Newsletter 58

Conference Notices

1. Registration for the major international conference ‘Life and Death in Early Modern Philosophy’, organised by the European Society for Earlmy Modern Philosophy and the British Society for the History of Philosophy, co-hosted by King’s College, is now open. Please, note that conference fees will be waived for King’s students and academics wishing to attend only the opening plenary lecture to be held in the Great Hall on Thursday 14th April, 4pm. Do come along! All welcome. https://lifeanddeathinearlymodernphilosophy.wordpress.com/full-programme/
2. CEMS Exeter: ‘Centre for Early Modern Studies Postgraduate Conference 2016’, https://intranet.exeter.ac.uk/humanities/studying/postgraduateresearch/liveconferences/centre_for_early_modern_studies/
3. “Life of the Muses’ day, their morning star!”. The Cultural Influence of Lucy Harington Russell, Countess of Bedford. 11–12 August 2016, Lincoln College, Oxford. Conference dedicated to the cultural influence of Lucy Harington Russell (1580–1627), Countess of Bedford. Lady Bedford was the pre-eminent woman patron of early seventeenth-century England, and a key figure behind the artistic achievements of such luminaries as John Donne, John Dowland, Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, and Aemilia Lanyer. She commissioned John Florio to make the first English translation of Montaigne’s Essais, and herself wrote poetry praised by Donne. Grand full-length portraits and exquisite miniatures testify to her patronage of artists including Nicholas Hilliard, and she worked with architects and landscape designers to produce pioneering estate designs. She participated in the most sumptuous court masques of the Jacobean era, managed her husband’s estates, intervened in politically sensitive marriages, and served as Queen Anna’s most trusted confidant. In an age when women’s voices were suppressed in politics and culture Lady Bedford exerted considerable influence in both arenas. Yet she is almost always discussed in relation to the men whom she enabled and inspired. This conference seeks to place her at the centre of critical enquiry, asking questions about power, politics, patronage, culture, literature, performance, art, architecture, religion, and the body.
4. «Propter magnare creatus», Lingua, literatura e gastronomía entre Italia e a Península Ibérica Congreso Internacional Santiago de Compostela, 21-23 de setembro de 2016. Envío de propostas de comunicación: título e resumo inferior a 10 liñas, do 15 de febreiro ao 20 de abril. Enderezo: segreteria@proptermagnarecreatus.com. Prazo límite de entrega das propostas de comunicación: 20 de abril de 2016. Todas as propostas de comunicación serán avaliadas por tres membros do Comité científico e polos coordinadores; informarase aos interesados antes do 2 de maio. Prazo límite de entrega do texto completo para a súa publicación: 30 de novembro de 2016. Enderezo: segreteria@proptermagnarecreatus.com. Inscrición ao congreso: do 2 de maio ao 15 xullo de 2016.

 

Calls for Papers

1. Dressing the Early Modern Network Conference: ‘The Economy of Dress and Textiles: Avenues of Trade, Production and Consumption in the Early Modern Period’: http://www.dressingtheearlymodern.com/PDF/Call_for_Papers_2016.pdf.

