CALL FOR PAPERS: Measure and Excess in 17th and 18th Century England and America

International conference hosted by SEAA XVII-XVIII

(Societie d'etudes Anglo-Americaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles)

Maison de la recherche de Paris 4
28, rue Serpente
75006 PARIS

17-18 January 2014

The idea of measure is inseparable from the idea of excess, since the one governs the other. Excess always exceeds a measure, that is to say a norm. According to Littre, excess is 'that which goes beyond ordinary limits, the mean.'

However, these terms are of course highly unstable; what is measure for some represents excess for others. The dialectics of measure and excess seems to be at the heart of preoccupations in the 17c and 18c in England as well as in the new world, whether concerning theoretical or practical issues.
Explorers set out to claim the world and make their fortunes, but also to measure its dimensions. Apart from the multiplication of instruments of measurement (charts, globes, and other maritime devices) the unit of measurement itself became a matter of state; one recalls that the queen confirmed the measurement of the English foot in 1588, which was reaffirmed in 1758. This desire to discipline the prodigality of nature characterizes the work of taxonomist John Ray, who classified innumerable animal and plant species by measuring them.

In politics, measure is to be understood as that which prevents or contains unrest. Largely influenced by ancient philosophy, early modern English philosophers regard[ed] measure as the touchstone of civil harmony as well as of personal wisdom, as opposed to the excesses of civil war and immoral behaviour. For Francis Bacon, the lesson to be drawn from the fall of Icarus in The Wisdom of the Ancients is that 'the path of virtue lies straight between excess on the one side, and defect on the other.'
The complex links which bond our ideas of measure and excess also inform theological debate, religious tension and sectarian persecution. To give one example, the Anglican faith, conceived by its founding fathers and lived out by its faithful as a middle way, finds itself rejected by the Puritans as excessively Catholic.

Whether in the arts or the humanities, measure and excess inform opposed aesthetic positions which only make sense through this very opposition. Cicero's rhetoric, featuring a measured style, rebukes two kinds of excess: the overblown Asiatic style on the one hand, and Attic dryness on the other. In architecture and music, measure—in a literal sense, as it creates spatial and temporal structures—can also run into excess. In verse, measure (that is to say, metre) contains the excesses of feeling, thus rendering them more striking; as John Donne reminds us ('For he tames grief, that fetters it in verse.') In painting, the term mensura may well refer to accurate proportions, but this does not stop many celebrated painters from evading constraint by invoking another system of proportions, more tolerant of excess. Baroque excess could only have arisen as a counter-movement to classical measure. Likewise, the lucidity so valued by English neo-classical writers (one thinks of John Dryden, and Alexander Pope who wrote: 'Between excess and famine lies a mean;/ Plain, but not sordid; though not splendid, clean' [Horace II, Satire 2]) was at least partly a reaction to the elaborate style from before the civil war, perceived as excessively obscure.

Papers will address the numerous links between measure and excess in the 17c and 18c in Britain and America, in the various fields of politics, theology, literature, architecture, painting, and music; but also in manners, where luxury lives alongside austerity; and not forgetting sciences such as geography, physics and astronomy.

Proposals, plus a selective bibliography and bio-bibliographical CV, may be simultaneously submitted to:

Guillaume COATALEN guillaumecoatalen@hotmail.com
Pierre DEGOTT pierre.degott@univ-lorraine.fr
Guyonne LEDUC guyonne.leduc@univ-lille3.fr

Deadline for abstract submission: 25 April 2013
Decision of the scientific committee: 30 June 2013

CALL FOR PAPERS: Melancholia/æ

The religious experience of the ‘disease of the soul’ and its definitions in the early modern period: censorship, dissent and self-representation

Presentation

In its various historic-artistic, medical, literary, philosophical and psychological manifestations, melancholy has been the subject of a vast literature. Moreover, ‘melancholy’ – the word itself – is a polysemic term historically associated with a large variety of groups of distinct meanings.

In particular, it underwent a sort of semantic expansion between the 16th and 17th century. It became the name of what the physiologic-medical tradition, going back to antiquity, considered a humoral pathology of the black bile, of an experience of ‘moral’ suffering and also of a mental or emotional disorder, a discomfort sometimes described by sufferers as ‘abandonment’, ‘dark night’, ‘dryness’, ‘sorrow’ etc. and often lived out in imitatio Christi. In the light of all this, the notion of melancholy became an established means for carefully analyzing a large range of cases and their various symptoms and discerning the origin (whether divine, demonic or natural) of spiritual suffering; at the same time, it became a polemical category for transgression and individual or collective patterns of behaviour that were regarded as abnormal. Within the spheres of medicine, theology and law, the idea emerged that melancholy may be the expression of dissent, of the subject’s incapacity or unwillingness to conform to social rules and customs, and went as far as to polemically present melancholy as a collective phenomenon of given social groups, to denote a ‘national’ malaise (English malady) or, by reference to seventeenth-century political and religious instability, to designate the ‘disease of the century’.

The proposed seminar aims at exploring the different meanings of the term ‘melancholy’ in early modern religion, both Protestant and Catholic.  One of its main purposes will be to enquire into, clarify, and emphasise both elements of continuity and what was specific to each of the diverse discourses on melancholy within the historical, socio-cultural, political, geographical and linguistic contexts that framed its production.

It will be, therefore, a question of analysing the ways these discourses came to be structured, who made use of them and how, how they intersected one another – for instance, what points of contact existed among the medical, philosophical, literary, artistic and religious discourses – how they changed through time and what forms of social practice and types of texts were involved. Given this point of view, an interdisciplinary and transcultural approach will be privileged, one which goes beyond the traditional confessional perspective to emphasize intersections and comparisons even among different areas of historical study from cultural to gender history, from the history of medicine to that of emotions.

Proposals may be presented (although not exclusively) on the following themes either in the form of individual case studies or in a more theoretical and methodological mode.

1) Analysis of the language(s) of melancholy with particular attention to the medical and spiritual treatments proposed for its understanding, examination and/or cure. We would like to reflect on individual and group perceptions of spiritual suffering, on discursive definitions of its causes (natural and supernatural alike) and on the lines of reasoning that contributed to the stigmatisation/censorship of the experience or, conversely, to its spiritual appraisal. Proposed topics: melancholy and devotion, melancholy as a spiritual trial, tristitia spiritualis, religious interpretations and elaborations of the theme of suicide, body/soul and ‘anatomies of the soul’, etc.

2) The derogatory use of the term ‘melancholy’ by the various confessional orthodoxies to stigmatize the unbridgeable gap that separated not only individuals but also entire groups from the imposed imperatives of social and religious models as well as deplete the term’s potential subversive power. We intend to define and study the procedures that excluded dissidents from the community and thereby fixed the borders of rightness but which, by so doing, often, paradoxically, provoked the opposite effect of legitimising groups or individual ‘sectarians’ or ‘eccentrics’, who ended up identifying precisely the stigma as the distinctive feature of their own identity. Proposed topics: melancholy as the ‘disease of the century’, melancholy and atheism, the ‘monasteries’ sickness’, the critique of scrupulous and zealous religiosity, etc.

3) The connection between melancholy, demonic possession and ‘inordinate devotions’ provided the leitmotiv for much contemporary, disputed spirituality and mysticism within the Catholic ground. On the other hand, debate in both Catholicism and various Protestant contexts on melancholy combined with the wider debate concerning religious fanaticism or ‘enthusiasm’, which terms were used to label chiliastic groups, radical sects, the early Quakers and the Camisards, all of whom became the object of detailed theological, social and medical analyses in an attempt to distinguish between true and false inspiration, the natural and supernatural dimensions and melancholy and possession. Proposed topics: melancholy as a sign of fanaticism, enthusiasm or millenarianism; melancholy and demonic possession; melancholy and ‘pretended sanctity’; etc.

The seminar will be held in Venice, 28-29 November 2013 (date to be confirmed); its proceedings will be published either in a monographic issue of an academic periodical or as a dedicated volume.

Proposals will be considered for 20-minute papers and/or written contributions (up to a maximum length of 40,000 characters).

Scientific committee: Alessandro Arcangeli, Federico Barbierato, Adelisa Malena, Chiara Petrolini, Lisa Roscioni, Xenia Von Tippelskirch, Daniela Solfaroli Camillocci, Stefano Villani.

Proposals for papers or written contributions (max. 3000 characters), supplemented by a short cv and bibliography, must be sent by 15 February 2013 to Adelisa Malena (adelisa.malena@unive.it) or Lisa Roscioni (lisa.roscioni@unipr.it).

Languages: Italian, English, French.

If funding will be available, hospitality will be offered to speakers. A reimbursement of travel expenses also may be provided pending the availability of budgetary resources.

Further information: emodir@emodir.net http://www.emodir.net/

CALL FOR PAPERS: Healthy Living in Pre-Modern Europe: the Theory and Practice of the Six Non-Naturals (c.1400-1700)

Conference Venue: Institute of Historical Research, Bloomsbury, London.
Conference Dates: 13-14 September 2013

This conference seeks to bring together scholars working on topics related to the role played by the six Non-Naturals in health maintenance in the late-medieval and early modern period. It is well-known that health was thought to depend on the regulation of the six key factors affecting body functions: the air one breathes, sleep, food and drink, evacuations, movement and emotions. In pre-modern medicine careful management of these spheres of life was regarded as crucial if one wished to prevent disease. Yet the study of the Non Naturals has been neglected, as scholars have focused on the development of the concept in medical thought rather than on the advice regarding the individual non-naturals. The only exception concerns the recommendations related to food and diet while the other Non-Naturals have been the object only of general surveys. Even less attention has been paid to the relationship between preventive advice and practice. This conference intends to address these gaps. Moreover we hope to stimulate discussions which will enable us to compare different regions and countries and to explore changing approachs to the Non-Naturals (and to the underpinning humoural principles) over the period under consideration.

More specifically the conference aims to:

• Compare the contents of medical advice about the Non-Naturals (how these activities should ideally be performed) and the actual practices associated with keeping healthy. What relationship did practices bear to prescription? In order to address these questions scholars might use a range of ‘extra-medical’ sources, such as letters, diaries, literature and imagery.
• Explore change within the body of medical theory on the Non-Naturals. Were definitions of what was regarded as harmful or beneficial to health modified over the period? And is the idea of the body and its vulnerabilities that underpins these views subject to any transformations? It has widely been assumed that humoural theory was essentially static and unchanging during the early modern period. Is this view in need of revision?
• Explore the extent to which both recommendations about healthy living and the preventive measures adopted in everyday life changed over time. And were these transformations medically or socially driven? In other words were they a consequence of shifting ideas about the working of the body or of changing lifestyles?
• Stimulate comparisons between different regions and countries. For example, did the medical traditions in different countries place different emphases on the six Non-Naturals? Did they all conceptualise the humours in similar ways? Were there different lay approaches to keeping healthy in different national contexts? Did people focus on any particular Non-Naturals –giving more weight to diet, for example, or to taking exercise- in order to maintain their health?

