Greetings and Welcome to the New Academic Year!
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. This year we are announcing in person and online events and activities relevant to the Boston area. Please forward announcements of events, including exhibits and application deadlines for future conferences in our region. We’re planning a mailing roughly every two weeks—please therefore send notices of events at least two weeks in advance. Please forward announcements, in the format requested at the end of this message, and e-mail addresses to: earlymod(a)fas.harvard.edu<mailto:earlymod@fas.harvard.edu>.
For security reasons the list will not disseminate zoom links directly, but we can list an email contact to which to write for further details about attending. Alternatively, we can circulate registration information for events. All times are EDT.
Upcoming Events
*Tuesday, August 30, 2022, 7pm
Paris Spies-Gans, Discussion of her new book A Revolution on Canvas: The Rise of Women Artists in Britain and France, 1760-1830, moderated by art historian Joseph Koerner, Harvard University.
Location: At the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline, MA. Info here<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.brooklinebooksmith…>, complete with a registration link! (It's free.)
*Mon Sept 12, 2022, 4:30pm
Opening aperitivo in the Early Modern World Initiative at Harvard featuring four flash talks: Melissa McCormick (East Asian Languages and Civilizations and History of Art and Architecture), “The Gilded Library: Reevaluating Early Modern Japanese Manuscripts as Bridal Books”; Eric Nelson (Government), “Philo and the Early-Modern Rehabilitation of ‘Democracy’”; Alan Niles (English), “Who Were Harvard’s First Indian Students?”; Si Nae Park (EALC), “How Printers of Vernacular Novels Made Reading Easier in Early Modern Korea.” Followed by a reception.
Event held in person in Robinson Hall, Harvard Yard, Basement seminar room.
*Mon Sept 12, 2022, 12pm-1pm
Department of the Classics and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies
Harvard Premodern Race Seminar
Session 1: Introductions; What Is PRS?; Plans for the year.
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138
More information: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/81116
Harvard’s Premodern Race Seminar, a combination speaker series and discussion group, now entering its third year, is for those interested broadly in the topic of race in the premodern past. This fall, the seminar will meet biweekly for an hour on Mondays at 12:00 pm in Barker Center 133 (the Plimpton Room), most often to discuss pre-circulated readings. PRS is jointly organized by faculty in the Department of the Classics and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies. Everyone is welcome to attend single sessions, but the organizers hope for a core group who attend regularly, to foster open and rich discussion. If you are interested in regular attendance, please email the organizers at prs(a)fas.harvard.edu<mailto:prs@fas.harvard.edu>.
*Wed Sept 14, 2022, 5:15pm
Opening event in the Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on the History of the Book, featuring four flash talks by:
Irene Peirano Garrison (Classics, Harvard), “Writing from the margins: women in the Latin classroom”; Jeffrey Hamburger (History of Art and Architecture, Harvard), “Color in Cusanus”; John Brewer (History, Harvard), “Visitors' Books: narratives, anecdotes and data"; Matthew Battles (Arnold Arboretum, Harvard), “Cuttings: of leaves and names.” Followed by a reception.
In person, Barker 133, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138.
*Wednesday, September 14, at 6pm
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Seminar on American Literature and Culture
Britt Rusert (U-Mass, Amherst), “The World is a Severe Schoolmaster: Phillis Wheatley's Poetry of Domination and Submission.”<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/event/britt-rusert-world-severe-…> Ianna Hawkins Owen (Boston University), will respond. The organizers request that all attendees to this event wear face coverings.
Barker 403, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA, 02138
*Monday, September 26, 12pm-1pm
Department of the Classics and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies
Harvard Premodern Race Seminar
Session 2: Reading: Dan-el Padilla Peralta, “Anti-Race” in A Cultural History of Race, Vol. 1, ed. Denise McCoskey (Bloomsbury 2021).
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138
For a more detailed description of PRS and its goals, please visit the Canvas site: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/81116.
*Monday, September 26, 4pm
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on China Humanities
Tian Yuan Tan, University of Oxford: “Writing and Reading ‘Local Court Drama’ in Late Imperial China: Texts, Genres, and Identities”
Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave. 136, Cambridge MA, 02138
*Tuesday, September 27, 4:30pm
Brown University Medieval and Early Modern History Seminar (MEMHS)
Andrew Romig (NYU Gallatin): “The Wrong Kind of Flattery: Critique and Praise in Walahfrid Strabo’s De imagine Tetrici.”
