Early Modern Military Identity Symposium

UCC, 28th August 2015

This one-day symposium will provide an interdisciplinary platform focusing on the construction of early modern military identity: how were such identities formed, written about in both print and manuscript, manipulated and subsequently interpreted during the early modern period (c. 1550-1700)? Speakers will engage with this theme from a variety of Irish, Anglo-Irish, English and wider international perspectives. Research areas under consideration in relation to the construction of military identity include, but are not limited to: creative expression (Prose and Poetry); historical documentation (Journals, Diaries, Correspondence, State Records and Wills); new, evolving or translated media (Newspapers, Instruction Manuals, Pamphlets and related ephemera).

A key objective of the symposium is to interrogate the formation, or perhaps fabrication, of soldierly personas by early modern authors, particularly through the relation of real or assumed military experience, and to examine what effect these types of writing had on wider contemporary literary production and our subsequent understanding of the period.

The symposium consists of two panels, beginning after lunch to facilitate travel arrangements (14.00-18.00). Confirmed participants include: Dr David Edwards (UCC), Dr Matthew Woodcock (UEA) and Prof. Andrew Hadfield (Sussex). For interested parties, a follow-up email will provide the full programme, together with accommodation and travel recommendations. Please email any queries to Dr Cian O’ Mahony (cian.omahony@ucc.ie).

In conjunction with the Cork City Heritage Fund, the symposium will be followed that evening by a public lecture, given by Prof. Andrew Hadfield in the grounds of the recently refurbished Elizabeth Fort near UCC, which will focus on Edmund Spenser’s Cork (Elizabeth Fort, Barrack Street, 19.30pm).

CALL FOR PAPERS: Shakespeare and War

Critical Survey Special Issue
Guest Editor: Patrick Gray, Durham University.

The tercentenary of Shakespeare's death fell in 1916, in the midst of the First World War, and the quartercentenary will fall next year, 2016, amid what looks likely to be continuing conflict in the Middle East, in the wake of more than two decades of intensive Western military engagement in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.

Recent research on Shakespeare and war includes Franziska Quabeck, Just and Unjust Wars in Shakespeare (2013); Irena Makaryk and Marissa McHugh, eds., Shakespeare and the Second World War (2012); Paola Pugliatti, Shakespeare and the Just War Tradition (2010); and Ros King and Paul Franssen, eds., Shakespeare and War (2009).

Notable recent productions include Ivo van Hove's Kings of War (2015), re-imagining Henry V, 1-3 Henry VI, and Richard III, as well as the BBC’s acclaimed Hollow Crown mini-series (2012), presenting Shakespeare¹s second tetralogy of English history plays. If production plans hold, the second season of the series, The Wars of the Roses, presenting the first tetralogy, will appear next year in 2016.

In light of this critical and popular interest, as well as current events, Critical Survey invites essays in the range of 5,000 to 7,000 words, inclusive, on any aspect of the connection between Shakespeare and war, to be submitted by 15 January 2016. Innovative critical approaches will be considered, as well as historicist scholarship; in keeping with the aims of Critical Survey, the only core requirement is language that is clear, concise, and accessible.

Informal inquiries about possibilities for essays, as well as proposals for book reviews, performance reviews, and review essays, are welcome and encouraged. Please direct all correspondence to the guest editor, Patrick Gray, at patrick.gray@durham.ac.uk.

Submissions should be sent by 15 January, 2016 by email to the same address, patrick.gray@durham.ac.uk, as Microsoft Word documents. Two hard copies, anonymized for peer review, should also be sent, along with a separate cover letter, to the mailing address for Critical Survey:

Critical Survey
English Literature Group
School of Humanities
University of Hertfordshire
De Havilland Campus
Hatfield, Hertfordshire, AL10 9AB
United Kingdom

A style guide and additional submission information is available online: http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/cs/

Patrick Gray
Lecturer in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature
Department of English Studies
Durham University
patrick.gray@durham.ac.uk

https://www.dur.ac.uk/english.studies/academicstaff/?id=11777

Thomas Harriot Seminar 2015

Durham Castle, University of Durham, 6-7 July 2015

The Thomas Harriot Seminar celebrates the life and times of the mathematician Thomas Harriot (1560-1621), and welcomes papers on Harriot himself as well as on the history of mathematics and science in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century more generally. We particularly welcome papers on subjects of interest to Harriot, which included: pure and applied mathematics, the new world, astronomy, natural philosophy, alchemy, optics, linguistics, and the art of war. For more information about the Seminar please visit the Thomas Harriot Seminar website:


Richard Osterhoof (CRASSH University of Cambridge) “Gabriel Harvey and the utility of mathematics”

Robert Goulding (University of Notre Dame), “Through a glass, darkly: shadows, light, and prismatic colours.”

