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 are 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.
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
** (New Time) Tuesday, April 18, 5pm
MEMHS, Brown University
Neil Safier (Brown University). “Translating the Plantationocene from the Prerevolutionary
Caribbean to Colonial Brazil.”
Location: Brown University, to be announced. More information:
https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?…
How was the language of plantation society ported from the French and English-dominated
Caribbean to colonial Brazil in the eighteenth century? What role did agro-industrial
treatises play in the perpetuation of systems of enslaved labor as plantation societies
shifted from sugar production to a wider array of foodstuffs, beverages, and
profit-oriented utilitarian crops? Long understood to be powerful manuals for naturalists
and plantation masters alike, these pragmatic instructional texts, focused around
questions of climate, natural history, and commodity-driven agriculture, have only
recently been understood to have circulated outside the narrow Caribbean world for which
they were destined. One iconic protagonist of this translation process was the Franciscan
friar José Mariano da Conceição Vellozo (1742-1811), who served as a linguistic conduit
for moving natural knowledge from an array of texts produced in colonial cultures around
the globe into print – and into Portuguese in particular. This talk examines Vellozo’s
multi-volume and multi-faceted Fazendeiro do Brazil (1798-1806) with an eye toward
connecting the eighteenth-century natural sciences, the ambitions of expanding
plantation-based economies, and the politics of translation across the multilingual
geographies of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world.
Wednesday, April 19, 2023, 5pm EST
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Debapriya Sarkar, Assistant Professor of English at University of Connecticut,
"Geographies of Race in The Tempest and Antony and Cleopatra."
In-person event. Barker Center, 211, Harvard University, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA
https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/harvard-eng-grad-colloquium/renaissa…
*Wednesday, April 19th at 5.30 pm
Brown University, Center for the Study of the Early Modern World
The Putnam Lecture sponsored by Brown Department of Classics: “Statius and Virgil in the
Silvae of Angelo Poliziano”
Bruce Gibson (Liverpool)
Brown University, Rhode Island Hall, Room 108
https://events.brown.edu/early-modern-world/event/253236-the-annual-michael…
April 20, 5:30 PM
Center for the Study of the Early Modern World, Cogut Institute for the Humanities, Brown
University
Center of Excellence: New Perspectives on New France
Micah True (University of Alberta, Canada)
"lndigenous Literacies and the Jesuit Relations from New France: The Case of Joseph
Chi hoatenhwa"
Webinar. Registration
link<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__brown.zoom.us_…
**Thursday, April 20, 2023, 7:00pm
British actor and writer Paterson Joseph will read from his brand new novel, The Secret
Diaries of Ignatius Sancho. Co-sponsored by the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard
Hutchins Center and Harvard MHC Seminar on Eighteenth-Century Studies
Location: 133 Barker Center, Harvard University, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
The novel, The Secret Life of Charles Ignatius
Sancho<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__nam12.safeli…
is based on the life and published letters (1780) of the Black British letter-writer. The
novel was released in the UK in October 2022 and will be released in the US in April 2023.
The novel also draws upon the one-man performance Paterson created in 2014, Sancho, A
Remembrance<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__nam12.s…QPKRc0eXAqlkn8Bh3PY&e=>.
Friday, April 21, 2023, 5:30 pm reception, 6:00 pm Seminar
Shakespearean Studies Seminar, Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University
Gregory Semenza, Professor of English, University of Connecticut, “‘Please, just no
Shakespeare’: Reinventing Authorship in Station Eleven.”
