Greetings!

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. 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, to: 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 Boston/Eastern times.

CFP for Local Conferences

CFP: Abstract deadlines and keynote TBA.

Undergraduate Shakespeare Conference: "Shakespeare & Play", April 27, 2024 at Clark University, 950 Main St, Worcester, MA.

We announce the return of the in-person academic conference for undergraduate students from Greater Boston, Central Mass, and New England more broadly.

Please email ClarkShaxConference2024@gmail.com for more info

*CFP: “Transnational Representations of Early Modern Marginalized Figures” (Conference: NeMLA, 2024, Boston, MA, Hotel: Sheraton Boston, March 7-10, 2024)

This panel considers the transnational circulation of images featuring socially marginalized bodies in early modern literature and culture. With their calculated allure of legibility, fixity, and coherence, what kinds of fictions and human rights abuses do they justify?

Submit a paper abstract through the NeMLA website by September 30th:

https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla.html

Please also feel free to get in touch with organizers Erika Boeckeler (e.boeckeler@northeastern.edu) and Stephen Spiess (sspiess@babson.edu)

Upcoming Fortnight: Events

Tuesday, September 26, 2023, 12:00pm to 1:15pm

Harvard Early Sciences Working Group

Ashley Gonik (History, Harvard University), "Day Counters and Decision Makers: Printed Calendars in Early Modern Europe"

Hybrid format: In-person at Science Center room 252 (SC252), Harvard University, 1 Oxford St, Cambridge MA, 02138 and on Zoom

Email:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu or analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu

*Wednesday, Sept 27, 2023

Opening of Exhibit “Shakespeare Unbound” at W. E. B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst (Duration: Sept 2023 to May 2024)

More Information

Friday, September 29, 2023 to Sunday, October 1, 2023

Leibniz Society of North America

The Seventeenth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America

Harvard Barker Center Thompson Room (110), 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge MA 02138

More Information and Program: https://scholar.harvard.edu/mcdonough/event/leibniz-society-north-america-annual-conference

*Tuesday, October 3, 2023, 5:00pm to 6:30pm

CMES Sohbet-i Osmani Series

Aslıhan Gürbüzel, Assistant Professor of Ottoman history, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University: "Taming the Messiah: The Formation of an Ottoman Political Public Sphere, 1600-1700". Discussant: Hannah Marcus, John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University

CMES, Room 102, 38 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138

In the history of the Ottoman Empire, the seventeenth century has often been considered an anomaly, characterized by political dissent and social conflict. In this book, Aslıhan Gürbüzel shows how the early modern period was, in fact, crucial to the formation of new kinds of political agency that challenged, negotiated with, and ultimately reshaped the Ottoman social order. Taming the Messiah offers a new method of studying public political life by focusing on the variety of religious visions and lifeworlds native to Ottoman society and the ways in which they were appropriated and repurposed in the pursuit of new forms of civic engagement.

Link: https://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/calendar/upcoming

Contact: elizabethflanagan@fas.harvard.edu

Tuesday, October 3, 2023, 5:00pm

Early Modern Workshop in History, Medieval History Workshop, Medieval Studies, and the Medieval Studies Interdisciplinary Workshop at Harvard

Yves Coativy (Université de Bretagne Occidentale), “Contemporary interpretations of the Breton Middle Ages, from nationalism to the far left (1923-2023)”

Basement Seminar Room, Robinson Hall, Harvard Yard

*Wednesday, Oct 4, 2023 | 11:30 AM-1:00 PM

Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar Talks, co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Lecture: “Shakespeare’s Influence on Modern Chinese Literature and Culture”

Speaker: Tianhu Hao | Qiushi Distinguished Professor, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Zhejiang University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2023-24

Chair/Discussant: David Damrosch | Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University

Common Room (#136), 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA

Shakespeare has had an important influence upon modern Chinese literature and culture since the 1830s, which constitutes a significant part of Shakespeare’s global impact. Based on the rich sources recently accessible in Chinese and English databases, this talk reconsiders Shakespeare’s impact on modern China, especially in the indigenization of the sonnet and the rise of huaju (spoken drama). The abundant, newly discovered data reveal Shakespeare’s multi-faceted contributions to the shaping of modern Chinese literature and culture. This is a modest effort to revise literary, theatrical, and cultural histories.

October 4, 5pm EST

Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium

Leah Whittington, Professor of English at Harvard, "Spenser, Chaucer, and the Supplemented Book."

Professor Whittington will speak to a joint Medieval-Renaissance Colloquia audience.

Location: Barker Center 211

https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/harvard-eng-grad-colloquium/renaissance-colloquium

*Wednesday, October 4, 5pm

Benedict S. Robinson (Stony Brook University): “The True Story of Fictionality: The Case of Othello”

Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, 650 East Pleasant Street

Amherst, MA 01002

Benedict S. Robinson specializes in early modern literature, with interests that include the history of emotion, the history of literary theory, the history of science, and topics related to race and religion. His most recent book is Passion’s Fictions from Shakespeare to Richardson: Literature and the Sciences of Soul and Mind (Oxford University Press, Spring 2021).

Thursday, October 5, 2023, 5:30pm

Center for the Study of the Early Modern World, Brown University

Early Modern World Lecture: Maude Vanhaelen (UQUAM Montreal)

Brown University, Rhode Island Hall 108. Read more.

Thursday, October 5, 2023 to Sunday, October 8, 2023

42nd Annual Harvard Celtic Colloquium (with many events relevant to early modern studies)

Barker Center, Harvard University, 12 Quincy Street Cambridge MA. The Thompson Room (Room 110)

Please find the program here: https://celtic.fas.harvard.edu/colloquium-program-schedule

Friday, October 6, 2023, 5:30pm

Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Shakespearean Studies

Natasha Korda, Professor of English, Wesleyan University: ‘ Mincing Steps’ and ‘Manly Strides’: Practicing Gendered Footwork on the Early Modern Stage

Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA