Greetings and Welcome to Spring Term!
This list announces talks in the greater Boston area pertaining to the study of the early modern period ca. 1350-1800, in any discipline and with any regional specialization. Please forward announcements, in the format requested at the end of this message, and e-mail addresses to: earlymod(a)fas.harvard.edu.
Upcoming Events
Monday, January 27, 2020 - 4:00pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on China Humanities
“Acoustic Immersion and Iconic Extraction in Three Kingdoms History, Fiction, and Videogames”
Paize Keulemans, Princeton University
Common Room, 2 Divinity Avenue
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/china-humanities
What are the ludic attractions of a fifteenth-century novel? What role is played by historical narrative in a twenty-first-century game? How is a character developed in text and in pixels, in words, painting, or on a (computer) screen? And how is the noise and confusion of a third-century battle digitally reproduced in the songs programmed for Sony’s Playstation? This talk investigates a classical tale of ancient China, The Three Kingdoms, tracing its transformation through time, across nations, and, most notably, across different media platforms, from history to poetry and from novel to video-game.
Thursday, February 6, 2020 - 5:15 pm
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Title TBD, Graduate Workshop
Karina Mathew (Harvard)
Barker 114, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge
https://sites.google.com/harvard.edu/english-graduate-colloquia/renaissance…
Friday, February 7, 2020 - 5:30pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on Shakespearian Studies
Transgender Capacity in Dekker and Middleton’s The Roaring Girl
Marjorie Rubright, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/shakespearean-studies
Tuesday, February 11, 2020 - 6:00pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on 18th Century Studies
New Eyes on the Eighteenth Century
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/eighteenth-century-studies
February 14–15, 2020
Early Modern History Workshop Harvard
The Annual Harvard-Princeton Graduate Conference in Early Modern History
"From Extracting Treasure to Creating Knowledge: Early Modernities"
Runs Friday, February 14, 1:30–7:10 pm, and Saturday, February 15, 9 am–3:10 pm
Robinson Hall, History Department Conference Room (formerly known as the Lower Library)
Program<https://earlymod.fas.harvard.edu/files/early_modern_studies_group/files/hup…> and Abstracts<https://earlymod.fas.harvard.edu/files/early_modern_studies_group/files/hup…>
https://earlymod.fas.harvard.edu<https://earlymod.fas.harvard.edu/>
Feb 18, 2020, 3pm
Harvard Early Science Working Group
"The Diffusion of Heliocentrism in the Early Modern World: A View from Istanbul"
Maryam Patton (Harvard, History and Middle Eastern Studies)
Comment: Valentina Pugliano (MIT, STS)
Location: TBD
2/19/2020 6:00pm
Alexander Bevilacqua (Assistant Professor of History, Williams College)
Location: Wesleyan University
Thursday, February 20, 2020, 5:15 pm
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium, Graduate Workshop
Co-sponsored with the Theater and Performance Colloquium
"The Merchant of The Empire: Shakespeare and The Cultural Qualia of Mobility and Memory"
Vijeta Saini (Northeastern), Graduate Workshop
Sever 205, Harvard Yard
https://sites.google.com/harvard.edu/english-graduate-colloquia/renaissance…
Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020
Harvard Long 18th Century and Romanticism Colloquium
Co-sponsored with the Race & Ethnicity Colloquium
"On Romantic Work"
Bakary Diaby (Skidmore)
More details TBA
Saturday, February 22, 2020, 8:30am to 5:00pm
Harvard History of Philosophy Workshop
Workshop on the Philosophy of Émilie du Châtelet
Robbins Library, Second Floor Emerson Hall
Program at https://scholar.harvard.edu/mcdonough/event/workshop-philosophy-emilié-du-c…<https://scholar.harvard.edu/mcdonough/event/workshop-philosophy-emili%C3%A9…>
Monday, February 24, 2020 - 5:30pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on History of the Book
TBA
Erika Boeckeler, Northeastern University
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/history-book
Tuesday, Feb 25, 2020, 4:30 P.M.