Papers will be 30 minutes long with discussants for groups of papers. Papers must be submitted at least two weeks before the conference to facilitate the work of the discussants.

Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words by 24th March 2013 to the conference secretary, Tessa. Storey@rhul.ac.uk We are currently in the process of seeking funding for this conference. If successful we hope to pay speakers for their travel, conference dinner, and accommodation: More details will be available in the near future.

Please e-mail the Organisers with any questions:

S.Cavallo@rhul.ac.uk and Tessa.storey@rhul.ac.uk

Professor Sandra Cavallo, Royal Holloway, University of London.
Dr. Tessa Storey, Royal Holloway, University of London.

The HISTORY OF EMOTIONS email list is run by the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions http://www.qmul.ac.uk/emotions

The Centre also hosts the History of Emotions Blog http://emotionsblog.history.qmul.ac.uk/

Place and Preaching

6-7th September 2013, Place and Preaching

The Wren Suite, St Paul's Cathedral London

Sponsored by the AHRC in its support of The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne, this is a conference which will reassess the 'place' of preaching in Early Modern Europe in all its aspects.

Plenary Lecture: Brian Cummings (York)

Confirmed Speakers: Hugh Adlington (Birmingham); David Colclough (Queen Mary); Joshua Eckhardt (Virginia Commonwealth); Katrin Ettenhuber (Cambridge); Lori Anne Ferrell (Claremont); Kenneth Fincham (Kent); Erica Longfellow (Oxford); Mary Ann Lund (Leicester); Peter McCullough (Oxford); Charlotte Methuen (Glasgow); Mary Morrissey (Reading); Jean-Louis Quantin (Sorbonne); Emma Rhatigan (Sheffield); Andrew Spicer (Oxford Brookes); Sebastiaan Verweij (Oxford); Philip West (Oxford)

All further conference details – including graduate bursaries to attend the conference - and information on booking will be posted on this site later: http://www.cems-oxford.org/donne

Call for Papers

The organisers welcome proposals (250-500 word abstracts) for further papers on any of the following aspects of sermon culture in Early Modern Europe: Roman Catholic preaching; architectural settings and auditories of preaching; sermons in manuscript and print; performance and delivery; sermon hearing, note taking, and commonplacing; production and reception of patristic and other theological works; rhetoric; and more.

Please send your proposals to Professor Peter McCullough and Dr Sebastiaan Verweij: peter.mccullough@lincoln.ox.ac.uk / sebastiaan.verweij@ell.ox.ac.uk

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 1 MAY 2013

Dr Sebastiaan Verweij || Fulford JRF, Somerville College, Oxford
Research Associate, The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne
a: English Faculty, St Cross Building, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UL
t: 0044 (0)1865 271931 || skype: seb.macv

CFP: Reconsidering Popular Comedy, Ancient and Modern

Date: Wed 28 - Fri 30 August 2013.
Location: University of Glasgow
Convenors: Costas Panayotakis and Ian Ruffell

The comic theatre of Greece and Rome, like that of many other crucial periods
of comic history (e.g. Elizabethan and Jacobean drama; music hall; vaudeville)
is often described as popular comedy. This conference aims to investigate the
extent, limits and utility of considering comic drama to be "popular". We are
particularly interested in the modes of performance and reception of comedy.
How far does performance in front of a mass audience shape the form and
language of comedy? How genuinely "popular" are different comic traditions? To
what extent and in what ways do "elite" and "popular" interact in the original
and subsequent contexts of reception? Is "popular comedy" a useful term or is
it subsuming other more challenging concepts (such as, for example, class)?
And to what extent can parallel themes in the production and reception of
popular comedy be seen across cultures? The conference begins with the comic
traditions of Greece and Rome, but is intended to broaden out the question to
consider popular comedy in other periods and modes.

Confirmed speakers:
Martin Revermann (Toronto), James Robson (Open), Ralph Rosen (Penn), Alan
Sommerstein (Nottingham), Gonda van Steen (Florida) and Peter Wiseman
(Exeter).

The conference is supported by a grant from the Institute for Classical
Studies.

We would like to invite proposals for papers of around 30 minutes in length
on any aspect of the above. Titles and abstracts of no more than 250 words
should be sent to Ian Ruffell (ian.ruffell@glasgow.ac.uk) by January 31, 2013.

We look forward to hearing from you. If you have any questions, please don't
hesitate to contact either of us.


Costas Panayotakis
(costas.panayotakis@glasgow.ac.uk)

Ian Ruffell
(ian.ruffell@glasgow.ac.uk)

CALL FOR PAPERS: Inventing Science: Iconography of Scientific Instruments in the Early Modern Period"

Wuppertal, 28-30 August, 2013

Call for Papers

The workshop " Inventing Science: Iconography on Scientific Instruments in the Early Modern Period" is organised by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Science and Technology Studies (IZWT) at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal.

