Friday, February 27, 2009

‘Early Modern Women and Poetry’

Colloquium 2009
Call For Papers From Early Career Researchers.

In celebration of the launch of Paul Salzman’s on-line edition of Mary Wroth’s poetry we will be holding a colloquium on ‘Early Modern Women and Poetry’ at Birkbeck College, London, on 17 and 18 July 2009. The aim of the colloquium is to both showcase and further current research, on gender and poetry 1500-1700.
We are envisaging that we will probably have three main strands of papers – one on Wroth, one on Editing, and one on Women and Poetry. However, we are keen to represent and respond to current research, and so these categories may change in response to proposals. We very much hope to be able to accept some papers from early career researchers (doctoral students and researchers up to three years into post-doctoral study).
Therefore, if you think you might be able to participate, we would like to invite you to send a short abstract (200 words) of your proposed contribution to wiseman.susan@gmail.com by 9 March 2009. The proposal should outline your argument, detail your primary material and briefly situate your argument in relation to what you regard as some of the key developments in the field of early modern women’s writing.
At present, unfortunately, the conference does not have funding for travel or other expenses.
The colloquium is a dual venture between the Australian early modern women’s writing research cluster and the London Renaissance Seminar.
On behalf of the organising committee: Patricia Pender, Paul Salzman, Ros Smith, Sue Wiseman.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Aphra Behn symposium

Friday, 13 March 2009
Eliot Upper Senior Common Room, University of Kent
Sponsored by the Centre for Studies in the Long Eighteenth Century and the Centre for Gender, Sexuality and Writing

Speakers: Ros Ballaster (Mansfield College, Oxford); Elaine Hobby (Loughborough); Jane Spencer (Exeter)

Registration Fee: Student: £5 / £9 (with lunch); Staff: £8 / £12 (with lunch).

Register in person at the School of English Office, University of Kent, or email Jennie Batchelor: jeb29@kent.ac.uk.

‘Macbeth, Business and the Ghost of Hospitality’

Prof. David Ruiter (University of Texas, El Paso)

Centre for Research in Renaissance Studies, Roehampton University

Date: Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Time: 4pm

Venue: Duchesne 104, Digby Stuart

All welcome!

Information and communication in early modern Europe

An interdisciplinary conversation on Filippo de Vivo's '/Information and
Communication in Venice: Rethinking in Early Modern Politics/'
Speakers: Alain Viala (University of Oxford), Renate Pieper (University
of Graz), David Colclough (Queen Mary, University of London) and Filippo
de Vivo (Birkbeck, University of London)
Chair: Warren Boutcher (Queen Mary, University of London)

*10 March at 6.30pm *

The seminar will take place in the Drapers Lecture Theatre, Geography
Building, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End, E1 4NS.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Call For Papers: Maternity and Romance Narratives in the Renaissance

[this via the LRS list]

Helen Hackett notes the "profoundly ambivalent attitude to the maternal"
in Shakespeare's last plays (_Women and Romance Fiction in the English
Renaissance_, 155). In spite of the associations of romance as a genre
with a female readership, such ambivalence to the maternal may
characterize the romance tradition more broadly. This panel will
consider aspects of the maternal in the romance narratives that
circulated in England and continental Europe in the Renaissance. Papers
may explore romance in any genre or guise.

Proposals are invited from graduate students as well as more senior
scholars of literature for papers at the Renaissance Society of America
Annual Conference, to be held in Venice on 8-10 April 2010.

Please send a brief abstract, as well as a short CV, to kbamford@mta.ca,
by Friday, April 18th. Accepted proposals will be announced by May 2nd.

Karen Bamford
Associate Professor and Head
Department of English
Mount Allison University
Sackville, NB, CANADA E4L 4N4

NEWTON:MILTON, TWO CULTURES

22-25 July 2009
University of Sussex
Brighton, UK

Newton:Milton, Two Cultures? is co-hosted by the Centre for Intellectual History and the Centre for Early Modern Studies at the University of Sussex. The international conference aims to bring together experts in the fields of English Literature, History of Science and general History to consider a number of questions relating to the work and careers of Isaac Newton and John Milton.

