LITERATURE, IDEAS and SOCIETY PROGRAMME 2011-2012

The aim of this seminar series, to be held at the Warburg Institute, is to advance research in literary studies, firstly, by exploring the connections between literature and other disciplines such as philosophy, theology, medicine and law, and, secondly, by situating literature in its social context—in relationship to politics, commerce, and both scientific and artistic endeavour.

The seminars will be held once a term (three times per year), at 5:15. Each session will consist of two thirty-minute papers, followed by a formal discussion and an informal reception.

Session 1: The Limits of Believability

Friday 9 December 2011, 5:15

Eugenio Refini (Warwick)
‘No Empty Fiction Wrought by Magic Lore’: Wonders of Nature, Irony and Disbelief in Sixteenth-Century Italian Fiction Narratives

Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck College)
‘Dowt not for We are Good Angells’: John Dee, Meric Casaubon and the Limits of Early Modern Credulity

Session 2: Credit, Value and Honour

Wednesday 25 January 2012, 5:15

Anne Goldgar (KCL, History)
Credit and Value in the Seventeenth-Century Netherlands

Craig Moyes (KCL, French)
La gloire à crédit: Redeeming Roman Values in Seventeenth-Century Salon Society

Session 3: Philosophy and Narrative

Wednesday 2 May 2012, 5:15

Letizia Panizza (RHUL)
Telling the Truth while Telling Lies: Ariosto’s Debt to Lucian’s Vera Historia

Maria Rosa Antognazza (KCL, Philosophy)
Interpretive Guidelines for an Intellectual Biography of Leibniz

Organised by Emily Butterworth, Department of French, King’s College London (emily.butterworth(at)kcl.ac.uk); Guido Giglioni, The Warburg Institute (guido.giglioni(at)sas.ac.uk) and Jacqueline Glomski, Department of History, King’s College London (jacqueline.glomski(at)kcl.ac.uk).

The organisers gratefully acknowledge the support of KCL Arts and Humanities Research Institute