Glyn Parry (University of Roehampton), “The Ordeal of Thomas Digges”

Cathy France (University of Leeds), “Thomas Digges and the ballistic trajectory”

Stephen Johnston (Museum of the History of Science, Oxford), “Edward Wright at Sea – Detected and Corrected”.

David Harris Sacks (Reed College, Oregon), “Learning to Know: Richard Hakluyt and Thomas Harriot in Oxford.”

Todd Andrew Borlik (University of Huddersfield), “John Dee’s ‘Hydragogie’ and Fen Drainage in the Seventeenth Century”

Susan Maxwell (Independent Scholar), “Preparing for circumnavigation: Thomas Cavendish and Francis Drake”

Registration fee: £95 (includes accommodation at the Castle, drinks reception, conference dinner on the 6th and buffet lunch on the 7th). Non-residential fee (without dinner and lunch): £35. Two bursaries are available for MA or PhD students, covering residential registration (if you would like to apply for one of these, please email the Chairman explaining why attending the seminar would be useful to your research). To register please email the Chairman Dr Stephen Clucas.


Dr Stephen Clucas
Editor, Intellectual History Review
Reader in Early Modern Intellectual History,
English and Humanities,
Birkbeck, Univesity of London,
Malet Street,
London WC1E 7HX

Call for Papers: Travel and Conflict in the Medieval and Early Modern World

Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS) Aberystwyth-Bangor

Biennial conference, 3rd-5th September 2015, Bangor University

Confirmed Keynote Speaker:
Michal Biran (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
Daniel Carey (National University of Ireland, Galway)
Judith Jesch (University of Nottingham)

The meeting points between travel, mobility, and conflict are numerous. Travel can be a conflictual experience; in medieval Europe, movement may be perceived as being restricted to travel motivated by the exigencies of piety, pillage, or trade. It would however be too easy to suggest a clear binary between a medieval state of stasis and the more leisurely travel and exploration in the early modern period. Until relatively recently, domestic travel and voyages to the wider world remained dangerous undertakings. Utopian fiction and travel writing are two genres that have been closely aligned by scholars who recognise how these genres reshape medieval discourses on the ideal state for an early modern audience. Weary travellers arrive at geographically unspecified places comprising ideal societies, but these ideal societies occupy a liminal space between fiction and reality: these spaces are ultimately unattainable due to the imprecision and prevarication present in the narrative. This draws to focus tensions within documenting imaginary travel and the material world. Far from being a site of concord, they become spaces of conflict. Travel – whether it is real or imagined, or if it has been implemented for public or private purposes – can be obstructed by conflicts; it remains often restricted and always bitterly debated.

This interdisciplinary conference brings together scholars working in the fields of medieval and early modern studies to interrogate the relationship between travel and conflict. Topics might include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Travel in times of war and conflict 
• Restricted travel 
• Forbidden travel 
• Exile and travel 
• Colonial encounters 
• Piracy 
• Travel, subterfuge and deceit 
• Conflict of body and mind in travel 
• Travel, religion and conversion 
• Conflicting readings of travelogues 
• Debates on travel 
• Liminal spaces 
• Utopian/Dystopian travel 
• Travel and synaesthesia 
• Vagrancy 
• Matter, materiality and the unreal 
• Travel as a violent act 
• Remembering and forgetting travel 
• Conflict between topography and spatial movement 
• Conflict between mapped space and inhabited space 
• Language communication and miscommunication 
• Pilgrimage or Crusade 
• Migration and persecution 

We invite abstracts of 200-250 words for individual papers of twenty minutes, or of up to 850 words for panels comprising no more than three papers, to be sent to travelandconflict@gmail.com by 25th January 2015. Please send your abstract in the text of your message, and not in an attached file.

The conference organisers are Rhun Emlyn, Gabor Gelléri, Andrew Hiscock, and Rachel Willie.

Further details are available via the conference website: travelandconflict.wordpress.com, or you can follow us on Twitter @Travel_Conflict

Forum for European Philosophy Event: Ethics Matters in War

Thursday 13 February, 6.30 – 8pm
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, LSE

Cecile Fabre, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Oxford
Jeff McMahan, Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University

Chair: Gabriel Wollner, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, LSE and Forum for European Philosophy Fellow

The 100th Anniversary of the outbreak of World War I reminds us of the importance of ethics in war. Under what conditions may states wage war on each other? And what are the moral principles governing the conduct of war? Cecile Fabre and Jeff McMahanwill argue that traditional answers to these questions fail to convince: Traditional just war theory stands in need of revision and the role of ethics in war needs to be reconsidered.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEwarethics

Podcasts of most FEP events are available online after the event. They can be accessed at www.philosophy-forum.org

All events are free and open to all without registration
For further information contact Juliana Cardinale: 020 7955 7539
J.Cardinale@lse.ac.uk

Forum for European Philosophy
Cowdray House, Room G.05, European Institute
London School of Economics, WC2A 2AE
www.philosophy-forum.org