The conference will represent a unique opportunity for specialists in the work and careers of these extraordinary figures to meet and to learn from each other. Participants are particularly encouraged to seek connections between the writing and thought of Newton and Milton, although we are also interested in receiving proposals for papers that offer relevant material relating to social, political, theological and intellectual contexts in relation to either figure. We are especially keen to invite doctoral and postdoctoral students to give papers at the conference or to attend the conference.

Keynote speaker: Barbara Lewalski, (Professor of History and Literature and of English Literature, Harvard University)

Other speakers include:

Jed Buchwald (Professor of History, California Institute of Technology), Justin Champion (Professor of History, Royal Holloway), Rosanna Cox, (Lecturer, University of Kent), Brian Cummings (Professor of English Literature, University of Sussex), Matthew Dimmock, (Reader in English Literature, University of Sussex), Moti Feingold (Professor of History of Science, California Institute of Technology), Stephen Fallon (Professor of English Literature, University of Notre Dame), Andrew Hadfield (Professor of English Literature, University of Sussex), Margaret Healy (Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Sussex), Rebekah Higgitt, (Senior Curator, National Maritime Museum), Sarah Hutton (Professor of Intellectual History, University of Aberystwyth), Rob Iliffe (Professor of Intellectual History and History of Science, University of Sussex), Ken Knoespel, (Professor of History and Dean of Arts and Humanities, Georgia Institute of Technology), David Loewenstein, (Professor of English Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison), Scott Mandelbrote (Perne Librarian, Peterhouse, Cambridge University), Bill Newman (Professor of History of Science, Indiana University), John Rogers, (Professor of English Literature, Yale University), Jonathan Sawday, (Professor of English Literature, University of Strathclyde), Regina Schwartz, (Professor of English literature, Northwestern University), Nigel Smith, (Professor of English Literature, Princeton University), David Womersley, (Professor of English Literature, Oxford University), David Wootton, (Professor of Intellectual History, University of York), and Dr. John Young (Newton Project, University of Sussex).

We invite you to respond to the Conference Call for Papers. The deadline for abstract submission is 31 April. We are seeking 250-word proposals in the fields of English Literature, History of Science and general History relating to the work and careers of Milton and Newton under the following headings:

The specific themes of the conference include:

l University context/s;

l Social, political, religious and intellectual contexts;

l Theology and heresy (especially regarding the Trinity, predestination and prophecy);

l Metaphysical and scientific beliefs;

l Political ideas;

l Administrative careers;

l Attitudes to women, liberty and toleration;

l Relationship with the ‘occult’ traditions;

l Rhetorical techniques;

l Eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century reputations;

l Contemporary historiography;

l Literature and science;

l Religion and science.


An online proposal submission form and further details about the conference are available at the Conference website:

http://www.newton-milton2009.sussex.ac.uk/conference

We look forward to receiving your proposal and hope that you will be able to join us in Sussex in July 2009.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Wolf/Man's Lament: King Lear and Howling.

Dr. Naomi Liebler, Professor of English at Montclair State University

The CUNY Graduate Center's Early Modern Interdisciplinary Group
Friday, February 27 at 2pm
The CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, Room 5114

Gina Grimaldi and Jennifer Holl, EMIG co-chairs

DEEP

Alan B. Farmer and Zachary Lesser write -- via The Shakespeare Conference -- of DEEP: a new web resource for studying the printing, publishing, and marketing of early modern English drama, including Shakespeare. DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks is an easy-to-use and highly customizable search engine of every playbook produced in England from the beginning of printing through 1660. DEEP provides a wealth of information about the original playbooks, their title-pages, paratextual matter, bibliographic details, and theatrical backgrounds. Because it makes this information available in an analytic database, DEEP allows you to study these playbooks easily and quickly in ways that are either impossible or highly time-consuming using earlier printed references or ESTC and EEBO.

A full Help section is available on the site. DEEP is free to all users.

