Renaissance Selves -- a discussion as part of Birkbeck's Arts Week

During the European Renaissance how did people from various backgrounds and social classes imagine, describe and represent their sense of identity?

Speakers: Adam Smyth, Robert Maniura, Zoltan Biedermann

Wednesday 19 May

6-7.30 B20 Malet Street, Birkbeck, London WC1

Book technologies

A panel discussion on books and their formats in history, medieval to modern.

Speakers: Adam Smyth, Isabel Davis, Heike Bauer, Gill Partington, Luisa Calè

Thursday 20 May, 6pm–7.20pm

Venue: 421, Malet Street, London

Part of Arts Week at Birkbeck: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/artsweek/

The Society for Court Studies

... will sponsor a panel at the next RSA annual meeting in Montreal (24-26 March 2011) on new research on Henry, Prince of Wales (1594-1612).

Please send paper titles and declarations of interest -- abstracts to follow on request, next month -- to David Lawrence < dlawrenc@chass.utoronto.ca > and Michael Ullyot < ullyot@ucalgary.ca > by Tuesday, 18 May.

For more information on the Renaissance Society of America conference, see < http://rsa.org/ >. All participants must be members of the RSA by August 2010.

*‘Collecting the Eighteenth Century at Winchester College’*

The English Department at the University of Birmingham, in partnership
with Winchester College, invites applications for ‘Collecting the
Eighteenth Century at Winchester College’, an exciting opportunity for
funded doctoral study made possible by a collaborative doctoral award
(covering fees and maintenance) from the AHRC, with a supplementary
contribution of £1,000 from Winchester College (to assist with travel
and accommodation costs). The studentship is tenable from October 2010.

**Applications for the studentships should be made online by
4pm on Monday 7 June**.

Interviews are provisionally planned to take place at
Winchester College on Monday 28 June.

*Further particulars of project and how to apply:
http://www.alpg.bham.ac.uk/funding/winchester.pdf

Conflict and Controversy c. 850-1550

The Second Annual University of Manchester Postgraduate Medieval Studies Conference
7-8th June 2010: Kanaris Theatre, The Manchester Museum

Details: medconflict@live.co.uk

Monday 7th June

9.30-9.50 Registration and coffee
9.50-10.00 Opening remarks

10.00-11.30 Panel 1: Conflict in Late Medieval England
(i) Alex Hodgkins: University of Leeds
Civil Disorder, Rebellion and Warfare in Late Medieval England

(ii) Alison James: University of York
‘Both by the law and besides the law’ – Conflict and the Gentry in Fifteenth Century Yorkshire

(iii) Julia Cruse: University of Kent
An Individual Voice of Fifteenth Century Personal and Familial Conflict: The Vernacular Letters of Robert Armburgh - [Chetham’s Manuscript, Mun. E.6. (10) 4]

11.30-12.00 Refreshment break

12.00-1.00 Panel 2: Staging Conflict
(iv) Kate Ash: University of Manchester
Dramatic Tensions and the Theatre of Memory: Crucifying Christ in York and Chester
(v) Daisy Black: University of Manchester
‘_ou arte nere woode’: Spouses of Divinity, Domestic Conflict and Enacting the Safe Heresy.

1.00-2.15 Lunch

2.15-3.30 Workshop
Medievalists and Material Culture: Bryan Sitch: The Manchester Museum and Prof. Gale Owen-Crocker: University of Manchester

3.30-4.00 Refreshment break

4.00-500 Panel 3: Destruction and Violence in Early Medieval Culture
(vi) Lucrezia Pezzarossa: University of York
‘If mighty God granted them success in their mission of destruction’:
Biblical Conflicts and the Ideology of War in Late Anglo-Saxon England

(vii) Dr. Erin Madeline Sebo, Trinity College Dublin
Lacerant maternas dente papillas: Images of Violence Towards the Natural World and Anxiety in Anglo-Saxon Riddling.