More information coming soon at: https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/
*Mon Oct 3, 4:30pm
Sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center seminar on Book History
Shamil Jeppie (University of Cape Town): "Book Collecting in Timbuktu."
In person event; Barker Center 133, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA.
This lecture surveys five centuries of collecting in Timbuktu, a town in the interior of West Africa, that has come to symbolize a larger world of learning and book culture in the region. This lecture follows citations in texts written in the town in the 16th century, book borrowing and copying, through to a major collector of the early 20th century who both attempted to conserve the manuscript book tradition and imported printed books to Timbuktu.
*Thursday, Oct 6, 2022, 4pm EDT
Brown University Early Modern World Event
Cécile Fromont (History of Art, Yale University): Title TBA
Location TBD
Cécile Fromont’s writing and teaching focus on the visual, material, and religious culture of Africa and Latin America with a special emphasis on the early modern period (ca 1500-1800) and on the Portuguese-speaking Atlantic World. More information about her talk is coming soon at https://events.brown.edu/early-modern-world/event/236722-early-modern-lectu…
*Saturday, Oct 15, 2022
New England Renaissance Conference (NERC)
Theme: “Instruments of Power in the Global Early Modern.”
Amherst College, Amherst MA
Registration by September 23, 2022
Conference Website<https://www.nerc2022.org/>
*Monday, October 17, 12pm-1pm
Department of the Classics and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies
Harvard Premodern Race Seminar
Session 3: Reading: selections from Sarah Derbew, Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge 2022).
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138
For a more detailed description of PRS and its goals, please visit the Canvas site: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/81116.
*October 20–21, 2022
The Clark Art Institute. Clark Conference
Beyond Boundaries: Seeing Art History from the Caribbean
Convened by Anna Arabindan-Kesson (Princeton University) and Wayne Modest (National Museum of Worldcultures and Wereldmuseum )
225 South Street, Williamstown, MA 01267
Website: https://www.clarkart.edu/research-academic/rap-events/clark-conference-2022
*Friday, Oct 21, 2022, 5:30pm
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Shakespearean Studies
Kristen Bennett, Framingham State University: “Cosmographical Contemplation in Shakespeare’s Theatrum Mundi”
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA, 02138
*Monday, October 24, 12pm-1pm
Department of the Classics and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies
Harvard Premodern Race Seminar
Session 4: Reading: draft of article in progress by Anna Wilson, “Racial Innocence: Whiteness and Childhood in Chaucer’s ‘Prioress’ Tale’”.
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138
For a more detailed description of PRS and its goals, please visit the Canvas site: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/81116.
*Monday, October 24, 5:30pm
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Seminar on Medieval Studies
Alfred Thomas, University of Illinois Chicago: Book Discussion of his Writing Plague: Language and Violence from the Black death to COVID-19 with Hannah Marcus, John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences
110 Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA, 02138
*Friday, Nov 4, 2022, 5:30pm
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Seminar on Shakespearean Studies
Coppelia Kahn, Brown University: “Reading Faces in Hamlet”
133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA 02138
*Monday, November 7, 12pm-1pm
Department of the Classics and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies
Harvard Premodern Race Seminar
Session 5: Reading: TBD, on topic of slavery in the ancient/medieval Mediterranean OR pedagogy session, “Teaching Difficult Issues With Cases,” with Dan Smail.
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138
For a more detailed description of PRS and its goals, please visit the Canvas site: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/81116.
*Monday, November 21, 12pm-1pm
Department of the Classics and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies
Harvard Premodern Race Seminar
Session 6: Reading: Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh, “The Depoliticized Saracen and Muslim Erasure,” Literature Compass (2019).
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138
For a more detailed description of PRS and its goals, please visit the Canvas site: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/81116.
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*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<mailto:earlymod@fas.harvard.edu>
To be included in the Early Mod Events mailing, the event must take place or (in case of online events) be relevant to 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: in-person or virtual
*If the event is virtual, please include either a Zoom registration link OR a contact email with the announcement. If your event is being held in-person, please specify this, and include location details.
Additional info (no more than a couple of sentences)
RSVP or Registration information/link