DEEP is available at http://deep.sas.upenn.edu

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Shaping Strangers in Early Modern English Travel Writing, 1500–1700

Proposed session for the RSA meeting in Venice, 2010

Early modern English professional and educational travellers were fascinated by the variety of foreigners they encountered abroad, whether in the Mediterranean islands, the vast domains of the Ottoman Empire, Persia, or the Mughal Empire. The ways in which they depicted foreign peoples, their practices of every day life, religious rituals and outward appearance, sheds light on the categorizations of religious and ethnic identities available in the early modern period, and how these were connected to then current world views and cultural knowledge systems. The organizers welcome proposals from graduate students as well as more senior scholars of early modern history and literature for papers at the Renaissance Society of America Annual meeting, to be held in Venice on 8-10 April 2010.

Possible topics include:
- signs of ethnicity in outward appearance
- representations of religious practices and rituals
- ideas about foreign customs and every day life
- depictions of minorities and majorities
- The impact of climate and geography on people

Please send a brief abstract (max. 200 words), specification of audio-visual requirements, and contact data (email and academic addresses) as well as a short CV, to the organizers, Dr Eva Johanna Holmberg, (eva.holmberg@utu.fi) and Dr Chloë Houston (c.houston@reading.ac.uk) with the subject line "Venice RSA", by Friday, April 11th. Accepted proposals will be announced by early May. It is hoped to edit selected papers into a collection of articles.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

‘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.

Monday, February 16, 2009

‘Early Modern Women and Poetry’

Colloquium 2009
Call For Papers From Early Career Researchers.

In celebration of the launch of Paul Salzman’s on-line edition of Mary Wroth’s poetry we will be holding a colloquium on ‘Early Modern Women and Poetry’ at Birkbeck College, London, on 17 and 18 July 2009. The aim of the colloquium is to both showcase and further current research, on gender and poetry 1500-1700.

We are envisaging that we will probably have three main strands of papers – one on Wroth, one on Editing, and one on Women and Poetry. However, we are keen to represent and respond to current research, and so these categories may change in response to proposals. We very much hope to be able to accept some papers from early career researchers (doctoral students and researchers up to three years into post-doctoral study).

Therefore, if you think you might be able to participate, we would like to invite you to send a short abstract (200 words) of your proposed contribution to wiseman.susan@gmail.com by 2 March 2009. The proposal should outline your argument, detail your primary material and briefly situate your argument in relation to what you regard as some of the key developments in the field of early modern women’s writing.

At present, unfortunately, the conference does not have funding for travel or other expenses.

The colloquium is a dual venture between the Australian early modern women’s writing research cluster and the London Renaissance Seminar.

On behalf of the organising committee: Patricia Pender, Paul Salzman, Ros Smith, Sue Wiseman.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

'Laughter in Shakespeare's Playhouse'

Shakespeare and Performance Seminar
Thursday 12 February, 6-8 pm
Nancy Knowles Lecture Theatre, Shakespeae's Globe
[thsi via the LRS]

Dr Indira Ghose, Univeristy of Fribourg
'Laughter in the Shakespearean Theatre'
In this talk, Dr Ghose will explore the development of a professional entertainment industry, in which humour was a staple. She will highlight the shift in taste within this period, visible in Shakespeare's plays, from physical comedy to wordplay, which is linked to the emergence of the wise fool. Finally, she will examine the general change in attitudes towards laughter, with decorum playing an increasing role (jokes that go too far), and will argue that didacticism is found to be increasingly dropping out of the picture.

Dr Matthew Steggle, Sheffield Hallam University
'Thinking about laughter in early modern theatres'
What did early modern audience laughter sound like? What did early audiences laugh at? And what tools do we have at our disposal to attempt to historicize something as apparently intangible and evanescent as audience laughter?

Tom Cornford, Artist in Residence, the CAPITAL Centre, University of Warwick
'The Skilful Laugh'
Tom Cornford will examine laughter in the theatre from the perspective of a contemporary director and in relation to the major theories of acting from the last century. Is all laughter the same? Why and when does it happen? Can it be categorized? Is it always to be encouraged? What does it show us and what might it hide?

The Shakespeare and Performance Seminar is open to research students, theatre practitioners and academics. For further information and to reserve a place, please contact ed.events@shakespearesglobe.com.

Reading and Writing in Renaissance Society 1400-1700

Canterbury Christ Church University & Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library

Call for Papers for the Annual Renaissance Colloquium

Saturday 9th May 2009 at Canterbury Cathedral Archives.