5.15-6.15 Wine Reception

6.15-7.00 Keynote Lecture : Professor Gale Owen-Crocker: University of Manchester
Public and personal rivalry in 1066: What the Bayeux Tapestry Does and Does not Say

7.15 Conference Meal: Kro Abbey
Tuesday 8th June

9.30-9.45 Registration

9.45-10.15 Panel 4: Conflict in Romance and Epic Literature
(viii) Simon John: University of Swansea
Violence and the chansons de geste: The ‘epic cliché’ of the bisected Turk

(ix) Suzanne Leedham: University of Reading
The Battle of Roncevaux and the Chanson de Roland

(x) Dr. Hannah Priest: University of Manchester
‘No Chyldys Play’: Gigantomachia and Coming of Age in Octavian

10.15-10.45 Refreshment break

10.45-12.00 Key note address: Dr. Sarah Salih, King’s College London
Looking for the Medieval, Looking for the Pagan

12.00-1.15 Lunch

1.15-2.15 Panel 5: Conflict on the Continent: Ninth Century Europe
(xi) Zachary Hines: King’s College London
Las Fronteras: Abengalbón, the Cid, and the ‘Community of Practice’ in the Poema de Mio Cid

(xii) Christopher Heath: University of Manchester
‘Discord is the Font of Captivity’: The Rythmus de Captivitate LhuduiciImperatorisand the Ninth-Century Mezzogiorno

2.15-2.45 Refreshment break

2.45-3.45 Panel 6: Anglo-French and Anglo-Breton Relationships in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
(xiii) Thomas Underwood: University of Swansea
Franco-Breton relations through Norman eyes: assessing the Siege of Bellême through the Querimoniae Normannorum

(ixv) Elizabeth Anderson: University of Huddersfield
The Angevin Dynasty: A Family at War


3.45-4.00 Closing remarks

'Death in Early Modern English Prints and Book Illustrations'

Dr Malcolm Jones, Thursday 20 May, 6.30 pm, Malet St, Room 320

Stephen Brogan writes: 'I am delighted to invite you to our next event. Dr Malcolm Jones is an expert on early modern English printed images, having been responsible for the 'print of the month' on the British Printed Images to 1700 website: http://www.bpi1700.org.uk/index.html His most recent book was published last month, The Print in Early Modern England: An Historical Oversight (Yale, 2010), and he contributed to Printed Images in Early Modern Britain: Essays in Interpretation, ed. Michael Hunter (Ashgate, 2010) which has also just been published.

I look forward to seeing you next week!

Membership is £5 and can be obtained at any of our lectures, alternatively it costs £3 to attend a single event.

Best wishes,
Stephen Brogan
President, Birkbeck Early Modern Society
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hca/current/societies/index_html/#earlymodern'

Renaissance Selves

During the European Renaissance how did people from various backgrounds and social classes imagine, describe and represent their sense of identity?

Speakers: Adam Smyth, Robert Maniura, Zoltan Biedermann

Weds 19 May

6-7.30 B20 Malet Street, Birkbeck, London WC1

FORUM FOR THE STUDY OF EARLY MODERN WOMEN IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE

Trinity College Dublin
The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Interdisciplinary Colloquium: Thursday 2nd – Friday 3rd September 2010

CALL FOR PAPERS

In celebration of the launch of the Forum for the Study of Early Modern Women in Continental Europe, a two-day Colloquium will be held at Trinity College Dublin on Thursday 2nd – Friday 3rd September 2010.* The Forum is committed to supporting collaborative and individual research on the early modern women of Continental Europe. This encompasses the creative output of early modern women, their depiction in literary and artistic works, and their socio-historic contexts. The Forum is designed to cross both disciplinary and geographical boundaries. It is intended that a collection of articles inspired by the Colloquium proceedings will be published, subject to peer review.

*PLEASE NOTE: Due to popular demand, the Colloquium has been extended to include Thursday 2nd September (afternoon only). Papers of 20 minutes’ duration, in English, are invited from across the disciplines. Should you be interested in participating in this Colloquium, please send a short abstract (200 words) of your proposed contribution to Dr Eavan O’Brien (Forum Coordinator), obriene@tcd.ie, by Friday 21st May 2010.

Animals and Humans in the Culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance

The Twenty-Second Barnard Medieval and Renaissance Conference
December 4, 2010
Barnard College, NYC

(Call for Papers extended to September 1, 2010)

An interdisciplinary conference that will explore some of the many ways in
which the human-animal connection and ‘divide’ was imagined, employed,
figured and explained by people in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Special attention will be given to the multiple constructions and fluid
and tense nature of the boundaries between wild and civilized. We seek
proposals that go beyond animal figuration and instead focus on literal
and metaphorical interactions between humans and other animals. Papers
might consider texts on husbandry, falconry, hunting, companion animals,
warfare, bestiaries, fables, encyclopedias, heraldry, visual arts,
narrative, philosophy, and theology, and analyses informed by current
critical animal theory are especially welcomed.

