BEFORE SEX

ANNOUNCING A DAY-LONG CONFERENCE
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ
OCTOBER 23, 2009, 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM

Teleconference Room, 4th floor of Alexander Library, 169 College Ave.,
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Until recently we’ve thought of the modern sex/gender system and homosexual identity as
socio-intellectual developments of the later nineteenth century. But over the past three decades,
evidence and arguments have accumulated to suggest that the categories of oppositional gender
difference and male same-sex identity coalesced much earlier than that--during the seventeenth
and early eighteenth centuries.
Specialized historical research has pursued different aspects of the topic in disparate
directions. The time has come to consolidate this research in a conference that brings together
four of the most important scholars in the field and an informed audience (there will be ample
time for discussion) to conceive, debate, and test a hypothesis of the first importance for early
modern historians and the history of sexuality.

Thomas W. Laqueur (University of California-Berkeley):
“Sex, Gender, and the Enlightenment Project”

Laura Gowing (King’s College, London):
"Women, Bodies, and Sex in the Seventeenth-Century World."

Tim Hitchcock (University of Hertfordshire):
"Sexual Knowledge and Sexual Behavior in the Eighteenth Century."

Randolph Trumbach (Baruch College and the Graduate Center, City University of NY):
"The Emergence of the Modern Homosexual Minority in Enlightenment
Europe and the Production of a Heterosexual Majority, 1700-1750."

For more information contact Michael McKeon, michael.mckeon@rutgers.edu

Music, Literature, Illustration: Collaboration and networks in English manuscript culture, 1500 – 1700

CALL FOR PAPERS (2nd call)
Chawton House Library, Hampshire, 16-17 February 2010

We welcome paper/workshop proposals from postgraduate students and early career researchers working on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English manuscript sources, and the MS culture associated with printed books. Our definition of ‘literature’ for this conference is a broad one, including (but not limited to) poetry, prose, drama, (auto)biography, letters, devotional writing and medical/scientific texts.

For the full Call for Papers and further information regarding paper submission, click here.

Submissions should be sent by email to Michael Gale ( mdg@soton.ac.uk ) and Louise Rayment ( L.Rayment@soton.ac.uk ) by October 16th 2009.

SHAKESPEARE CONFIGURED: A Symposium

UNIVERSITY OF YORK, 9-10 October 2009

Conceived as the first in a series of symposia leading to a
collection of essays, this meeting will take a fresh look at
configurations—and reconfigurations—of Shakespeare from the
earliest editions to the latest adaptations. An invited group of
scholars will offer new materials and approaches for studying
the packaging of the plays and poems through time, between
cultures and across media (including early anthologies,
Restoration rewritings, modern performances, marginalia,
buildings, illustrations, sculptures, paintings and silent films).

REGISTRATION IS FREE BUT PLACES MUST BE BOOKED IN ADVANCE
~CONTACT SALLY KINGSLEY (SK23@YORK.AC.UK)~

Sponsored by the Institutt for fremmedspråk, University of Bergen, and the Centre for
Renaissance & Early Modern Studies, University of York

FRIDAY 9th OCTOBER: KING'S MANOR

10:00-10:15 COFFEE AND WELCOME

10:15-11:45 PRINTERS, EDITORS, USERS (Sonia Massai, Chair)
Jeffrey Knight (Michigan), "Contingency and Collected Works: Reading the 'Pavier Quartos'"
Emma Smith (Oxford), "Antipholus of where?: reading without notes"

11:45-1:15 FROM COMMONPLACES TO COMMON READERS (Bill Sherman, Chair)
Jean-Christophe Mayer (CNRS/Montpelier), "Shakespeare's Commonplacing Readers"
Andrew Murphy (St Andrews), "Configuring Shakespeare for the Common Reader"

1:15-2:00 LUNCH

2:00-3:30 QUESTIONS OF PROPERTY (Chair TBA)
Marcus Nevitt (Sheffield), "Ciphers of Authority: William Davenant and Restoration
Shakespeare"
Erica Sheen (York), "'What's in a name?': 'Shakespeare' and the case for intellectual property"

3:30-4:00 TEA

4:00-5:30 PROBLEMS OF AUTHORSHIP (Chair TBA)
Varsha Panjwani (York), "'Hands off proud stranger': Shakespeare versus collaboration"
Bill Sherman (York), "Of Anagrammatology: Deciphering the Authorship Controversy"