Twenty minute papers are invited for the Annual Renaissance Colloquium.
The colloquia reflect a range of disciplinary approaches to the study of
manuscripts and early printed books in a bid to provide a more fully
contextualised understanding of literacy and 'book' culture in
provincial society across the period. Working collaboratively with
Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library, the day will draw together
scholars working on a range of source material such as book lists and
inventories, literary manuscripts, early printed books, common place
books, letters and civic documents. Papers are particularly welcome from
but not restricted to scholars who have worked on material housed at
Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library. For further details visit
http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/arts-humanities/english-language-studies/Ann
ualRenaissance.aspx

Key themes include: types of literacy and the status of the literate,
orality, dis/continuities between manuscript and print culture, reading
and writing practices, issues of methodology, materiality, book
ownership/access, coterie writing, reading communities, provincial,
metropolitan and continental contexts.

Please send a 300 word synopsis of your paper to claire.bartram@canterbury.ac.uk by March 27th 2009

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Puttenham, in the pub

The next Early Modern Reading Group will meet on Thursday 26 February, at 6.30pm, in the Skinners Arms, Judd Street WC1. We'll look at George Puttenham's Art of English Poesy (1589): book 3 ('Of Ornament'), chapters 1-5. There is an excellent brand new edition available (ed. Whigham and Rebhorn). If you'd like photocopies of the relevant pages, let me know and I can send you them.

Adam.
a.smyth@reading.ac.uk

RENAISSANCE SENSES


SINRS ONE-DAY SYMPOSIUM
Saturday, 2 May, 2009.
AT UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING
IRIS MURDOCH CENTRE

CALL FOR PAPERS

Papers are invited for a one-day symposium on ‘the Renaissance Senses’ (hearing, taste, touch, sight, smell). Proposals should be submitted to the following address by Friday 13 March, 2009 , and papers should be no longer than 15 mins. duration (10pp. double-spaced typed A4):

Professor J. Drakakis

Department of English Studies

University of Stirling

Stirling FK9 4LA

Scotland

Email: jd1@stir.ac.uk

There will a fee of £35 for the day, which will cover coffee, tea, and a buffet lunch. Cheques to be made payable to Department of English Studies, University of Stirling. A registration form is attached. Delegates who wish to pay on the day can do so, but please send in your registration form well beforehand so that we can plan for meals.

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF THE RENAISSANCE

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
STVDIO Schedule, Spring 2009
(Unless stated otherwise, talks are held at 5:00pmin the Humanities Building, Room 450)

Tuesday 13 January: Carla Zecher (Newberry Library), 'Unlocking the Newberry
Library: An Introduction to the Newberry Library's Collections, Seminar
Programmes, and Research Opportunities'. IAS Seminar Room, Millburn House.

Tuesday 20 January: Martin Stone (Leuven), ‘Do We Really Understand
Renaissance Ideas of Conscience?’

Tuesday 17 February: Nicholas Terpstra (Toronto), public lecture on ‘The Art of
Executing Well: Comforting the Condemned in Renaissance Italy’. 5:00pm, Arts
Centre Conference Room, followed by reception in the Mead Gallery.

Monday 23 February: Nicholas Terpstra (Toronto), public lecture on ‘When the
Saints Come Marching In: Civic Religion in the Italian Renaissance’. 5:00pm, Maths
Building, MS.05, followed by reception.

Tuesday 3 March: Brenda Hosington (Warwick, Centre for the Study of the
Renaissance), ‘Crossroads of Culture: Mapping Translation in Renaissance Britain,
1475-1640’.

Tuesday 10 March: Louise Bourdua (Warwick), ‘Exports to Padua Trecento Style:
Altichiero’s Roman Legacy’. 5:00pm, Humanities Building, Room 403.

Tuesday 21 April: Martin McLaughlin (Oxford), ‘Alberti’s Vita and Canis: Portrait
of the Artist as a Renaissance Dog’. 5:00pm, Humanities Building, Room 403.