2. Medieval and Early Modern Studies Summer Festival 17th-18th June 2016. MEMS Summer Festival is a two-day celebration of all research in the medieval and early modern periods, including the study of religion, politics, history, art, drama, literature, and everyday culture of different nations from c.400-1800. The festival, hosted at the University of Kent, is designed to bring together scholars from a range of disciplines, academic schools and institutions in order to foster conversations, build a greater sense of community, and develop a research network for postgraduate students and academic staff working in these areas within the South-East of England. Abstracts of c.250 words for individual research papers of 20 minutes in length on any subject contained with Medieval and Early Modern studies. Work in its early stages is as welcome as more advanced projects, as are less traditional paper formats. Abstracts of c.700 words for a three-person panel to present on a particular subject or theme relevant to Medieval and Early Modern Studies. Ideas from CHASE students include medieval patronage, drama, and early modern written cultures. Please see our call for panels for more details. If you have an idea but no fellow panellists, we are happy to publicise it for you through our channels and under our Festival banner, but with your own contact details. Please contact us at the email below. Please submit all paper and panel applications to: memsfestival@gmail.com by 15th April 2016.
3. Postgraduate students are cordially invited to submit abstracts for papers for this year’s Centre for Early Modern Studies Postgraduate Conference. This will be taking place at the University of Exeter, on Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 May 2016. Submissions are encouraged from masters and Ph.D students from all relevant disciplines, included but not limited to history, English, drama, history of art, music and languages. Confirmed keynote speakers are Professor Steven Gunn of Merton College, Oxford and Professor Tiffany Stern of University College, Oxford. The conference will take place in Reed Hall, a stunning Italianate mansion in the grounds of the university, with a conference dinner in the historic city centre. The broad theme is ‘Fate, chance and happenstance in the early modern period’. If you are interested in presenting a twenty minute paper, please email Imogene Dudley at id243@exeter.ac.uk with a 200 word abstract and a short biography by 5pm on Thursday 24 March 2016. There will be some travel bursaries available via application to the committee.
4. College Art Association Annual Meeting in New York City, February 15-18, 2017. “Material Culture and New Approaches to the Arts of the Early Modern Hispanic World”. The Early Modern Hispanic world encompassed vast and diverse territories in which objects circulated, were shared and exchanged, collected, displayed, altered, and appropriated to communicate diverse ideologies and to fashion multifaceted identities. In recent decades, the interdisciplinary study of material culture—broadly defined to include all objects and things modified by humans—has significantly expanded the field of art history by prompting art historians to reconsider the materiality of traditional art forms and by drawing their attention to the circulation and consumption of goods, the history of science and technology, and the configuration of domestic, natural, and urban spaces. This session welcomes papers that examine the relationship between art history and material culture in the Hispanic world and that offer innovative readings of Hispanic art rooted in the study of material culture. What can we learn by considering artworks produced in the Hispanic world as material objects, and how does the study of material culture enhance our understanding of the arts produced within its diverse territories? How did visual artists working in the Early Modern Hispanic world reflect, represent, and reinterpret the material objects that surrounded them? And what do those objects tell us about the people who used them, adapted them, and gave them value? Please send a 200 word abstract and CV to Carmen Ripollés (ripolles@pdx.edu) and Amanda Wunder (ajwunder@gmail.com) by April 1.
5. ‘Food, Drink and Civilization’, International Conference to be held at UCL 21-22 September 2016. Eating and drinking are frequently described as ‘habits’ or forms of etiquette indicating a sense of what it means to be civilised or uncivilised. The preparation and serving of food and drink figure prominently in Norbert Elias’s understanding of civilisation as a process. Archaeologists have focused on the origins of food production and domestication. Anthropologists since Frazer’s Golden Bough have focused on cooking, cuisine, feasting and sacrifice as a key to cultural comparison. Scholars in different disciplines have explored notions of commensality, position, inclusion and exclusion as markers of status and individual and collective (self-) identity. The conference will adopt a cross-cultural, inclusive and multi-disciplinary perspective, drawing in scholars from sociology, anthropology, history, theatre, philosophy, literature and art, in order to enhance our understanding of the ways in which human engagement with food and drink, in terms of production and consumption, use and abuse, aesthetics and ethics, rhetoric and politics, shape their sense of self and other, and order and define their world. In exploring points of convergence and divergence across different times and cultures it will raise questions about what we mean by civilisation and whether there can ever be a single core model. Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words to d.alabaster@ucl.ac.uk before 31 March 2016.
6. European Shakespeare Research Association. Shakespeare and European Theatrical Cultures: AnAtomizing Text and Stage, 27 – 30 July 2017, University of Gdańsk and The Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre, Poland. This conference will convene Shakespeare scholars at a theatre that proudly stands in the place where English players regularly performed 400 years ago. We would like to invite papers and talks on the uses of Shakespeare in theatrical cultures across Europe and beyond, with a focus on textual/performative practices, on the educational dimension of Shakespeare in theatre, on the interface between text, film and stage productions, on his impact on popular culture, on Shakespearean traces in European collective and individual memory, and on his broader cultural legacy. We particularly welcome contributions to a debate about deploying Shakespeare in the local and more globally-oriented theatrical cultures, and in cross-cultural exchanges and negotiations. Members of ESRA are invited to propose a panel and/or a seminar that they would be interested in convening. Proposals of 300-500 words (stating topic, relevance and approach) should be submitted by a panel convenor (with the names of the panellists) and 2-3 potential seminar convenors from different countries who have agreed to work together. Please submit your proposals by 31 May 2016 to: Dr. Aleksandra Sakowska, the Gdańsk conference secretarygdansk@esra2017.eu. Slow mail should be addressed to: Prof. Jerzy Limon, University of Gdańsk, Institute of English and American Studies, ul. Wita Stwosza 51, 80-308 Gdańsk, Poland.
7. Medieval Sexualities. Institute of Archaeology, UCL, 11-12 June 2016. The Northern/Early Medieval Interdisciplinary Conference Series is pleased to invite proposals for papers on medieval sexualities. This interdisciplinary event will explore how different forms and concepts of sexuality are represented and produced in the medieval context though textual, material, archaeological, visual and musical sources. This conference will explore the significance of these varied (re)presentations of sexualities in literature and visual art looking at agency and voice, power and satire. We invite proposals for papers of 20 minutes each on any aspect of sexuality, from researchers in any discipline, and considering any medieval culture. Abstracts of 250 words are invited for submission by 20 April 2016. Please email abstracts to the conference committee at NEmics2016@gmail.com.
8. Teaching and Learning in Early Modern England: Skills and Knowledge in Practice. A conference to be held at the University of Cambridge, 1 st-2nd September 2016. Organisers: Jennifer Bishop & John Gallagher. From the workshop to the schoolroom, teaching and learning were everyday activities in early modern England. But who learnt what, from whom, and where? How did knowledge transmission work in practice? And what did it mean to be educated, to be skilful, in a rapidly changing society? This conference aims to bring together scholars working on the transmission of knowledge and skills in order to ask new questions about the educational cultures of early modern England. The deadline for abstracts is 1 st April 2016. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to teachingandlearning2016@gmail.com.
9. Newcastle University School of Modern Languages Translation and Interpreting Section will host a Drama Translation Colloquium on 28-29 June. Registration is free. Please see the link below for details: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sml/about/events/item/drama-translation-colloquium.

