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. 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@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.  

 

 

* indicates a newly announced event, ** indicates an updated event 

 

 

 

Upcoming Events  

 

Wednesday, September 28, 12pm
Center for the Humanities, The University of Rhode Island, RI 

Lecture: “The Aroma of Legitimacy in the Late Middle Ages” 

Joëlle Rollo-Koster, University of Rhode Island, Department of History
The University of Rhode Island, Hardge Forum, Multicultural Center, Kingston, RI
Both in-person  and virtual
RSVP or Registration information/link: 

https://web.uri.edu/humanities/the-aroma-of-legitimacy-in-the-late-middle-ages/ 

 

*Thursday, September 29, 2022, 4:30pm to 6:00pm  

James Lewis, Associate Professor of Korean History, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Wolfson College, " Aspects of a macro-economic model for Chosŏn Korea" (Harvard Korea Institute Korea Colloquium)  

In-person and online Event (register here)  

In person at Thomas Chan-Soo Kang Room (S050), CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 

More information: Harvard Korea Institute Korea Colloquium  

 

September 30, 2022, 12:30pm - 1:00pm 

Gallery Talk: Dare to Know: Prints and Drawings in the Age of Enlightenment 

Join Sam Nehila, curatorial assistant in the Division of European and American Art, for an in-depth discussion about William Hogarth’s print series The Four Stages of Cruelty, on view in the special exhibition Dare to Know: Prints and Drawings in the Age of Enlightenment.  

In-Person, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge MA 

 

Sunday, October 2, 3-4 pm 

Jeffrey R. Wilson (Harvard University): Book Launch for Richard III’s Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity: Shakespeare and Disability History 

Location: lala books (189 Market St. Lowell, MA 01852) 

free, kids welcome, drinks and snacks 

 

October 2, 2022, 12:00pm - 1:00pm 

Exhibition Tour: Dare to Know: Prints and Drawings in the Age of Enlightenment 

Join exhibition curator Elizabeth Rudy for an in-depth tour of Dare to Know: Prints and Drawings in the Age of Enlightenment, on view through January 15, 2023. She will share insights about how works on paper played a critical role in the 18th century. 

In-Person, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge MA 

 

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.   

  

**Monday, October 3, 2022, 5:30-6:30, with reception to follow  

Boston College's Art, Art History and Film Department and the McMullen Museum of Art  

Lecture: “Thinking through the Objects: Displaying the Italian Renaissance at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” ( The Annual Josephine Von Henneberg Lecture In Italian Art) 

Marietta Cambareri, Senior Curator of European Sculpture and Jetskalina H. Phillips Curator of Judaica, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston  

In-person: The McMullen Museum of Art, 2101 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 111, Brighton MA; directions and parking   

  

Tuesday, 10/4/2022 12:00pm to 1:15pm   

Sarah Koval (Music, Harvard), “Music in Early Modern Recipe Books: Notation, Genre, Wellbeing” (ESWG, Harvard)  

Location: On Zoom and in person in Science Center room 252 (SC252), 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA, 02138. RSVP: oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu  

  

Thursday, Oct 6, 2022, 4pm  

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-lecture-cecile-fromont-yale  

  

Thursday, 10/6/2022 4:30pm  

Brendan Kane, University of Connecticut: "Paleography and power: Irish political thought in a multi-lingual archive." (The 18th John V. Kelleher Memorial Lecture)  

Location: Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA 02138  

  

Thursday, October 6, 2022, 6:00pm 

Harvard MHC Seminar on Eighteenth Century Studies 

The Non-Pursuit of Happiness: Childhood, Slavery, and Fugitivity in the Age of Revolution 

Annette Joseph-Gabriel, Duke University 

Location: Online 

Please add your name and email address to this registration page. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with a link and passcode to the event. 

If you have any questions about the event, please contact Sue Lanser at lanser@brandeis.edu  

 

October 9, 2022, 10:00am - 1:00pm 

Materials Lab Workshop: Modeling Material Culture in Paper 

This workshop is inspired by the exhibition Dare to Know: Prints and Drawings in the Age of Enlightenment, which explores how the graphic arts inspired, shaped, and gave immediacy to new ideas in the so-called age of reason.  

In-Person, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge MA 

 

Wednesday, October 12, 4:30pm-6:15pm  

Wesleyan University Renaissance Seminar  

Miles P. Grier, Queens College of the City University of New York: "Rac'd All Over their Bodies": Clothing, Tattoo, and Stigma in Early Modern English Racecraft  

Boger Hall 113, 41 Wyllys Ave., Middletown, CT 06459  

For more information or to RSVP (required), please email mtokumitsu@wesleyan.edu  

 

*Wednesday, October 12, 5:00-6:30 PM  

MIT Global France Seminar 

Lecture: "Avedik, Louis XIV's Armenian Prisoner: Confessional Conflicts, Involuntary Movement, and Incarceration in the Early Modern Mediterranean” 

Junko Takeda, Department of History, Syracuse University 

Building E51, Room 275, MIT 

More Information: https://languages.mit.edu/events/juno-takeda-lecture/ 

Those not affiliated with MIT should secure a TIM Ticket for entrance to Building E51: https://visitors.mit.edu/?event=964dc363-079c-487b-b5a4-fbc7df30b2c7 

 

 

*October 13–15, 2022 

Harvard University Library, Harvard Department of Romance languages and Literatures, Harvard Department of History, and Harvard Early Modern World 

Camões @ Harvard Conference 

This conference marks the 450th anniversary of the publication of Luis Vaz de Camões' maritime epic Os Lusiada with contributions from scholars from Europe, Africa, and America. Schedule of Events: 

https://camoes.fas.harvard.edu/schedule-bilingual 

Location: This event will be hybrid, including in-person locations on Harvard University’s campus and a livestream via Zoom. Check the website for forthcoming information and registration for the zoom links. 