The development, production and use of scientific instruments is a well-established research field in the history of science and technology and it is with the aim of expanding the scope of research that we wish to devote our conference to systematically exploring the worlds of images appearing upon the instruments and their place within the visual culture of the time. We hope that this interdisciplinary approach will open up new perspectives on the historical and scientific significance of the instruments and foster a closer collaboration between scholars of different background, such as historians of art or of science and technology, curators of museum collections, philosophers and scholars from cultural studies. The first step in the investigation of the iconography on scientific instruments will be an attempt at mapping the landscape: beside pictures offering information on how the instruments had to be used, we may expect to find inscribed on them images connected to a multitude of visual contexts, for example aimed at constructing traditions, evoking myths and legends, transmitting and popularizing knowledge, or positioning instruments and their makers within theoretical debates or scientific frameworks.

The workshop’s aims at promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and therefore proposals contributing to any aspect of the topic are welcome. Special consideration will be given to proposals from young scholars.

The language of the workshop is English. Submissions must include a title, an abstract (about 1 page) of a 30 minute presentation, and a short CV. Submissions should be sent to Volker Remmert at remmert@uni-wuppertal.de no later than April 5, 2013.

Contributors’ overnight accommodation costs will be covered. But because funds are limited, please let us know well in advance if you will need support to cover travelling expenses.

The organisers, Arianna Borrelli and Volker Remmert, look forward to your participation and would also be grateful if you could inform others, especially young academics, about the workshop and this call for papers.

Prof. Dr. Volker R. Remmert
Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte

Historisches Seminar Fachbereich A - Bergische 

Universität Wuppertal Gaußstraße 20

42097 Wuppertal

Tel. 0202-439-2897
e-mail remmert@uni-wuppertal.de
http://www.geschichte.uni-wuppertal.de/ueber-uns/personen/hauptamtliche-professoren/prof-dr-volker-remmert.html

International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine

Registration for the 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine (iCHSTM 2013), to be held in Manchester, UK from Sunday 21 to Sunday 28 July, is now open.

To register, please go to <http://www.ichstm2013.com/registration/> and follow the link to open the registration form. Registration will be available at the early discounted rate until Sunday 14 April, and at a higher rate until Monday 1 July, which is the final deadline.

Please note that the registration process is managed by the University of Manchester's conference services group. If you have any queries about registration, please direct them to mcc.reg@manchester.ac.uk .

Also, the first draft listing of of pre-arranged symposia, including individual abstracts for around 1100 papers, is now available and can be seen at<http://www.ichstm2013.com/programme/guide/>.

Stand-alone papers are not yet listed: they are still in the process of being grouped, and will be added to the programme around the beginning of March. Timetable / scheduling information will also be added around the same time.

If you are involved in the Congress as a presenter, symposium organiser, session chair or commentator, you should recently have received further details directly. If not, please contact us at submissions@ichstm2013.com and we will advise.

For the latest updates, you can also sign up to the Congress mailing list at<http://www.ichstm2013.com/mailinglist/>.

Educating Women, an inter-disciplinary conference

Thursday 18 July 2013 | Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, Kent UK

There have been issues around women and education since before Christine de Pizan wrote in 1404 that 

"Not all men (and especially the wisest) share the opinion that it is bad for women to be educated. But it is very true that many foolish men have claimed this because it displeased them that women knew more than they did."

Progress since then has been varied. Lady Margaret Beaufort founded two Cambridge colleges in the early 1500s but it is less than 60 years since women were first awarded degrees from Cambridge. In the UK, although STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects are integral to our economic success this is still a male dominated sector and in the last 10 years there has been no improvement in the uptake of women in mathematical sciences – 38% of students – or engineering and technology, where just 15% of students are women. Globally while the gender gap has narrowed over recent years, statistics from UNESCO in 2011 showed that girls are still at a disadvantage: in South and West Asia for example only 1 in 2 women can read or write compared with 7 out of 10 men. 

The idea for this conference, which will consider the education of and by women from the middle ages to the present day, came from a mother and daughter’s interests in education and early modern women. Scholars from all disciplines are invited to discuss issues around educating women (and girls) with a view to understanding the realities. 

Guidelines for submission of paper/symposia abstracts 

Abstracts for papers should not exceed 300 words. Symposia proposals and submissions from postgraduate students are welcome. The conference language is English. Possible topics could include (but are not restricted to): 

• informal and formal education of women and girls 
• pre-modern scholarly women 
• attitudes to educating/educated women 
• global inequalities 
• girls, women and lifelong learning 
• women leaders in education 
• feminist/anti-feminist influences on educating women 

All abstracts for papers or other suggested presentations must be submitted by Monday 28 January 2013 to education.research@canterbury.ac.uk. 

Acceptance will be confirmed by Thursday 28 February 2013. 

It is hoped to publish a book of papers from the conference. 

For questions and enquiries about submissions, please contact lynne.graham-matheson@canterbury.ac.uk or helen.graham-matheson.12@ucl.ac.uk. 

Further details about the conference will follow.