SATURDAY 10th OCTOBER:
LECTURE HALL, BERRICK SAUL BUILDING, HESLINGTON CAMPUS

10:00-10:15 COFFEE

10:15-11:45 BODIES AND BUILDINGS (Mark Jenner, Chair)
Dympna Callaghan (Syracuse), "Shakespeare's Bodies"
Erin Blake (Folger Library), "Shakespeare Set in Stone: The Folger Shakespeare Library as
Architectural Reconfiguration"

11:45-1:15 WORD AND IMAGE (Stuart Sillars, Chair)
Ilaria Andreoli (Florida State), "Folly on the edge: Holbein’s drawings for Erasmus’s
Encomium Moriae"
Svenn-Arne Myklebost (Bergen), "Word, Image and Meaning in Manga Shakespeare"

1:15-2:00 LUNCH

2:00-3:30 EXTRA-ILLUSTRATION (Stuart Sillars, Chair)
Lori Anne Ferrell (Claremont), "Extra-illustrating the early modern Bible"
Russell Jackson (Birmingham), "Glorifying the (Irish) American Girl"

3:30-4:00 TEA

4:00-5:30 FROM PAINTED IMAGE TO SILVER SCREEN (Chair TBA)
Stuart Sillars (Bergen), "Shakespeare and Visual Fragmentation"
Judith Buchanan (York), "Caesar's dull death and Viola the unconfigured: painterly
quotations in early silent Shakespearean cinema"

5:30-6:00 CLOSING RECEPTION (Berrick Saul Building 'Tree House')

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel reads from and discusses Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, etc), and talks about historical fiction and research in general, at the London Review Bookshop. Listen to a recording here.

Beastly Drama: Animals in Early Modern Theatre

[this via SHKSPER]

Last call for submissions to the MRDS session at the International Congress for Medieval Studies, Leeds, 12-15 July 2010.

2009, which marks the sesquicentennial of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, has set off a flurry of investigations into evolution and animal studies in various disciplines. How do we define ourselves in relationship to the animal/human binary, and has that definition changed since the early modern period? This session will consider how we might interpret the interactions of animals and humans in theatre from the 14th to 17th centuries. Possible topics include: staging with animals in theatres (from bear-baitings to the sheep in /The Second Shepherd's Play/ to Crab in /Two Gentlemen/); animals as symbolic "others" (from "the beast with two backs" to Ferdinand's lycanthropia); representations/constructions of animals in entertainments; anthropomorphization and hierarchical ideologies.

Please send abstracts and title to:

Suzanne Westfall
Department of English/Theatre
Lafayette College
Easton PA 18042 USA.

Online (and free): Holinshed's Chronicles, 1577 and 1587

[this via SHAKSPER.NET: Ian W. Archer writes ...]

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce a new freely available resource for all those interested in historical writing (and much else besides) in the early modern period: Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Wales.

An Oxford based team comprising myself (History, Oxford), Dr Felicity Heal (History, Oxford), Dr Paulina Kewes (English, Oxford), and Dr Henry Summerson (The Oxford Holinshed Project Research Assistant) has been working on a parallel text electronic edition of Holinshed's Chronicles. The Chronicles are best known as the source text for many of Shakespeare's plays, but they were a gold mine for other dramatists and poets, and for lawyers, politicians, and general readers. We've been aware for a long time of the existence of differences between the two editions of 1577 and 1587, but systematic analysis has proved elusive because of the sheer volume of the texts. What we offer is a means of reading the two editions alongside each other, a privilege hitherto only available to those in particularly well endowed libraries. Users with access to EEBO will be able to move from our edition to the EBO hosted facsimiles of the pages.

The edition would have been impossible without the co-operation of EEBO-TCP who undertook the keying of the 1577 edition (in addition to the 1587 edition already on their site), as well as granting us permission to make use of the two texts in our version.

We have also benefited from the assistance of the Research Services Team at Oxford University Computing Services who developed the TEI Comparator Tool, enabling comparison between the two texts. We think that this tool may be of use to other projects. See the link to James Cummings' blog below.

The resource is freely available, and has been funded by Oxford University's Fell Fund.

To access the texts go to:

http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/holinshed/

But you can get there from the project website:

http://www.cems.ox.ac.uk/holinshed/

I send you there simply to alert you to the amount of additional content, including a comprehensive analysis of the sources behind the Chronicles undertaken by Henry Summerson.

http://www.cems.ox.ac.uk/holinshed/chronicles.shtml

There is also a comprehensive Holinshed bibliography, and a number of working papers.