Tuesday 5 May: Luke Syson (National Gallery of Art), ‘How Should We Read
Renaissance Pictures?’ 5:00pm, Humanities Building, Room 403.
STVDIO talks are supported by Warwick’s Humanities Research Centre. For further
information and details, contact Dr David Lines (d.a.lines@warwick.ac.uk) or consult the website of the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance: www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren

When Does Truth Matter? Spinoza on Philosophy and Religion



Prof. Susan James

6.30 pm, 20 Feb 09, Malet St room B36, Birkbeck

Monday, February 09, 2009

‘The Mind of William Laud’

Prof. Alan Cromartie

Wednesday 11 February, 5pm - University of Reading

Seminar Room, Graduate School in Arts and Humanities, Old Whiteknights House.

All Welcome!

Convener: Dr. Michelle O’Callaghan, m.f.ocallaghan@reading.ac.uk

Thursday, February 05, 2009

The Royal Historical Society

MEETINGS 2009

Friday 6 February 2009 at 5.30 p.m.
Venue: Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, UCL
‘Refashioning Puritan New England: the Church of England
in British North America, c. 1680 – c.1770’
Dr Jeremy Gregory

Friday 8 May 2009 at 5.30 p.m.
Venue: Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, UCL
“Oliver Cromwell and the Protectorate”
Professor Blair Worden

Friday 26 June 2009
Regional Visit and Research Symposium
‘Poverty and Welfare in Ireland c. 1833-1922’
Venue: Queen’s University Belfast
Organiser: Professor Peter Gray

Wednesday 1 July 2009 at 5.30 p.m.
Venue: Cruciform Lecture Theatre 1, UCL
Prothero Lecture
“The Age of Prothero: British historiography in
the long fin-de-siècle, 1870-1920”
Professor Michael Bentley

Friday 25 September 2009 at 5.30 p.m.
Venue: University College London
“The purpose of religion? Monks and the city in late medieval Italy”
Dr Frances Andrews

Wednesday 11 November 2009 at 5.45 for 6.00 p.m.
The Colin Matthew Memorial Lecture for the Public Understanding of History,
in co-operation with Gresham College, London
“The Institutionalisation of Art in Early Victorian England”
Professor Charles Saumarez Smith

Friday 27 November 2009 at 5.45 p.m.
Venue: University College London
Presidential Address: “French Crossings. I”
Professor Colin Jones

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

On the Page: Seeing, Reading, Interpreting

School of English, Sociology, Politics and Contemporary History
CALL FOR PAPERS
8-9 September 2009, University of Salford

A Literary Studies conference concerning the visual presentation and apprehension of text, image and combinations thereof. How is interpretation affected by the arrangement of elements on the page? These concerns cross period and disciplinary boundaries.

Areas on which we will consider papers relating to the theme include;

∑ Typography and page design
∑ Prose, poetry and graphic works
∑ Reader-response
∑ The use of photography and/ or illustration
∑ Paratexts, footnotes and marginalia
∑ Any period of book production from early to contemporary
∑ Texts from all literary periods
∑ Works from all genres

Abstracts of 250 words are invited for presentations of 20 minutes.
Please make clear how your paper will be related to the conference theme.

Abstracts must be submitted by 30th April 2009

E-mails for submissions and enquiries:
g.white@salford.ac.uk
s.barton@pgr.salford.ac.uk

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Handle with Care: Authority and Diplomacy from Dante to Spenser

Liverpool Hope University, 4-5 July 2009

Keynote Speaker: Professor John Watkins (University of Minnesota)

Proposals are invited for a conference which will examine the interrelated roles
of the author and the diplomat in the late medieval, early modern and
Renaissance periods. Many of the key figures in European literature – Dante,
Petrarch, Chaucer, Wyatt, Sidney, Machaut and Froissart, to name but a few –
were also highly-skilled ambassadors and diplomats. This conference will
investigate the perceived interrelationship between the roles of author and
ambassador, the extent to which the literary permeated the political, and vice
versa. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

• The changing role of the poet-diplomat
• Poetry as propaganda
• Translation and intercultural studies
• The development of the nation state
• The textuality of the political / the politics of the text
• Laureateship and poetic fame
• Humanism
• Latin as lingua franca
• Clerk / notary culture
• Cross-fertilization of discourses

Proposals of no more than 300 words should be emailed to Dr Will Rossiter (rossitw@hope.ac.uk) by 1 May 2009.
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