10. What is an Image in Medieval and Early Modern England? Swiss Association of Medieval and Early Modern English Studies. Fifth Biennial Conference, Zurich, 9-11th September 2016. It has been argued that we live in a world saturated by visual images, that culture has undergone a ‘pictorial turn’. This premise has prompted researchers in the humanities and social sciences to theorize the visual image, documenting its function and status relative to other media, tracing the history of its power and the attempts to disempower it. We might think of the work of David Freedberg (The Power of Images, 1989), Bruno Latour (Iconoclash, 2002), W.J.T. Mitchell (What do pictures want? 2004), or James Elkins (What is an image? 2011). This conference aims to extend this scholarship in two interrelated ways, firstly by focusing on the image in a particular period and location, namely in medieval and early modern England, and secondly by exploring the status of the visual image in relation to texts. Call for papers and panels. We invite 20-minute papers. Deadline: 30th April 2016. Please send abstracts (c. 200-400 words) and a short bio (max. 100 words) to bevan.zlatar@es.uzh.ch.
11. The George Herbert Society announces the Fifth Triennial Conference George Herbert in Paris “Bee Covetous, then, of all good which you see in Frenchmen”, May 18-May 21, 2017. We are seeking proposals on aspects of George Herbert studies, focusing on his poetry or prose. Papers may consider historical, cultural, and discursive contexts for his works, examine rhetorical or lyric strategies afresh, or explore previously unknown or overlooked facets of Herbert’s work and his relationship to both people and topics in the seventeenth century. We welcome proposals from both established scholars in the field as well as newcomers to the George Herbert Society and graduate students. Abstracts in English or in French of no more than 300 words accompanied by a brief CV should be sent to the conference organizers at herbertinparis@gmail.com, by July 15, 2016. Notifications of acceptance: September 15, 2016. Early submissions are welcome! Anyone may submit an abstract, but only members of the Society may deliver a paper. Information regarding accommodation and registration will follow in the fall.
12. Mary I (1516-1558). A Conference in her 500th Anniversary Year. Sep 30-Oct 01 2016, Institute of Advanced Studies, Common Ground, South Wing, Wilkins Building. England’s first Queen regnant, Mary I, the daughter of King Henry VIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon, was born on 18 February 1516, at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich. The aim of this conference is to bring together scholars doing new work on Queen Mary herself, her joint reign with her husband, King Philip of Spain (1554-1558), and on England’s place in Europe and the rest of the world during her reign. The organisers (Gonzalo Berenguer, John Edwards and Alexander Samson) invite papers on any aspect of Mary herself or her reign. Abstracts, c. 200 words, should be sent to velascoberenguer@bristol.ac.uk. To register, please visit our Eventbrite page.
13. Ascham Conference : Quincentenary of Roger Ascham (1516-1568) Two day conference (9-10 September 2016) at St John’s College, Cambridge. Roger Ascham is a figure familiar to early modernists in the fields of English Literature and History. Often classified as ‘a great mid-Tudor humanist’, he is best known for his role as tutor to Elizabeth I. His most famous works, the Scholemaster and Toxophilus, have been extensively quarried and quoted in studies on prose style and English humanism. His letters (usually cited in translation) are treated by many as a standard primary resource. However, to excerpt and to categorize is not necessarily to understand, and it is arguable that we have lost sight of Ascham the individual, his interests, concerns, and achievements. The 500th anniversary of his birth offers an inviting opportunity to take a fresh look at Ascham and his writing. The conference organisers will be happy to consider any proposals that aspire to cast new light on Ascham and his context. We hope to publish a volume of accepted papers following the conference. Please email abstracts of c.200 words (and any queries) to: rogerascham2016@gmail.com no later than 15 May 2016. Convenors: Dr Lucy Nicholas (King’s College London) and Dr Ceri Law (Queen Mary University, London).