Plenary speakers:
Laurie Shannon (Northwestern University
Bruce Holsinger (University of Virginia)

Plenary panel:
Aranye Fradenberg (UC Santa Barbara)
Paula Lee (Arete Initiative, U of Chicago)
Karl Steel (CUNY Brooklyn College)
Sarah Stanbury (Holy Cross)
Julian Yates (U of Delaware)


Please submit one-page abstracts and c.v. to Conference Organizer, Laurie
Postlewate
lpostlew@barnard.edu by September 1, 2010.

Journal of the Northern Renaissance

Issue 2.1 of JNR, dedicated to the theme of memory, is now live and can be seen at www.northernrenaissance.org.

Patrick Hart and Sebastiaan Verweij

Journal of the Northern Renaissance
(ISSN: 1759-3085)
http://northernrenaissance.org
northernrenaissance@gmail.com
Editors: Patrick Hart and Sebastiaan Verweij

Med-Ren events in NY

Tuesday, May 11
Columbia University Seminar in the Renaissance
RUTH DE FORD (CUNY-Hunter)
"Temporal Proportions in Guillaume Du Fay's Nuper rosarum flores
(1436): Symbolism vs. Performance Practice"
Seminar at 7.30 PM; drinks at 5.45, dinner at 6.30
Faculty House
Contact: Ivan Lupic on il2177@columbia.edu

Friday, May 14
Columbia University Shakespeare Seminar
GINA BLOOM (University of California-Davis)
"Navigating Space on the Boards: Backgammon, Masculinity, and Theater
Spectatorship"
Respondent: Jean Howard (Columbia University)
Time: Social hour, 5-6:00pm; Meeting, 6-7:30 pm; Dinner at 7:30pm
*Please note the time change. Faculty House will not be serving meals,
so the lecture will begin at 6. After the lecture, we will have dinner
at a local restaurant.*
Faculty House

June 16-17, 2010
The Third International MARGOT Conference
THE DIGITAL MIDDLE AGES: TEACHING AND RESEARCH
Plenary speakers: DAVID A. TROTTER (Aberystwyth)
and JOHN UNSWORTH (Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
At Barnard College, Columbia University, NYC
Program details and registration information available at:
http://margot.uwaterloo.ca/DMAConference/index.html
Please contact Laurie Postlewate for further information at
lpostlew@barnard.edu


Details: Alan Stewart, ags2105@columbia.edu

The Emergence of Impartiality: Towards a Prehistory of Objectivity

Call for Papers
Deadline: June 30, 2010

We are inviting proposals for contributions to a volume to be published in the series Intersections, edited by Anita Traninger (Freie Universität Berlin) and Kathryn Murphy (University of Oxford).

> From the early seventeenth century onwards, the epithet ‘impartial’ (germ. unpartheyisch, fr.impartial, sp. imparcial/desinteresado, it. imparziale) appears in the titles of historical works, works on economy, law, philosophy, in histories of the church and of emerging nation states, to name just a few. This occurs at a time when gaining, teaching, and transferring knowledge was still widely conceived as a fundamentally agonistic activity. Intellectual exchange had been conceptualized as a contest since antiquity, and even the alleged methodological shift from ‘medieval’ dialectics to Renaissance rhetoric (held to mirror the epochal shift from scholasticism to humanism) had not changed the agonistic disposition towards academic practice and the ensuing conceptualization of arguments as fights or duels between opponents.

What was then meant by the use of the term ‘impartial’ in the discourses of the early modern world? If knowledge formation was an agonistic enterprise, arguments were associated with schools or authorities, and truths were proposed or refuted but very rarely reached through compromise, what advantage could there be in deploying the term ‘impartial’ in order to argue a point? What sort of fixed meaning did it have, if it could be used so freely in so many different contexts?

Where did the word come from, and what did it signify? Did it emerge at the same time, and in the same discourses, in different languages? What relationship does it bear to the natural sciences and their emerging paradigm of observation? Is legal discourse relevant? Or is impartiality, as the polemics between theologians such as Gottfried Arnold and Ernst Salomon Cyprian about heterodoxy suggest, a selling point and claim of authority in debates on confessional matters? Is there a genealogical link between the rise of 'impartiality', and the discourses of objectivity emergent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, recently described by Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison? In general, was the promotion of impartiality a surface phenomenon of academic self-description, while everyday practice continued to be driven by the frame of opposition and controversy?

This volume aims to map out the contexts in which impartiality emerged as a key tenet of learned practices during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and to describe the implications of the changing self-descriptions of cultures of knowledge. The contributors are invited to trace impartiality in various discourses (art theory, literature, rhetoric, historiography, philosophy, law, medicine, theology, etc.). Contributions on literary impartiality, in particular in satirical writing, are also welcome. We encourage the formulation of hypotheses about the emergence and development of this "travelling concept", the routes it took, and the role played by various discursive fields in shaping it, as well as considering whether and how it has shaped modern academic and disciplinary self-perception.