Transitions Conference: CFP

The research centre hosts a biannual conference devoted to early modern literary culture, place, and the history of the book. Following upon the success of our inaugural conference, Book Encounters, 1500-1750, this year’s conference will focus on the theme of Transitions, whether material, spatial and/or temporal in the period 1500-1750. This conference will held 4-5 July, 2013 at our wonderful Corsham Court centre, just outside Bath.

Plenary Speakers:
Professor Julie Sanders (University of Nottingham)
Professor Marcus Walsh (University of Liverpool)
Professor Henry Woudhuysen (Lincoln College, University of Oxford)

Transitions 1500-1750 aims to explore a wide range of transitions from a variety of critical and historical perspectives. We are particularly interested in papers that reflect on the impact that such transitions had on early modern subjects, institutions, material culture, habits of thought as well as literary, social and cultural practices. Different disciplinary perspectives are especially encouraged.

Possible topics of study include:

• Transitional years (eg, 1534, 1558, 1603, 1660, 1707)
• Celebrating/marking/remembering transition
• Continuity/discontinuity
• Succession literature
• From stage to page
• From manuscript to print (and vice versa)
• Generic shifts
• Shifting author-patron, author-readership relations
• Progression/relocation/translocation
• Historical/literary historical constructions of transition
• The intersection of the residual and the emergent

Please send proposals for papers (20mins) and any queries to transitionsatbathspa@gmail.com by 1 March 2013.

London Critical Theory Summer School

Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities
1st July – 12th July 2013

The London Critical Theory Summer School will take place at Birkbeck College, London University from 1stJuly – 12th July 2013.. This unique opportunity is for graduate students and academics to follow a course which will foster exchange and debate. It will consist of at least 6 modules over the two weeks, each convened by one of the participating academics. This course does not offer transfer of credits.

Information and the application form is here – the deadline for applications is Friday 22ndMarch 2013.

Participating academics
Etienne Balibar
Drucilla Cornell
Costas Douzinas
Stephen Frosh
Esther Leslie
Catherine Malabou
Laura Mulvey
Slavoj Zizek

Intellectual Networks in the Long Seventeenth Century

Durham University, 30 June-2 July 2013

Durham’s Centre for Seventeenth-Century Studies – now part of the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies – has, since its foundation in 1985, organized over a dozen high-profile international conferences. Next year’s event, which both continues that tradition and celebrates the Centre’s new role within one of Durham University’s flagship research institutes, will address the topic of ‘Intellectual Networks in the Long Seventeenth Century.’

The conference will explore the emergence and consolidation of systems of intellectual and cultural exchange during the long seventeenth century, while assessing their lasting influence on the history of scholarship, literature, diplomacy, science, and religious communities. The sub-topics listed below offer some guidance for the submission of proposals. Special emphasis will be placed on the relationship between the British Isles and the wider world.

• Erudite correspondence
• Academic networks: knowledge transmission and cultural change
• Diplomacy, high and low
• Literary circles
• Scientific institutions and the history of medicine
• Intellectual exchange among/within religious communities
• Book trade and collectorship
• Counter-intelligence and the political and religious underground
• Women and intellectual exchange
• Popular cultural exchange

Proposals for 20-minute papers and full panels should be submitted to early.modern@durham.ac.uk by 15th January 2013. Replies will be sent in early February 2013. Details concerning travel and accommodation for both speakers and delegates will be made available around the same time. It is hoped that the conference will give rise to an edited volume of selected essays.

The conference is taking place at an exciting time for seventeenth century and early modern studies at Durham. Recent significant developments include:

• The re-opening of Cosin’s Library (1699) on the UNESCO World Heritage site of Palace Green following a major restoration project; the collection, now part of Durham University Library, was assembled by the great seventeenth-century book collector John Cosin, Bishop of Durham (1595-1672)
• The joint custodianship of the library and archive of Ushaw College, shared between the trustees of the archive and Durham University Library
• A related international conference on Early Modern English Catholicism taking place at Ushaw College (28 June to 1 July 2013), with which the present conference will share a joint keynote lecture from Professor Eamon Duffy (Cambridge) on the evening of 30 June

For further details visit http://www.dur.ac.uk/imrs/newsandevents/research/cfp/

Call for Papers: Intellectual Networks in the Long Seventeenth Century

Durham University, 30 June-2 July 2013

Durham’s Centre for Seventeenth-Century Studies – now part of the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies – has, since its foundation in 1985, organized over a dozen high-profile international conferences. Next year’s event, which both continues that tradition and celebrates the Centre’s new role within one of Durham University’s flagship research institutes, will address the topic of ‘Intellectual Networks in the Long Seventeenth Century.’

The conference will explore the emergence and consolidation of systems of intellectual and cultural exchange during the long seventeenth century, while assessing their lasting influence on the history of scholarship, literature, diplomacy, science, and religious communities. The sub-topics listed below offer some guidance for the submission of proposals. Special emphasis will be placed on the relationship between the British Isles and the wider world.

• Erudite correspondence
• Academic networks: knowledge transmission and cultural change
• Diplomacy, high and low
• Literary circles
• Scientific institutions and the history of medicine
• Intellectual exchange among/within religious communities
• Book trade and collectorship
• Counter-intelligence and the political and religious underground
• Women and intellectual exchange
• Popular cultural exchange

Proposals for 20-minute papers and full panels should be submitted toearly.modern@durham.ac.uk by 15th January 2013. Replies will be sent in early February 2013. Details concerning travel and accommodation for both speakers and delegates will be made available around the same time. It is hoped that the conference will give rise to an edited volume of selected essays.