 

Other Events

1. New Centre for Early Modern Studies, King’s College London. Visit http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/ahri/centres/cems/home.aspx to be updated on our events, to discover which modules offered by King’s have early modern components, and to browse the directory of CEMS members in order to discover the exciting research going on in our faculty.
2. Amazing ‘By Me, William Shakespeare’ exhibition is still in full swing in the Inigo Rooms of Somerset House.
3. Shakespeare’s Friends and Rivals, 9th April, 10-4pm, London Metropolitan Archives, 40 Northampton Road, London EC1R 0HB, Curator and leader: Dr. Eva Griffith. Commemorating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the day will contextualise Shakespeare and his life with reference to documents of other players and a theatre in Clerkenwell. The focus will be on the Jacobean Red Bull playhouse and the theatrical people who lived in the area, many one-time associates of Shakespeare, then rivals. Those attending will explore the history of Queen Anna of Denmark’s men at the Red Bull through talks, document viewings, performance and an afternoon walking tour. The Society for Renaissance Studies have offered some funding to aid post-graduates and post-docs to attend this event. Please visitevagriffith.com to book and follow the instructions on the homepage to apply for these bursaries.
4. Ariosto, the Orlando Furiosoand English Culture, 1516-2016. http://www.britac.ac.uk/events/2016/Ariosto_the_Orlando_Furioso_and_English_culture.cfm. Thursday 28 & Friday 29 April 2016, 9.30am – 5.00pm. Venue: The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH. Convenors: Professor Jane Everson, Royal Holloway University of London, Professor Andrew Hiscock, Bangor University, Dr Stefano Jossa, Royal Holloway University of London. April 2016 marks the fifth centenary of the publication of the first edition of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. Translated into English in the 1590s by Sir John Harington, godson of Elizabeth I, the influence of Ariosto’s poem can be traced in literature, music and the visual arts, from Spenser and Milton to modern media adaptations. To celebrate this landmark centenary, and assess the impact of the poem on English culture over 500 years, a team of international scholars will discuss Ariosto’s poem through a consideration of editions and translations; critical reception; rewritings and adaptations in different media, in particular opera.

