CALL FOR PAPERS: Literature and Philosophy 1500-1700

A Postgraduate Conference at the University of Sussex

Plenary speakers: Katrin Ettenhuber (Pembroke, University of Cambridge); Neil Rhodes (University of St Andrews); Christopher Tilmouth (Peterhouse, University of Cambridge).

The Centre for Early Modern and Medieval Studies (CEMMS: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/cemms/) at the University of Sussex is pleased to announce its forthcoming Postgraduate Conference on the theme of ‘Literature and Philosophy 1500-1700’, which will take place on the 14th-16th July 2015.

This conference will explore the relationship between early modern literature and philosophical thought, theories and issues. How philosophical was literature in this period? Did literature and philosophy work in symbiosis or discordantly? How are philosophical ideas approached in early modern literary texts? In what ways could literature function to promote or critique philosophical ideas? What was the role of commercial literature in disseminating philosophical thought? How did circulation of courtly literature influence contemporary political and philosophical thinking? What was the role of different textual mediums (such as codices, pamphlets or newsbooks) in disseminating philosophical ideas? How were philosophical theories engaged with in poetry, prose or drama? Did the genre or medium matter?

We welcome abstracts of 200-300 words for individual papers of 20 minutes or of 600 words for panels of three related papers. These could be on topics including but not limited to:

Aristotelianism

Atheism

Augustinism

Averroism

Casuistry

Epicurianism

Equivocation

Ethics/ Moral philosophy

Figures of Space

Humanism

Logic

Machiavellianism

Philosophy of Nature

Philosophy of Religion

Platonism/Neo-Platonism

Political philosophy

Rationalism

Scepticism

Scholasticism

Stoicism

Thomism

Toleration


Please submit your abstract along with your institution, paper title and a brief biography to litphilconference@sussex.ac.uk by 16th February 2015.

Modified Bodies and Prosthesis in Medieval and Early Modern England

A one-day Symposium organised by the Centre for Early Modern and Medieval Studies at the University of Sussex

Tuesday 27 May 2014, Arts B, Social Space (B274)

Registration details: there is no charge for attending the symposium; lunch and coffee will be provided.

To register please email Chloe Porter (C.Porter@sussex.ac.uk) or Katie Walter (K.L.Walter@sussex.ac.uk), by Monday 12 May 2014.

The notions of prosthesis and bodily modification increasingly preoccupy contemporary critical discourse, from disability studies to David Wills’ characterisation of the body as ‘a prosthesis’. Such contemporary explorations can preclude or overlook the ‘pre’ or the ‘early’ modern; ‘prosthesis’ itself, as a term for medical or bodily (rather than grammatical) supplementation doesn’t appear until the eighteenth century. Yet a growing body of scholarship recognises both the particular ways in which medieval and early modern technologies modify the body, and the significance of notions of ‘prosthesis’ for literary interpretation and cultural analysis in these periods. This one-day symposium draws together new scholarship on bodily modification and prosthesis, from facial disfigurement and the disabled soldier’s body, to bodily practices –such as kneeling, dress, and the use of charms in healing –which may modify, or become extensions of the body. How can medieval and early modern modified bodies be contextualised in relation to philosophical and theological understandings of the natural human body and the body post-mortem? And how can these historical contexts participate in contemporary critical discourse? Through an interdisciplinary discussion, we will ask what medieval and early modern examples reveal about the historical, philosophical and (literary) theoretical possibilities of prosthesis.


Programme
10.45-11.00

Registration

11.00-12.30 Session 1
Patricia Skinner (Swansea) ‘“My broken nose made me ridiculous”: Unwanted Facial Modifications in the Middle Ages’
Helen Davies (Lancaster) ‘“Nature cannot be surpassed by art”: The Power of Prosthetics in the Body of the Soldier’
Margaret Healy (Sussex) ‘Healing Prosthetics: Word Charms, Amulets and Talismen’

12.30-1.30 Lunch

1.30-2.45 Session 2
Chloe Porter (Sussex) ‘Post-mortem Prosthesis: Modified Bodies and the Early Modern Afterlife’
Naomi Baker (Manchester) ‘“The body of this death”: Paul and Disability on the Early Modern Stage’

2.45-3.15 Coffee

3.15-4.45 Session 3
Isabel Davis (Birkbeck) ‘Kneeling’
Jenny Tiramani (School of Historical Dress) ‘The Rise and Fall of Geometry: The Development of Underpinnings in Early Modern Europe’
Katie Walter (Sussex) ‘Plasticity and Prosthesis’

4.45-5.00 Break

5.00-6.00 Session 4: Response and Round Table with Peter Boxall (Sussex)