To read James Cummings' blog and to find out more about the TEI Comparator Tool, go to:

http://blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk/jamesc/2009/09/04/tei-comparator/

The parallel text edition is one of several outputs envisaged by the Oxford Holinshed Project. We have commissioned forty essays which will be published by OUP as The Oxford Handbook to Holinshed's Chronicles in 2011. We also hope to receive funding to enhance the electronic edition with scholarly annotation.

All best wishes,
Ian W. Archer
Keble College, Oxford, OX1 3PG
Acting Warden, Keble College
Fellow and Tutor in Modern History
General Editor, Royal Historical Society Bibliography on British History
Literary Director, Royal Historical Society

Europeans in China

New Exhibition Opens at Folger

From the 1550s to the early 1700s, the European view of China was largely one of awe and admiration for a magnificently civilized culture of curious customs, great antiquity, and rare commodities at the opposite end of the globe. Using rare books, maps, and manuscripts as well as porcelain wares and figurines, "Imagining China" explores this early vision of China through European eyes. The exhibition runs from 18 September through 9 January.

http://www.folger.edu/Content/Whats-On/Folger-Exhibitions/Current-Exhibitions-Imagining-China/

John Lilburne: Life, Thought, Legacy

London Renaissance Seminar

Organiser: Dr Jerome de Groot, University of Manchester

24 October 2009 at Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London

2-2.45
Life:
Jason Peacey (UCL):
'To repair to Westminster: public politics and the trial of John Lilburne'

3-3.30
Thought:
Phil Baker title tbc.,
Rachel Foxley (Reading):
'How to criticize John Lilburne'

3.45-5
Legacy:
Jerome de Groot (Manchester) and Jason McElligott (TCD):
'Lilburne's legacies'
Ted Vallance (Roehampton):
'John Lilburne and the historians'

For information please contact:

jerome.degroot@manchester.ac.uk
or
wiseman.susan@gmail.com

The Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies

invites Fellowship Applications
for its 2010 Summer Symposium on the topic of
Literature and Religious Conflict in the English Renaissance
to be held at the University of Texas at Austin
May 24 through May 27, 2010

The Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies is pleased to announce its first annual Symposium. Scholars whose research concerns any aspect of the Symposium topic are invited to send proposals to the Directors of the Institute. (Applicants should feel free to interpret both "literature" and "religious conflict" in broad terms.)

TILTS Fellows receive an honorarium of $1,200, and expenses for travel as well as for food and lodging during the four-day event (air travel and lodging to be booked by the Institute). Fellows are expected to produce substantial scholarly essays which, together with other texts and materials, will be the focus of presentations and discussions at the Symposium. Texas Studies in Literature and Language will publish a special issue of selected essays from the Symposium.

Application deadline: October 1, 2009. Applicants must hold the Ph.D. and should submit the following, in a single pdf file: (1) a current CV, (2) a 200-word abstract, and (3) a three-to-four page, single-spaced project description. Successful applicants will be notified after November 15, 2009, and will then be asked to develop their proposals into essays of 25-30 pages, which must be submitted to the Directors by March 1, 2010, for advance circulation among the participants in the Symposium.

Address applications to Wayne A. Rebhorn and Frank Whigham, Directors of the Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies, at TILTS.renaissance@austin.utexas.edu.

The French Disease

Karen Newman, Professor of English, NYU

Thursday, Sept. 17, 6:30 pm
Room 224 of 19 University Place
(non-NYU visitors, bring a photo ID to sign into the building)

Professor Newman will give a brief presentation then lead a discussion of her paper "The French Disease." Professor Newman has *pre-circulated* the paper to be discussed. To pick up a copy, go the the NYU English Department (5th floor of 19 University Place). The papers can be found in the pigeon hole labeled "CELCE" directly across from the elevators. If the supply is exhausted or you would like the paper over email, please email us at the address(es) given below.

If you have questions, please contact Liza Blake, elizabeth[dot]blake[at]nyu[dot]edu, or Katie Vomero Santos, kathryn[dot]vomero[at]nyu[dot]edu, or Sarah Ostendorf, sco229[at]nyu[dot]edu.

Regimens of Health: House Books and Everyday Medicine in the Middle Ages

Medica, the Society for the Study of Healing in the Middle Ages, will
sponsor this paper session at the 45th International Congress
on Medieval Studies (May 13-16, 2010 at Kalamazoo, Michigan). Submission deadline is 15 September 2009.

The session will focus on household remedies and medical treatments that
were popularly available, or described in sources such as hausbuchs,
recipe collections, or writings on the regimen of health. Papers on all
aspects of medicine and daily life are welcome.

