiesconference.blogspot.com.