Katherine Philips 350: Writing, Reputation, Legacy

Dublin, 27-28 June, 2014

2014 marks the 350th anniversary of a key year in English-language women's literary history. 1664 witnessed not only the publication of Katherine Philips's supposedly unauthorised Poems but also her untimely death at the age of 32. 'Katherine Philips 350: Writing, Reputation, Legacy' - an international conference to be held at Marsh's Library, Dublin - will celebrate this important anniversary in a city where Philips spent the most productive and high-profile year of her literary career. It will offer the opportunity not only to re-evaluate Philips's literary achievements, but also to reassess her influence on later seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century women's writing.

The conference programme will include plenary lectures by Professor Elizabeth Hageman (University of New Hampshire) and Professor Sarah Prescott (Aberystwyth University). It will also include a visit to the site of Smock Alley Theatre, where Philips's play Pompey was performed in 1663.

Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Texts, canon and circulation
• Philips's life and afterlife
• Language and form
• Letter-writing
• Drama
• Translation
• Philips as reader and critic
• Archipelagic contexts
• Politics and religion
• Friendship and sexualities
• Literary networks

Titles and abstracts (of up to 250 words) for papers should be sent to
katherinephilips350@gmail.com by 31 August 2013. Please also include your name, institutional affiliation (where applicable), and email address.

A selection of essays based on papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of Women's Writing in 2015.

Further information about the conference will be posted at katherinephilips350.wordpress.com.

We look forward to seeing you in Dublin in 2014!

Marie-Louise Coolahan and Gillian Wright, conference organisers

CALL FOR PAPERS: Classical Philosophers in Seventeenth Century English Thought

28 May 2014, CREMS, University of York

A day symposium – Keynote speakers: Prof Jessica Wolfe (North Carolina) and Prof Sarah Hutton (Aberystwyth)

This one day symposium will look at the reception of classical philosophers in seventeenth century English thought and culture, in philosophy, religion, natural philosophy, poetry and literature, the university, or other areas of early modern intellectual life. The focus will be on England, but not on English, and we encourage papers on the Latin reception of classical philosophy.

We will take the term ‘classical philosophy’ broadly speaking, and with a generic latitude, so that Homer or Hesiod might be considered, as they certainly were in the early modern period, as contributors to the philosophical outlook of the ancients, and so that while Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, Seneca or Cicero are central and protean in their seventeenth century reception, so too Virgil, Ovid and Lucretius were seen as containing an important philosophical core. Of interest also might be the collations and compendia of classical thought that served as a digest of ancient ideas, whether those of the ancients themselves, such as Diogenes Laertius, or of the early modern writers, such as Thomas Stanley’s History of Philosophy. How did early modern writers accommodate, transpose or circumvent the pagan elements in ancient philosophy? How concerned were early modern thinkers with the systematic and with completeness in their use of classical philosophers? How was the pagan religion transposed to a Christian era?

Abstracts by 15th December (c. 250 words)

Contact: Kevin Killeen, kevin.killeen@york.ac.uk

Teaching language to the deaf in the 17th century: the dispute between John Wallis and William Holder

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm on Friday 09 November 2012
at The Royal Society, London

History of science lecture by Dr David Cram

Event details:
David Cram is Emeritus Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford.

In the early years of the Royal Society an acrimonious dispute broke out between John Wallis and William Holder as to which of them had been successful in the ‘experiment’ of teaching the deaf child Alexander Popham to speak. Using evidence from the recently-discovered manual composed by Wallis for instructing Popham, this talk will aim to position the dispute in the context of the broader experimental concerns in Royal Society circles, including the schemes for a philosophical language with which both Wallis and Holder were intimately associated.

Attending this event:
This event is free to attend and open to all. No tickets are required. Doors open at 12:30pm and general seating will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

The talk will be interpreted by a BSL interpreter, and priority seating will be given to those who require this service. If you do, please email Felicity Henderson (felicity.henderson@royalsociety.org) in advance of your visit with your name and the number of people in your group.

Recorded audio and video will be available on this page a few days afterwards.

Enquiries: Contact the events team.