The conference is taking place at an exciting time for seventeenth century and early modern studies at Durham. Recent significant developments include:

• The re-opening of Cosin’s Library (1699) on the UNESCO World Heritage site of Palace Green following a major restoration project; the collection, now part of Durham University Library, was assembled by the great seventeenth-century book collector John Cosin, Bishop of Durham (1595-1672)
• The joint custodianship of the library and archive of Ushaw College, shared between the trustees of the archive and Durham University Library
• A related international conference on Early Modern English Catholicism taking place at Ushaw College (28 June to 1 July 2013), with which the present conference will share a joint keynote lecture from Professor Eamon Duffy (Cambridge) on the evening of 30 June

For further details visit http://www.dur.ac.uk/imrs/newsandevents/research/cfp/

The conference is supported by Durham University’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Department of English Studies, Department of History, and School of Modern Languages and Cultures.

Translation and the Circulation of Knowledge in Early Modern Science

A one-day colloquium at the Warburg Institute, London
Friday 28 June, 2013

Organized by Sietske Fransen (Warburg Institute) and Niall Hodson (Durham University) in collaboration with Prof. Joanna Woodall (Courtauld Institute), Dr Eric Jorink (Huygens ING), and Prof. Peter Mack (Warburg Institute).

Keynote speaker: Prof. Sven Dupré (Freie Universität Berlin)

Paper proposals are invited for a one-day colloquium on the role of translation and translators in the circulation of knowledge in Early Modern science.

In recent decades, scholars have offered myriad new insights into the exchange and propagation of scientific ideas in the early modern Republic of Letters. Within this vibrant field, however, the part played by translation and translators remains little studied. This colloquium will explore the role of translation in early modern science, providing a forum for discussion about translations as well as the translators, mediators, agents, and interpreters whose role in the intellectual history of the period remains ill defined and deserves greater attention.

The topics listed below offer some guidance for proposals:

• Philosophy and theory of translation
• The practice of translating texts and images
• The ‘professional translator’
• The function and use of translations
• Translation in academies
• The use of auxiliary languages
• Translation in learned correspondence
• The readers of translations
• Informal translations: adaptations, paraphrases, summaries

Proposals for 25-minute papers should be submitted to Niall Hodson (n.d.hodson(at)durham.ac.uk) and Sietske Fransen (sietske.fransen(at)postgrad.sas.ac.uk) by 28th February 2013. A dedicated committee will evaluate the proposals and respond to submissions by 15th March 2013.

For further details, please visit the colloquium website at:

http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/events/colloquia/translation/

This colloquium is supported by the Warburg Institute and Durham University, and is organized in collaboration with the Visualizing Knowledge in the Early Modern Netherlands project at the Courtauld Institute, London.

ESRA Shakespeare Conference 2013 | Shakespeare and Myth [Call for Papers]

MONTPELLIER (France)
Wednesday 26– Saturday 29 June 2013

LIST OF SEMINARS

1. Early Modern Nature: Shakespeare, Science and Myth
2. The Early Modern Reception of Shakespeare in Print and Manuscript: The Rise of Shakespearean Cultural Capital?
3. Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance
4. “Myth” in Relation to Truth, fable, history, legend, folklore
5. Myth, Romance and Historiography
6. Mythical Performance and its Afterlife
7. Mythologies of Childhood
8. Protean Shakespeare: Adapting, Tradapting, Performing Early Modern Plays
9. Shakespeare and Classical Mythology: European Perspectives
10. Shakespeare, Myth and Asia
11. Shakespeare and the Myth of the Feminine
12. The Shakespeare Myth Reloaded: Demythologizing and Re-mythologizing Shakespeare Today
13. Staging the Shakespeare Myths, 2000-2012
14. Translating Myths and Mythologizing Translations

Deadlines for all seminars

Please submit an abstract (200-300 words) and a brief bio (150 words) by 1 October 2012 to the convenors of the seminar you choose. Full details are on the website.

All participants will be notified about the acceptance of their proposals by 1 November 2012.  The deadline for accepted seminar participants to send their completed paper is 1 April 2013.  Information about plenaries, registration costs and other practical aspects will be given in due
course.

http://www.um.es/shakespeare/esra/index.php
www.ircl.cnrs.fr
email: esraircl@univ-montp3.fr

Popes and the Papacy in early modern English culture

The University of Sussex, June 24th – 26th 2013

Confirmed speakers include Peter Lake, Susannah Monta and Alison Shell

Proposals are still welcome for individual papers or panels on any subject associated with the theme of the conference. Suggested topics include:

• Anti-Catholic satire
• Literary and pictorial representations of Popes and the Papacy
• Pre-Reformation and recusant culture
• Diplomacy and correspondence
• English Cardinals
• Art and architecture
• Religious controversy/ Theological dispute.

Or any topic related to the theme of the conference.

Papers on the later 17th century are particularly welcome.

The conference will include a tour of the historic town of Lewes, from the scene of the burnings of the 17 Lewes Marian martyrs to the remains of Lewes Priory, one of England’s most important medieval religious houses.

300 word proposals for papers and panels should be sent to Paul Quinn (p.l.quinn@sussex.ac.uk) by March 15st 2013 (extended deadline). Papers should last for 20 minutes. Panels should include three papers.