Centenary Lectures: Hugh Trevor-Roper 1914-2014

A series of papers and discussions to mark the centenary of his birth (on 15 January) and to appraise aspects of his thought and writing. The occasion is arranged by the Dacre Trust and will be held on

Saturday 11th January 2014 at Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Provisional Programme

10.00 - 11.35 SESSION 1: MID-SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY REVOLUTIONS

• Sir John Elliott, ‘Trevor-Roper and “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century”’
• Blair Worden, ‘The Unpublished Book: The Puritan Revolution’
• Mark Greengrass, ‘“Three Foreigners: The Philosophers of the Puritan Revolution”’

COFFEE

11.55 - 1.00 SESSION 2: ERASMIANISM AND ECUMENICALISM

• Peter N. Miller, ‘Trevor-Roper and the Erasmian Tradition’
• Noel Malcolm, ‘Another Unpublished Book: “The Ecumenical Movement and the Church of England, 1598-1618”’

BUFFET LUNCH IN CORPUS

2.00 - 3.55 SESSION 3: THE SECOND WORLD WAR

• Richard Overy, ‘The Last Days of Hitler’
• Sir Michael Howard, ‘Trevor-Roper and Wartime Intelligence’
• Eberhard Jäckel, ‘Trevor-Roper and Hitler’
• Gina Thomas, ‘Trevor-Roper and Himmler’s Masseur’

TEA

4.15 - 4.50 SESSION 4: THE PROSE

John Banville, ‘Trevor-Roper as Prose Stylist’

4.50 - 5.25 SESSION 5: CONCLUDING DISCUSSION

5.30 - 7.15 RECEPTION IN ORIEL COLLEGE OXFORD

To celebrate the centenary, and to mark the publication of ONE HUNDRED LETTERS FROM HUGH TREVOR-ROPER, a selection of his letters to a variety of correspondents written between 1943 and 2001. The book is edited by Richard Davenport-Hines and Adam Sisman and will be published by Oxford University Press. All who have attended part or all of the conference will be welcome at the reception.

ARRANGEMENTS

The papers and discussions are open to all, and those who come to them are welcome to do so for either all or part of the proceedings.  There is no charge for attendance or for lunch or refreshments, but those wishing to attend will need to give notice.. Space is limited and places will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.(A final closing date in December for any remaining spaces will be announced nearer the time.)  Those wishing to attend should email Blair Worden, who will be happy to answer questions.

Please whether you will:

1. join the group for lunch

2. attend the reception

3. state which sessions you plan to attend

In the autumn of 2014 a series of Dacre Centenary Lectures will be held, in association with the Oxford History Faculty, in the Examination Schools, Oxford, on Fridays at 5 p.m., provisionally under the title ‘IDEAS AND SOCIETY c. 1600-1800’. 

The speakers will be Anthony Grafton, Michael Hunter, Jonathan Israel, Colin Kidd, Noel Malcolm, David Wormersley and Brian Young

Forum for European Philosophy Event: European Provocations, Rousseau and the State of War

Tuesday 11 December, 6.30 – 8pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Chris Bertram, Professor of Social and Political Philosophy, University of Bristol

Chair: Kristina Musholt, LSE Fellow, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method and Deputy Director of the Forum for European Philosophy

Rousseau’s fragment Principles of the Right of War has recently been reconstructed from various manuscript sources and we now have a coherent text expressing his views about war and so-called 'just war' theory. Here, as elsewhere, Rousseau suspects that the moral principles enunciated by philosophers and legal theorists are just rationalizations for amour propre, power and violence. This lecture will argue that in the light of recent wars and ‘humanitarian interventions’, Rousseau’s text is as relevant as ever.

Podcasts of most FEP events are available online after the event. They can be accessed at www.philosophy-forum.org

All events are free and open to all without registration
For further information contact Juliana Cardinale: 020 7955 7539
J.Cardinale@lse.ac.uk

Forum for European Philosophy
Cowdray House, Room G.05, European Institute
London School of Economics, WC2A 2AE
www.philosophy-forum.org

NeMLA 2012 Conference: Early Modern History Wars: Remembering and Forgetting the Past in Shakespeare

This panel will explore controversies and conflicts over the values of remembering and forgetting in Shakespeare’s plays. Topics to be addressed by the panel might include, though are not limited to, the relation of memory and oblivion to individual identity, to the identity of a nation, to the ongoing Reformation, to efforts to suspend or displace confessional conflict, and to the conditions of performance. Please send 250-word proposals to Jonathan Baldo, the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, jbaldo@esm.rochester.edu.

The 43rd convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association will be held in Rochester, New York March 15 - 18, 2012. Our host institution this year is St. John Fisher College, and the convention will be held at the Hyatt Regency Rochester. The call for papers (CFP) is now available online and will appear in NeMLA’s summer newsletter by early June; abstracts are due to session chairs by 30 September 2011 unless otherwise noted in the CFP.