If you are interested in participating, or if you have any questions
about the session, please contact Harry York (why@pdx.edu). Proposals
for papers should include your name, the title of your paper and an
abstract.

New art history blog

... at http://notesonearlymodernart.blogspot.com

"Drawing Out Shakespeare."

The 2010 Australia-New Zealand Shakespeare Association (ANZSA) Conference will be held in Sydney, Australia from 17 to 19 June 2010. The theme is "Drawing Out Shakespeare."

Education is a 'drawing out' -- of knowledge, experience, of the learner and of the teacher. Situations, narratives and interrogations of teaching and learning occur frequently in Shakespeare's plays and many other texts of the period. The problems of teaching 400-year-old texts, under different societal, technological, cultural, and even geographical constraints, remain challenging today. The conference will have a dual focus, covering Shakespearean pedagogy in its widest sense, then and now. Papers might consider ways of engaging students with Shakespearean and other Early Modern drama, the educational uses of reconstructions such as the London Globe, the effects and effectiveness of Shakespeare on film, the uses of 'Shakespeare' in other modes of teaching and learning, in the past as well as the present. Equally, they might explore the many ideas about learning and teaching in the Early Modern period, scenes and narratives of pedagogy in Shakespearean and other theatres -- including the writer 'instructing' his actors via the processes of rehearsal and enskillment. Theoretical issues, for example those arising from gender, class and ideas of childhood, invite development in these contexts.

Proposals for theme-based panels and workshops focusing on ways of exploring Shakespeare are welcome, as well as individual short papers. Papers on the teaching and learning of Shakespeare in schools are especially welcome. Proposals for 20-minute papers should be submitted for consideration by the programme panel by email to Professor Penny Gay (penny.gay@usyd.edu.au) by 31 January 2010.

Full details are available on the ANZSA website: http://conference.anzsa.org/

Imaging Dogma, Picturing Belief

Late-Medieval Mural Painting in Parish Churches across Europe

Friday 6 and Saturday 7 November 2009 at The Courtauld Institute of Art

Further details:

The Courtauld Institute of Art

Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN

tel: 020 7848 2785/2909

Email: researchforum@courtauld.ac.uk

www.courtauld.ac.uk

NEH Summer Institute

Applications are encouraged for a summer 2010 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) summer institute for 25 college and university faculty, "Representations of the 'Other': Jews in Medieval Christendom." The institute, directed by Professor Irven M. Resnick, will meet at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (England) from 6 July-11 August, 2010. A stipend of $3800 is provided to all participants. For complete details and application information, please see www.utc.edu/neh or contact Irven-Resnick@utc.edu.

Columbia Shakespeare Lectures

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 8

The Fall 2009 program of the Columbia University Seminar in the Renaissance
will open with a lecture by Professor JEAN HOWARD (Columbia University),
entitled "Shakespeare Among His Contemporaries: Tragic Practice on the Early
Modern Stage." The Seminar meets in the Faculty House at Columbia at 7:30 pm. All
are welcome. For further information, please contact Ivan Lupic (il2177@columbia.edu).

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 11
The Fall 2009 program of the Columbia University Shakespeare Seminar
opens with Professor AMANDA BAILEY (University of Connecticut),
speaking on "Timon of Athens, Forms of Payback, and the Genre of
Debt." The Shakespeare Seminar meets at Faculty House at Columbia--social hour, 5-6:00 pm; dinner, 6-7:00 pm; meeting at 7:00 pm. For further information, please contact Rebecca Calcagno (columbiashakespeareseminar@gmail.com)

NYU English Department Early Modern Forum

Fall 2009 Events

The Early Modern Forum meets on Thursday evenings at 6:30pm unless otherwise noted. All events are held in 19 University Place, and rooms are noted below (visitors from outside NYU should bring photo ID to sign into the building). All are welcome!

If you have questions, contact Liza Blake, elizabeth[dot]blake[at]nyu[dot]edu, Katie Vomero Santos, kathryn[dot]vomero[at]nyu[dot]edu, or Sarah Ostendorf, sco229[at]nyu[dot]edu.

September 17
The French Disease
Karen Newman
(NYU)
Room 224

October 8
The Untimely Mammet of Verona
Gil Harris
(GWU)
Room 222

November 2 (Monday)
Renaissance Typos and Philosophies of Chance: A Colloquium
Jacques Lezra and Juliet Fleming
(NYU)
Room 224

December 3
Romance Ekphrasis: A Language of Sociability
Elizabeth Bearden
(University of Maryland)
Room 222
Co-sponsored with the Comparative Literature Department