The volume is scheduled to be published in 2012. Proposals of about 300 words should be sent electronically to both editors before June 30, 2010:

atra@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Anita Traninger)
kathryn.murphy@ell.ox.ac.uk (Kathryn Murphy)

http://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/we05/forschung/forschprojekte/impartiality.html

Intersections is a peer-reviewed series on interdisciplinary topics in Early Modern Studies. Contributions may come from any of the disciplines within the humanities, such as history, art history, literary history, book history, church history, social history, cultural history, and history of ideas. Each volume focuses on a single theme and consists of essays that explore new perspectives on the subject of study. The series aims to open up new areas of research on early modern culture and to address issues of interest to a wide range of disciplines.

Doctoral Awards

Applications are invited for two AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Awards between the School of English at the University of Sussex and The National Trust at Petworth House, West Sussex on Plays and Playing at Petworth House (1590-1640) beginning October 2010.

These doctoral projects are based on the detailed study of sixteen bound volumes of 146 early modern plays collected as part of the library of the ninth and tenth Earls of Northumberland at Petworth House (West Sussex) between 1590 and 1640. It is based in an ongoing collaboration between the Centre for Early Modern Studies at the University of Sussex and the National Trust at Petworth House.

To date no study has been made of these texts, which have been kept separate from the main libraries at Petworth since they passed to the National Trust in 1947 and are largely unknown. The quartos seem to have been bound together some time subsequent to the 1690 catalogue of the library (the 'Catalogus Librorum Bibliothecae Petworthianae'), in which these plays are catalogued individually and in a different order. Each volume contains between six and eleven plays, and there appears to be two distinct phases of the collection - an early group, leading up to c. 1620; and a later group, characterised by a preponderance of political satire, which focuses on the late 1620s and early and mid-1630s. Many of the major playwrights of the period are included – Shakespeare is well represented with quarto editions of King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Love's Labours Lost, Henry V, Richard II, Richard III and others. Also present are plays by Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Samuel Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Webster, Philip Massinger, Thomas Heywood, Beaumont and Fletcher, Robert Daborne, James Shirley, many lesser known playwrights (Peter Hausted, Shakerley Marmyon, Barton Holyday amongst others) and a wealth of anonymous drama. A number of the plays in the collection are extensively annotated; in some cases suggesting performances were mounted at the house (sketched cast lists are included, for instance). In its scope, annotation, and assemblage as well as the rarity of many of the editions, this is an internationally important collection hitherto overlooked.

The broad aim of these doctoral projects is to map out and to contextualise these quartos, exploring both their specific connection to Petworth and to the circumstances of their production. The nature of this important dramatic archive necessitates its division into two doctoral projects. Their aims and objectives are briefly detailed as follows:

1) The first award will explore the contexts and contours of the collection of the ninth Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy (1564-1632) with particular emphasis on his acquisition of printed playtexts from the 1590s, including quartos by Marlowe, Shakespeare and Jonson, representing the major professional playing companies (and theatres) of the period. It offers a hitherto uncharted dimension to the life and work of the 'wizard' Earl, and will further address the relations between the assemblage of such materials to be read and those which may have been performed with a view to furthering academic understanding of how drama was read, studied and performed in country house spaces.


2) Of the sixteen volumes of drama in the Petworth archive, a substantial proportion comes from the Caroline stage of the late 1620s and 1630s, satirical drama written for (while often ridiculing) the courtly elite, to be performed at court, at the universities and in the private playhouse, in some cases by child players. This element of the Petworth collection, acquired by the tenth Earl of Northumberland, Algernon Percy (1602-1668), has never been studied and will form the focus of the second doctoral award. James Shirley is particularly well represented in this part of the collection, alongside editions by Thomas Heywood, Philip Massinger, William Rowley, Beaumont and Fletcher and other lesser known and anonymous works. This doctoral project will explore this aspect of the collection in detail, analysing what is there, how it is annotated, and how coherent a collection of satirical drama it represents.


Of the two doctorates, one will be jointly supervised by Dr Matthew Dimmock and Andrew Loukes, the National Trust House and Collections Manager at Petworth House. The second will be jointly supervised by Dr Margaret Healy and Andrew Loukes. There is a team of secondary supervisors involved in the project that will offer support - this will include Professor Thomas Healy, Professor Andrew Hadfield, Professor Maurice Howard, and Dr Angus Vine of the University of Sussex, and Alison McCann, Assistant County Archivist of West Sussex. Christopher Whittick, Senior Archivist, East Sussex Records office will also assist with palaeographic training.