Women and Curiosity in Early Modern Europe (Paris)

International conference, 21-22 June 2013, Paris, France

University Paris Ouest Nanterre (Quarto, CREA370)
and University Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 (Épistémè, PRISMES EA4398)

The multiplication of cabinets of curiosities and the obsession with novelty are evidence of the development of a “culture of curiosity” in the early modern period. While curiosity had long been considered as an intellectual vice, associated with hubris and the original sin, and described by Augustine as “lust of the eyes”, it became a virtue in the 17th century. One of the main reasons for this transformation was the continued efforts of natural philosophers to demonstrate that curiosity was morally acceptable in order to legitimise their scientific endeavour. Francis Bacon and his followers thus insisted on the code of conduct of natural philosophers, the usefulness of the knowledge they were seeking and the discrepancy between their own research and occult sciences. All of them championed the “good curiosity” of the natural philosophers, as opposed to the “bad curiosity” of men and women interested in magic, and in trivial and superficial matters.

If there was indeed a “rehabilitation of curiosity” in the early modern period, did it have any impact on women’s desire for knowledge? The emergence of women philosophers at the time (Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Lady Ranelagh, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Catherine of Sweden, Damaris Masham, Mary Astell, Catherine Trotter, etc.) may indicate that their curiosity was now considered as legitimate and morally acceptable – or at least that it was tolerated. Yet it has been suggested that the new status of curiosity in the early modern period led instead to an even stronger distrust for women, who were both prone to curiosity and curiosities themselves. The June 2013 conference on “Women and Curiosity” aims at assessing the impact of the alleged “rehabilitation of curiosity” on women in the early modern period, by analysing discourses on women as enquirers and objects of curiosity. Iconographic and fictional representations of curious women and female curiosity might also give an insight into the relations between women and curiosity in the early modern period (for example, Cesare Ripa’s allegory of curiosity as “a huge, wild-haired, winged woman” in Iconologia (1593), or representations of emblematic curious women such as Eve, Dinah, Pandora, etc.). The origins of these discourses and representations, as well as their premises, might also be investigated: to what extent did the condemnation of women’s curiosity reveal a fear of disorder and transgression? Did it betray male anxiety about female sexuality or about the mystery of birth? Was it justified by medical interpretations of curiosity, such as a specific humoural condition?

Women’s own conception of curiosity / curiosities in the early modern period might also be of interest, especially as it is rarely studied. The conference on “Women and Curiosity” will thus give us the opportunity to focus on what women themselves wrote about curiosity in their treatises, fictional works, translations, and correspondences. Did women writers consider curiosity as intrinsically female? How did they react to male discourses on women as enquirers and objects of curiosity? What representations of curiosity did they give in their texts?

Please send an abstract for 25-minute papers and a biographical note to Sandrine Parageau (sparageau@hotmail.com) or Line Cottegnies (line.cottegnies@univ-paris3.fr) by 30 January, 2013.

"Teaching and Publishing Mathematics and Science in the Society of Jesus in Early Modern Europe"

Wuppertal, 12-13 June, 2013

The workshop "Teaching and Publishing Mathematics and Science in the Society of Jesus in Early Modern Europe" is being organized by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Science and Technology Studies (IZWT) at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal. The Society of Jesus was a key player in the systematic dissemination of up-to-date knowledge of science and mathematics during the early modern period. The aim of the workshop is to take stock of the scope and impact of Jesuit mathematical and scientific teaching and publishing in early modern Europe. Special attention will be paid to the question of how to assess the Jesuit's influence in these fields in ways that go beyond the study of particular Jesuit authors or colleges.

For further information on the topic, please get in touch with Volker Remmert:  remmert@uni-wuppertal.de.

The workshop's ambit invites interdisciplinary collaboration.

Proposals for papers from all who can contribute to the topic are therefore welcome. Special consideration will be given to proposals from young scholars.

The language of the workshop will be English. Submissions must include a title, an abstract (1-2 pages) of a 20 minute presentation, and a short CV (maximum one page). Submissions should be sent to Volker Remmert at remmert@uni-wuppertal.de no later than February 22, 2013.

Contributors: overnight accommodation costs will be covered. But because funds are limited, please let us know well in advance if you will need support to cover travelling expenses.

We look forward to your participation and would also be grateful if you could inform others, especially young academics, about the workshop and this call for papers.

Prof. Dr. Volker R. Remmert
Wissenschafts und Technikgeschichte

Historisches Seminar Fachbereich A

Bergische Universität Wuppertal Gaußstraße 20
42097 Wuppertal
Tel. 0202-439-2897

e-mail remmert@uni-wuppertal.de
http://www.geschichte.uni-wuppertal.de/ueber-uns/personen/hauptamtliche-professoren/prof-dr-volker-remmert.html

The Medici and the Levant

I Medici e il Levante: Culture e Dialoghi tra Firenze e il Mediterraneo Orientale (1532-1743)

Friday, June 7, 2013 in Florence

The Medici Archive Project is organizing a one-day conference in English and Italian at the Archivio di Stato in Florence dedicated to new research trajectories on the relations between the Medici and the wide cultural, social and geographic area that in time has come to be identified as ‘the Levant.’ The period covered will extend from 1532, when the Medici received the ducal title, until the death of the last member of the dynasty in 1743.