Brown University Medieval & Early Modern History Seminar
“Materia Medica in Transit. The Transforming Knowledge of Plants”
Sabrina Minuzzi
Pavilion Room, Department of History, 79 Brown St., Providence, RI
https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/
Tuesday, February 25, 2020 - 6:00pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on Native Cultures of the Americas
Chasing Sheep in Navajo Country: An Archaeological Investigation of the Arc of Diné Pastoralism
Wade Campbell, Harvard University
Room 133, Barker Center
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/native-cultures-americas
Tuesday, March 3, 5:30 pm
Early Modern History Workshop Harvard
Co-sponsored with the Harvard History of Philosophy Workshop and Early Sciences Working Group
"'As if conjured by the force of magic': the emergence of the scientific genius and the celebration of the imagination in natural philosophy, 1750–1820"
Rob Iliffe (Oxford University and Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)
Robinson Hall, History Department Conference Room (formerly known as the Lower Library)
https://earlymod.fas.harvard.edu
Thursday, March 5, 5:15 pm
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
"Westworld and The Tempest: The Return of the Dead"
Christina Wald (University of Konstanz)
Barker 114, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge
https://sites.google.com/harvard.edu/english-graduate-colloquia/renaissance…
Friday, March 6, 2020 - 5:30pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on Shakespearian Studies
Talk Title TBA
Meghan Andrews, Lycoming College
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/shakespearean-studies
Wednesday, March 11, 2020 - 6:00pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on Native Cultures of the Americas,
Co-sponsored with MHC Seminar on Eighteenth-Century Studies
Talk Title TBA
Sarah Rivett, Princeton University
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/native-cultures-americas
March 17, 2020, 5:30 PM
Brown University Medieval & Early Modern History Seminar
The 40th William F. Church Memorial Lecture
“False Impressions: A History of Print Forgery”
Nick Wilding (Georgia State University)
Smith-Buonanno Hall, 106, Brown University, Providence, RI
https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/
Prof. Nick Wilding is a historian of early modern Italy, of the book, and of science. A recipient of many awards and fellowships, and author of many works, most notably Galileo’s Idol: Gianfrancesco Sagredo and the Politics of Knowledge (2014), he also became visible internationally when in 2012 he exposed a grand fraud. Wilding proved that a proffered copy of Galileo’s famous treatise on the use of a telescope to observe the stars, Sidereus Nuncius (1610), purportedly including Galileo’s own watercolors of the moon, was a clever forgery. It helped to bring the director of the Girolamini Library in Naples, Marino Massimo De Caro – part of the Berlusconi network – to justice. (De Caro was also found to have embezzled many hundreds of books from the library he oversaw.) Wilding also featured prominently in the PBS documentary about how the fraud was exposed, “Galileo’s Moon” (which premiered on July 2, 2019).
Free and open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture.
Saturday, March 21, 2020, 3-4:45 pm
Association for Asian Studies 2020 Annual Conference, March 19-22, 2020
Session: Publish or Perish: New Perspectives on Book Cultures in East Asia
Hwisang Cho (Emory University): "Texts in Disarray: Manuscript Books in Chosŏn Scholarly Culture;" Motoi Katsumata (Meisei University): "Shy on the First Novel: The Problems of Publishing Novels in 17th and 18th Century Japan;" Suyoung Son (Cornell University): "Nam Kongch’ŏl, Qian Qianyi, and Banned Books Across National Border;" Yung-chang Tung (Harvard University): "Problematic Laughter: Jokes, Anecdotes, and the Production of Notebooks in Middle-Period China."
Location: At the Sheraton Boston Hotel and the Hynes Convention Center, Boston
Thursday, March 26, 2020, 5:15 pm
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
"Fluid Borders: Rethinking Power Centers in Shakespeare’s Rome"
Silvia Bigliazzi (University of Verona)
Barker 114, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge
https://sites.google.com/harvard.edu/english-graduate-colloquia/renaissance…
March 31, 2020, noon
Harvard Early Science Working Group
"Skilling Up: The Officer-Craftsman in Late Chosŏn Korea, 1592–1882."
Hyeok Hweon "H.H." Kang (Harvard, History and East Asian Languages)
Comment: TBD
Location: Science Center 252, Science Center 252, 1 Oxford St., Cambridge
March 31, 2020, 4:30 P.M.