The awards pay tuition fees and a maintenance grant for three years of full-time doctoral study. Please note that, in order to receive the maintenance award from the AHRC, residency conditions apply. Please refer to the 'AHRC Postgraduate Studentships: Guide to Student Eligibility' for detailed information: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Documents/Guide%20to%20Student%20Eligibility.pdf

Applicants should possess:

* A 1st class or Upper 2nd Class Honours degree in a relevant humanities discipline.
* A Masters degree or one completed by October 2010 (with distinction or merit) in an area relevant to the project.

Applications for a place on a research degree programme must be made on the standard University of Sussex application form at: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/pg/applying/

Where you are asked to outline your research project you should describe how your academic interests fit these collaborative doctorates and your reasons for applying. Candidates may apply specifically to one of these awards or to both. You should indicate your preference on your application form.

Please contact either Dr Matthew Dimmock (m.dimmock@sussex.ac.uk) or Dr Margaret Healy (m.j.healy@sussex.ac.uk) for further information on academic related question of the project.

The deadline for applications is Friday 4 June, 2010. Interviews will be held during the week beginning 22 June, 2010.

The Queen’s House Conference 2010: Renaissance Women’s Performance and the Dramatic Canon

14-15 July 2010 at the Queen’s House, Greenwich, London.
Jointly held by the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and the Centre for Research in Renaissance Studies, Roehampton University, London

Sponsors
The British Academy
The Society for Renaissance Studies

Society for Renaissance Studies Graduate Bursaries
Thanks to the generosity of the Society for Renaissance Studies, funds are available for a limited number of graduate bursaries for conference attendance. We are delighted to request applications for graduate students or early career scholars without permanent employment for a limited contribution towards travel and accommodation costs for speakers and auditors.

Please send a short application (no longer than one side of A4) to ‘Research@nmm.ac.uk’ by 28 May 2010. The application should include estimated costs, a brief cv and a brief outline of the relationship of the conference to your research interests. Please call your email ‘Queen’s House Conference: bursary application’.

For further conference information, see
http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/researchcentres/renaissance/actress/index.html
and
http://admin.nmm.ac.uk/researchers/conferences-and-seminars/qhconference

NY Ren events

Monday, May 3
The Heyman Center for the Humanities
LINDA COLLEY
"Writing Constitutions into British and Global Histories"
6:15PM
Heyman Center for the Humanities, Second Floor Common Room
Co-sponsored by the Committee on Global Thought

Wednesday, May 5
The Robert Branner Forum for Medieval Art and Architecture
PATRICK PONSOT (Architecte en chef des monuments historiques nationaux)
"La Cathedrale de Bourges en 1313, 1842 et 2010: que 'restaurer' veut dire?"
The talk will be given in French but an English summary will be provided.
6:00 PM
612 Schermerhorn

Wednesday, May 5
Columbia Early Modern Seminar
BRADIN CORMACK (Chicago)
"On Sentences in Shakespeare's Sonnets"
6:15 PM
612 Philosophy Hall
Contact Alan Stewart ags2105@columbia.edu

Tuesday, May 11
Columbia University Seminar in the Renaissance
RUTH DE FORD (CUNY-Hunter)
TBA
Seminar at 7.30 PM; drinks at 5.45, dinner at 6.30
Faculty House
Contact: Ivan Lupic on il2177@columbia.edu

Friday, May 14
Columbia University Shakespeare Seminar
GINA BLOOM (University of California-Davis)
"Navigating Space on the Boards: Backgammon, Masculinity, and Theater
Spectatorship"
Respondent: Jean Howard (Columbia University)
Time: Social hour, 5-6:00pm; Meeting, 6-7:30 pm; Dinner at 7:30pm
*Please note the time change. Faculty House will not be serving meals,
so the lecture will begin at 6. After the lecture, we will have dinner
at a local restaurant.*
Faculty House

Details: Alan Stewart, ags2105@columbia.edu

Rubinstein fellowship

SOCIETY FOR RENAISSANCE STUDIES
Closing date 31 May 10

Award type Mid-Career fellowships, Directed grants for individual
investigators

Award amount max £5,500

The aim of this fellowship is to support postdoctoral research in
Italian history and culture. The fellowship is worth £5,500.

Website Link:www.rensoc.org.uk/SRSFellowships.html