5. Early Modern Literary Geographies. Oxford University Press. Series Editors: Julie Sanders, Newcastle University and Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr, Pennsylvania State University. Influenced by the work of cultural and human geographers, literary scholars have started to attend to the ways in which early modern people constructed their senses of the world out of interactions among places, spaces, and embodied practices. Early Modern Literary Geographies will feature innovative research monographs and agenda-setting essay collections that partake of this “spatial turn.” The term “literary geographies” is to be understood capaciously: we invite submissions on any form of early modern writing that engages with the topics of space, place, landscape and environment. Although English literature is at its centre, Early Modern Literary Geographies will feature scholarship that abuts a range of disciplines, including geography, history, performance studies, art history, musicology, archaeology and cognitive science. Subjects of inquiry might include cartography or chorography; historical phenomenology and sensory geographies; body and environment; mobility studies; histories of travel or perambulation; regional and provincial literatures; urban studies; performance environments; sites of memory and cognition; ecocriticism; and oceanic or new blue studies.
6. The Department of History at King’s College London is proud to present its 11th annual Medieval Latin Play. HECASTUS (Everyman), by Georgius Macropedius (Joris van Lanckvelt), in the original Latin (with English surtitles). Performance: Thursday 31st March 2016, 7.30 pm. College Chapel, King’s College London, Strand WC2R 2LS. All are welcome; no reservations necessary.
7. Call for Participation: 12 junior scholars to join the research group “Spanish Italy and the Iberian Americas”. Deadline: Mar 31, 2016. A Getty Foundation Connecting Art Histories Project co-directed by Michael Cole and Alessandra Russo, Columbia University. Recent PhDs to junior faculty members working on early modern Italian or Latin American art are eligible to apply though preference will be given to those who did degrees or are working in Italian and Latin American universities. Candidates should submit a statement (maximum
   three pages) explaining their interest in participating; a description (maximum two pages) of a current project; a CV; two letters of recommendation; and a writing sample. Application materials should be sent as a single PDF, clearly labeled, toconnectingarthistories@columbia.edu  by March 31st, 2016. An abridged version of this call for application has been published on: http://www.collegeart.org/opportunities/listing/13130/
8. To tie in with the forthcoming Literary London Conference (6-8 July 2016) on the theme of ‘London and the Globe’, The Literary London Journal invites contributions for a special issue on ‘Shakespeare’s Londons/London’s Shakespeares’. The deadline for submissions is 31 August 2016 and articles (between 5-7,000 words) might broadly address one or more of the following topics or questions: How are ‘Londoners’ (Henry VIII, 1.2.155) constructed in Shakespeare’s plays? What role did – or do – London audiences play in constructing Shakespeare? In what ways can we rethink Shakespeare’s anatopism, i.e. his staging of London as other cities? Can we see evidence of ‘Global Shakespeares’ in the refracted Londons he represented? What urban locations – in London or beyond – matter in Shakespeare’s plays, and our current understanding of them? What contributions can contemporary spatial theory make to understanding Shakespeare’s staging of cities such as London? Do Shakespeare’s staged cities cultivate or curtail the ambiguities (linguistic, spatial, sexual and social) of urban life? In what ways can we see The Globe Theatre – past and present – as a microcosm of a changing and conflicted London? How does the reconstructed Globe Theatre offer a venue for staging modern urban experience? What role does the reconstructed Globe Theatre play in (re)conceptualising Shakespeare’s relationship with London? All submissions should be sent to either Adam Hansen (adam.hansen@northumbria.ac.uk) or Adele Lee (lee@gre.ac.uk). For further details, including the style guide, please visit http://www.literarylondon.org/london-journal/submission.html