'"Idle and Disorderly Persons": The Representations and Realities of the Mobile Poor in Early Modern England

University of Warwick on Saturday March
12th, 2011.

This one-day, interdisciplinary conference will showcase the current state of
scholarship in both social history and literary studies on the subjects of
vagrancy, migration and mobility, the criminal history of petty offenses, and
studies of the contemporary perceptions of poverty and deservingness. Practices
of literary criticism and textual analysis will be intertwined with social and
legal history, in order to produce a set of interdisciplinary perspectives.
Broad yet demanding themes such as 'transience in early modern culture', 'the
poor as social threat', and 'new understandings of early modern migration' will
allow participants to cross disciplinary boundaries, expand possible research
horizons and blend academic approaches to the past.

Our six panellists will be: Audrey Eccles, John Gilmore (Warwick), Andrew McRae
(Exeter), Joanna Innes (Oxford), Tim Hitchcock (Hertfordshire) and K.D.M. Snell
(Leicester). The Plenary Address will be given by A.L. Beier (Illinois State
University).

For further information, contact David.Hitchcock@warwick.ac.uk