The Gorboduc Project: Territory, Politics and Performance

June 22nd-23rd 2017, Northumbria University

The UK’s decision to leave the European Union constitutes the most momentous separation of British-European political culture since the Protestant Reformation, dragging questions of localised political autonomy into the spotlight. Ongoing nationwide movements toward political devolution are transforming notions of political agency in terms of the regional and local. As scholarly and public interest in ideas of British political identity continues to sharpen, this conference explores themes of division and devolution in drama written at the dawn of the British Empire. Looking to Britain’s uncertain future by learning about its past can tell us much about how literature responds to drastic political change, not least in terms of the territories (real and imagined) with which it is invested.

This call for papers seeks to address questions relating to territory and politics at the dawn of the British Empire, and to explore how those questions were unpacked through the medium of dramatic performance. The tumultuous reigns of the Tudors saw English dramaturgy assume a heightened political focus, and notions of local, territorial identity brought into dialogue with perspectives on the nation’s place within an emerging imperial framework. From Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc to Shakespeare’s history plays, Tudor drama interrogated relationships between civil divisions and international connections in embodied forms – repeatedly shadowing questions of the body politic with semantics of dismemberment, disability, and malfunction. Pre-empting questions of territory and politics that saturate many of our own political debates by over four centuries, these plays use boundaries, bodies and places to question, support, and oppose regional-political authority.

Confirmed plenary speaker: Jessica Winston, Idaho State University.

We invite abstract proposals of 300 words (or less) on topics including, but not limited to Tudor dramatic performances and

• devolution, rebellion, and insurrection
• patronage and performance
• political personations
• propaganda and regionalised politics
• borders, boundaries, and political edges
• politics of translation
• staging devotional loyalty and/or novelty
• locations of performance

Please send proposals to Paul Frazer and Harriet Archer by 1st February 2017.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Green Britain: Nationhood and the Environment 1500-1750

25th June 2016, Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon

CfP deadline: 31st March 2016

Abstracts of 250 words for papers of no more than twenty minutes in length to be sent to greenbritain2016@gmail.com

Keynote speaker: Professor Karen Edwards, University of Exeter

During the early modern period, national identity was increasingly defined by the dynamic between people and the environment they populated. While many still longed for the pastoral ideal of Britain as the ‘Eden of Europe’, the looming threat of pollution, natural disaster, resource depletion, and urbanisation beset the thoughts of contemporary writers, theologians, and politicians. Though it had been long held that the environment had an observable influence on the fortunes of a nation and the character of its citizens, the inhabitants of early modern Britain now became gradually conscious of their impact on the natural world. Environmental issues of increasing variety and scale plagued early modern Britain as society struggled to sustain a rapidly expanding population. From changes in agricultural land use and poor forestry management, to the increasing reliance on the smog-inducing ‘sea-coal’ for fuel, many feared adverse effects on the minds, bodies, and souls of British citizens. Against this backdrop of environmental degradation, Britons were also forced to contend with the harshest decades of the so-called ‘Little Ice Age’ and a series of extreme weather events that were habitually seen as acts of divine retribution against the Lord’s elect nation. Further to this, new scientific developments in meteorology and geography, and the rise of Baconian methodology, increasingly affected the contemporary theory and practice of environmental governmentality. Differences in race, ethnicity, and national character were explained according to climate and colonies judged on their suitability to the British complexion, with climatological observations acting as an incentive for colonial exploitation.

Beyond vague collocations of Merry England’s ‘green and pleasant lands’, ‘Green Britain’ therefore aims to explore the complex relationship between national identity and the environment in a period of tumultuous ecological change. What conclusions can we derive from the study of early modern environmental issues, and how can we apply these to the complex idea of the early modern identity? To what extent is nationhood defined by the dynamic that exists between people, space, and place? And furthermore, is it possible to define an early modern attitude toward green issues? To this end, we invite proposals for both panels and papers based on the themes of nationhood and/or early modern ‘green’ issues for our one-day interdisciplinary symposium on 25th June, 2016.


Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Travel writing
• Emerging scientific discourses
• Climate theory
• Pollution
• Space and place
• Cartography and map-making
• Seascapes and maritime history
• Town and country
• Cultivation and Agriculture
• Geography and Meteorology
• Astrology and Cosmology
• Enclosure and land ownership
• Colonialism and Empire
• Providence and providential disaster
• Natural philosophy
• Ecological issues
• Diseases and cures
• Vegetarianism
• Animals and animal rights

https://greenbritain.wordpress.com/
@greenbritain16