The House of Medici established an extensive network of mercantile, political and cultural relations connecting Florence and the Eastern Mediterranean since the time of Cosimo the Elder (1389-1464). However, the nature of that exchange evolved rapidly once the Medici became dynastic rulers of Florence and assumed an increasingly active role in Mediterranean and Eastern European politics. First as Dukes of Florence and then as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, the Medici became players in an area that extended from Safavid Persia to the Republic of Venice, passing through the era’s superpower, the Ottoman Empire. The great number of letters in the Medici epistolary collection (the “Archivio mediceo del principato”) relating to ‘Levantine’ topics bears witness to a profound and persistent vested interest that wavered between reproach and fascination, and that went beyond military, religious or diplomatic concerns.

Contributions highlighting any of the connections between the Medici state and the Levant are welcome. Preference will be accorded to papers dealing specifically with the Medici and their perception of the East/Orient, or with their reception in that part of the world.

The major themes to be addressed at this conference include:

• Material culture exchange
• Early modern mercantile routes and commercial activity
• Mediterranean warfare
• Medici Eastern diplomacy and political strategies
• The historical and philological East
• News dissemination; Mediterranean contemporaneity
• Cartography; travel literature and correspondence
• The Typographia Medicea; the use and study of Eastern languages
• Mediterranean Jewry
• Scientific exchange
• Inter-religious dialogues and conflicts
• Slavery, emigration and immigration

Contact Dr. Maurizio Arfaioli and Dr. Marta Caroscio at: conference@medici.org.
Partial travel funding may be possible.

The Radical Enlightenment: The Big Picture and its Details

16-17 May 2013 – Brussels

http://www.vub.ac.be/FILO/RE2013

Outline

The international conference ‘The Radical Enlightenment: The Big Picture and its Details’ seeks to bring together state-of-the-art research on the so-called ‘Radical Enlightenment’, which refers to a distinct yet multi-faceted line of thought within the Enlightenment movement that puts great emphasis on – inter alia – political reform and activism, personal freedom, social equality, and critique of religion. The objectives of this conference are: to push forward our historical and philosophical understanding of the ‘Radical Enlightenment’, to identify important figures (materialists, atheists, freethinkers, Spinozists, pantheists, freemasons, philosophes, etc.) within the Radical Enlightenment and to unravel their significance and influence, to understand the origins and spread of the Radical Enlightenment and the reactions against it (with attention to correspondence networks and communities, manuscripts, pamphlets, clandestine literature, etc.), and to reflect on the impact of the Radical Enlightenment on contemporary thinking. We welcome general historical and philosophical contributions and detailed case-studies of both well-known and lesser known figures.

Organisers

‘The Radical Enlightenment: The Big Picture and its Details’ is organized by the Centre for Ethics and Humanism and the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science, which are both part of the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences at the Free University of Brussels (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). The conference is made possible by funding from the Research Foundation – Flanders (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen) and VisitBrussels.

Invited speakers
We are proud to announce the following invited speakers:

Jonathan I. Israel (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)
Beth Lord (Department of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen)
Eric Schliesser (Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University)
Winfried Schröder (Institut für Philosophie, Philipps-Universität Marburg)
Wiep van Bunge (Faculty of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Else Walravens (Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Free University of Brussels)

Call for papers
We welcome contributed papers that fall within the scope of the conference. Abstracts consisting of 500 words should be sent as a .doc or .docx file to steffen.ducheyne@vub.ac.be. A separate sheet containing the author’s affiliation should be included. 30 minutes are allotted to contributed papers (including Q&A). The deadline for submission is 31 March 2013. Notification of acceptance will be given by 5 April 2013. A selection of the presented papers will be published afterwards.

Venue
University Foundation, Egmontstraat 11, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium

Registration
The conference fee is 150 EURO (this includes the conference dinner). Authors whose paper has been accepted will receive further information with regards to registration and accommodation via e-mail.

Shakespeare, Music and Performance

An international conference to be held at Shakespeare's Globe 3-5 May 2013

To find out more or register go to: Shakespeare's Globe Conferences
For more information contact Farah Karim-Cooper 

Head of Research & Courses, Globe Education
020 7902 1439

Conference Schedule:

Friday 3rd May

9.30am-10.00am:

Coffee & Registration

10.00am – 10.30am: 

Welcome & Introduction

Professor David Lindley (University of Leeds) 

Dr Farah Karim-Cooper (Shakespeare’s Globe)

10.30am – 11.30am: 

KEY NOTE: Professor Linda Austern (North Western University) 

11.30am – 11.45am: Coffee Break 

11.45am – 1.15pm: 

PANEL - Music in the Shakespearean Theatre 

Simon Smith (Birkbeck)
Paul Faber (University of Leeds)
Katherine Hunt (London Consortium and Birkbeck)

1.15pm – 2.15pm: 

LUNCH 

2.15pm – 3.30pm: 

PANEL - Song
Professor Tiffany Stern (University of Oxford) 

Bill Barclay (Shakespeare’s Globe)

3.30pm – 3.45pm: 

Coffee Break 

3.45pm – 5.00pm: 

Composer Q&A 

Todd Barton (Composer and Sound Designer)

7.30pm – 9.30pm:
Early Modern Music Concert

The remainder of the conference schedule