Brown University Medieval & Early Modern History Seminar
“Monastic Technologies of Authority: Cistercian Diplomatic Praxis, Crusade, and the Colonization of the Midi”
Leland Grigoli
Pavilion Room, Department of History, 79 Brown St., Providence RI
https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/
Tuesday, April 7, 2020 - 6:00pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on 18th Century Studies
Talk Title TBA
Anne Higonnet, Barnard College and Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Room 133, Barker Center
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/eighteenth-century-studies
Thursday, April 9, 2020, 5:15pm
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
"The Prefatory Letter to Gorboduc: Rape, Revenge, Paratext," Graduate Workshop
Bailey Sincox (Harvard)
Barker 114, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA
https://sites.google.com/harvard.edu/english-graduate-colloquia/renaissance…
Monday, April 13, 4:30 pm
Early Modern History Workshop Harvard
Co-sponsored with the MIT History Faculty
"Monsters in the Closet: The Biopolitics of the Far North in Early Modern Europe"
Surekha Davies (Utrecht University)
MIT, E51-095
https://earlymod.fas.harvard.edu
April 14, 3pm
Harvard Early Science Working Group
“Material Ascensions: Engineering Astronautics in Seventeenth-Century Science Fiction.”
Karina Mathew (Harvard, English)
Comment: Hannah Marcus (Harvard, History of Science)
Location: TBD
Thursday, April 16, 5:15 pm
Early Modern History Workshop Harvard
Co-sponsored with the Medieval English Colloquium
"Predestination and Piety in the Early Modern World"—a debate
James Simpson (English, Harvard) and David Hall (Harvard Divinity School, emeritus), moderated by Michelle Sanchez (Harvard Divinity School)
Robinson Hall, Basement Seminar Room, Harvard Yard
https://earlymod.fas.harvard.edu
Friday and Saturday April 17-18, 2020
41st Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum:
Scent and Fragrance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Keene State College
Keene, NH, USA
More information: Dr. Robert G. Sullivan, Assistant Forum Director at sullivan(a)german.umass.edu.
4/20/2020 4:00pm to 6:00pm
“The Moral Economies of Early Modern Europe”
Francesca Trivellato, History, Institute for Advanced Study Princeton
Robinson Hall, History Department Conference Room (formerly known as the Lower Library), Harvard University
Thursday, April 23, 5:15 pm
Early Modern History Workshop Harvard
Co-sponsored with the Renaissance Colloquium and Department of English
"Tense Futures: Shakespeare's Macbeth and Gwinne's Tres Sibyllae"
Daniel Blank (Harvard Society of Fellows)
Robinson Hall, History Department Conference Room (formerly known as the Lower Library)
https://earlymod.fas.harvard.edu
Friday, April 24, 2020 - 5:30pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on Shakespearian Studies
“Desdemona’s Honest Friend”
Jeremy Lopez, University of Toronto
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/shakespearean-studies
Apr. 28, 2020, 4:30 P.M.
Brown University Medieval & Early Modern History Seminar
TBD
Amy Remensnyder
Pavilion Room, Department of History, 79 Brown St., Providence RI
https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/
Thursday, April 30, 2020 - 9:00am
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on History of the Book
Harvard-Yale Graduate Conference in Book History
Yale University
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/history-book
Thursday, April 30, 2020 - 6:00pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Harvard Seminar on 18th Century Studies
“Persuasion's Queer Drift”
Paul Kelleher, Emory University
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA
http://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/content/eighteenth-century-studies
May 5, 2020, noon
Harvard Early Science Working Group
"The Deep History of the Spreadsheet"Ashley Gonik (Harvard, History)
Comment: Katharina Piechocki (Harvard, Comparative Literature)
Location: Science Center 252, 1 Oxford St., Cambridge
Wednesday, 5/13/2020 6:00pm
Yael Rice (Assistant Professor of Art & the History of Art, Amherst College)
Location: Wesleyan University
*If you would like your announcement to be posted in an upcoming Early Mod Events listing please send your event details to: earlymod(a)fas.harvard.edu
To be included in the Early Mod Events mailing, the event must take place in the greater Boston area. Announcements are posted at the discretion of the Early Mod Listserv administrator. It would be a great help if you could follow this format:
Day, date, time
Sponsor (if available)
Type of event (ex. Lecture/Symposium/Workshop), Event Title
Person giving talk (in bold), their home institution (if applicable)
Location (Building, Room, St., Address, Institution, City, State)
* Event must take place in the greater Boston area.
Additional info (no more than a couple of sentences)
Website URL
RSVP or Registration information/link
