Communication and Exchange

Early Modern Research Centre, University of Reading, Conference in Early Modern Studies, 18-20 July 2011

CFP Miscellanies and Commonplacing

Papers are invited for panels on miscellanies and commonplace traditions, focusing on early modern poetry. As the conference’s informal theme is Communication and Exchange, we would particularly welcome papers which explore the ways in which print and manuscript miscellanies reveal patterns of exchange, circulation and influence. We would also be interested in papers on the ways in which miscellany and commonplace collections suggest the popular or elite status of particular poems and poets. Lastly, we would welcome papers which combine a focus on the material culture of miscellanies and commonplace books with attention to formal issues, such as rhetoric and poetic form, genre and influence.

Please send 200-word abstract to Dr Michelle O’Callaghan (Reading) and Dr Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (Oxford)

m.f.ocallaghan@reading.ac.uk

elizabeth.scott-baumann@ell.ox.ac.uk

CFP The Gathered Text

To complement panels on ‘Miscellanies and Commonplacing’, papers are invited for a panel addressing the notion of ‘the gathered text’. Papers on this panel are likely to be bibliographical in focus, but it is hoped that they will also engage with broader literary or historical ideas. Texts might be drawn from a wide range of different genres, both literary and non-literary. Topics for discussion could include (but are not limited to) the sequences of gatherings or quires in particular early modern texts; the construction of composite volumes out of two or more previously independent texts; the use of gatherings as a unit of literary composition or production; gatherings as evidence of censorship or marketing practices; gatherings as a register or index of the production process.

Please send a 200-word abstract to Dr Rebecca Bullard (Reading).

r.bullard@reading.ac.uk

Further details of the 2011 EMRC conference are available at:

www.reading.ac.uk/english/research/deal-EMRC.aspx