 

**Saturday, Oct 15, 2022  

New England Renaissance Conference (NERC)  

Theme: “Instruments of Power in the Global Early Modern.”  

Amherst College, Amherst MA  

Conference Website  

  

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.  

  

Tuesday, 10/18/2022, 12:00pm to 1:15pm  

Ryan Low (History, Harvard), “Household Archival Sciences in Medieval Provence and Dauphiné” (ESWG, Harvard) 

Location: On Zoom and in person in Science Center room 252 (SC252), 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA, 02138, RSVP: oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu   

  

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  

  

Monday, 10/24/2022 6:00pm  

Sponsored by the Early Modern Workshop and Scandinavian Studies, Harvard 

James Raven (University of Cambridge, UK), “Monsters, Myths and Methods: A Global Book Biography and the Enlightenment Reception of Erik Pontoppidan’s The Natural History of Norway (1752-5)”   

Location: In person event: History Dept conference room (formerly the Lower Library) on the ground/first floor, Robinson Hall, Harvard Yard  

 

Thursday, October 27, 2022, 6:00pm 

Harvard MHC Seminar on Eighteenth Century Studies 

Historicizing Eighteenth-Century Palestine  

Zoe Beenstock, University of Haifa 

Barker Center, Harvard University, Room 133, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA, 02138 

 

Oct 28, 2022, 4:30pm – 6:30pm 

The Arthur F. Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies 

Evan MacCarthy (University of Massachusetts Amherst), “Orchestrating Shakespeare's Storms". 6th Annual Normand Berlin Memorial Lecture 

650 East Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA, 01002 

 

Evan MacCarthy is a Five College Visiting Assistant Professor of Music History in the Department of Music & Dance at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research focuses on the history of fifteenth-century music and music theory, late medieval chant, German music in the Baroque era, as well as nineteenth-century American music. His book Ruled by the Muses: Italian Humanists and their Study of Music in the Fifteenth Century explores the musical lives of scholars who sought to revive the cultural and intellectual traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. More information: https://www.umass.edu/renaissance/event/berlinmaccarthy2022 

 

Tuesday, 11/1/2022 12:00pm to 1:15pm   

Hannah Kaemmer (Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning, Harvard), “Information Gaps and the Management of Tangier’s Fortifications, 1662-1683” (ESWG, Harvard)  

Location: On Zoom and in person in Science Center room 252 (SC252), 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA, 02138, RSVP: oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu   

  

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.  

 

Tuesday, 11/15/2022 12:00pm to 1:15pm   

Iman Darwish (History of Science), “Ibn Abī al-Ashʿath Book of Simples: The Formative Period of the Arabic Tradition of Materia Medica” (ESWG, Harvard)  

Location: On Zoom and in person in Science Center room 252 (SC252), 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA, 02138, RSVP oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu   

 

Wednesday, November 16, 5:30 pm  

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

Ricardo Padrón, University of Virginia: “The Chinese Discovery of America? Franciscan Missionaries and Mexican Material Culture in Guangzhou, 1579.”  

Pembroke Hall 305, Brown University, Providence, RI  

 

In 1579, a group of Franciscan friars under the leadership of one Fray Pedro Alfaro attempted to establish a mission in China. Taken into custody by the Ming authorities, their destiny was shaped by the work of both human and non-human mediators, specifically a Chinese interpreter and a series of objects that the friars had brought with them from New Spain. As far as we know, this incident represents the first encounter between Chinese literati and the material culture of colonial Spanish America. The encounter provides an opportunity to reflect on patterns of early modern globalization facilitated by trans-Pacific travel.  

More information: https://events.brown.edu/early-modern-world/event/236965-early-modern-lecture-ricardo-padron-university-of  

  

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.  

 

Thursday, December 1, 2022, 5:00pm-7:00pm 

Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies 

Five College Seminar in Book History with Joyce Chaplin (Harvard University) 

This talk will be held via Zoom. Register here. 

More information: https://www.umass.edu/renaissance/event/bookhistchaplin2022 

 

Thursday, December 1, 2022, 6:00pm 

Harvard MHC Seminar on Eighteenth Century Studies 

New Eyes on the Eighteenth Century: XIII Dinner Symposium 

Barker Center, Harvard University, Room 133, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA, 02138 

 

Tuesday, 12/6/2022 12:00pm to 1:15pm   

Ashley Gonik (History, Harvard), “Approaching Error in Early Modern Printed Tables” (ESWG, Harvard)  

Location: On Zoom and in person in Science Center room 252 (SC252), 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA, 02138, RSVP: oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu   

 

 

 

***  

 

*If you would like your announcement to be posted in an upcoming Early Mod Events listing please send your event details to: 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