Location: In-person Event, Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
Friday, April 21, 2023, 4:30pm
Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, Dan S. Collins Lecture
“Early Modern Erotica & the Pleasures of Paranoid Reading”
Melissa Sanchez, Director of Penn’s Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and
Transgender Studies
Location: The Old Chapel, 144, Hicks Way, Amherst, MA
Tuesday, April 25, 2023, 12pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Maryam Patton (History and Middle Eastern Studies), “Past as Prelude: The Role of
Historical Knowledge Among Early Ottoman Astrologers”
Hybrid format: In-person at Science Center room 252 (SC252), Harvard University, 1 Oxford
St, Cambridge MA, 02138 and on Zoom (email Mateo Montoya, mateomontoya(a)g.harvard.edu, to
register either for the in-person meeting or for the Zoom link, and to receive the
precirculated paper)
**Wednesday, April 26th at 5.30 pm
Brown University, Center for the Study of the Early Modern World
Lecture: “Human Resources: Class and Cannibalism in ‘The Hock-Cart’”
Syrithe Pugh, Reader in English at the University of Aberdeen
Brown University, Rhode Island Hall, Room 108
https://events.brown.edu/early-modern-world/event/227769-early-modern-lectu…
Thursday, April 27 to Sat, April 29, 2023
Center for the Study of the Early Modern World, Cogut Institute for the Humanities, Brown
University
Conference: Nahuatl Texts and Contexts: Annual Meeting of the Association of Nahuatl
Scholars
Alumnae Hall, Crystal Room, Brown University, Providence RI
Website
Link<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__events.brown.e…
*Saturday, April 29, 8:30am-9pm
Tufts University, Department of Music
Conference and Concert, "Bien chanter/Vivre bien: Music, Poetry, and Moral Philosophy
in Early Modern Europe”
Granoff Music Center, 20 Talbot Ave, Medford MA
Organized by Melinda Latour (Tufts University), Julien Goeury (Université de Paris
IV-Sorbonne), and Isabelle His (Université de Poitiers)
This interdisciplinary conference brings together an international group of musicologists,
literary scholars, and historians to consider how poetry, music, and other informal modes
of philosophical engagement were used to creatively explore questions of living and dying
well in early modern Europe. What is virtue, and how can one cultivate it? What
multisensory practices of performing, listening, or viewing might contribute to practical
wisdom? How were the musical and poetic arts thought to regulate and connect the mind and
body? How did moral poetry and song work alongside, challenge, and expand religious and
devotional practices? The keynote event will be a concert on April 29, 8pm by the
Paris-based ensemble Faenza, led by Marco Horvat. All events are free and open to the
public, but advance registration is required through the following link.
https://forms.gle/6k2iNbMrfZLe1dsB8
**Monday, 5/1/2023
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Book History
Graduate Conference “Textual Relations”
Location: Brown University, Providence RI (In-person event with online option)
More information and
program<https://bookhistory.harvard.edu/sites/projects.iq.harvard.edu/fi…
The 14th Annual Harvard-Yale-Brown Graduate Conference in Book History “Textual Relations”
is hosted by the John Carter Brown Library and the John Hay Library in Providence, RI.
Several talks pertain to the early modern period (see link above).
Wednesday, May 3, 2023, 5pm EST
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Closing Event
In-person event
https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/harvard-eng-grad-colloquium/renaissa…
Wednesday, May 3, 2023, 6:00pm
Julian Weiss (King's College, London): “Resistance and Reparation: Josephus in the
Sephardic Diaspora, 1492-1687” (Brown Early Modern World Lecture)
Pembroke Hall, 305, Brown University, Providence RI.
This lecture is on the reception of Flavius Josephus (c. 37-100 CE) in the early modern
Iberian world. Josephus became one of the most widely read classical historians of all
time, a fundamental witness to Jewish history, and one of the turning points in world
history – the Judean rebellion against Rome (66-70 CE) and the destruction of Jerusalem
and the second Temple.
For more information click
here<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__events.brown.e…4lGy-gAUYPag25f6HvU&e=>.
*Thursday, May 4, 9:15 am – 2:10 pm
Boston University Department of Philosophy
Conference: “Organism & Life: Herder – Kant – Hegel”
Boston University, STH 325 and on Zoom
For information and to receive the zoom link, contact the organizers:
Giulia Battistoni (gbattist(a)bu.edu) and Kuizhi Lewis Wang (kwang39(a)bu.edu)
Thursday, May 4, 1:30 – 3:30 p.m.
Presented by the Harvard Warren Center’s Workshop on “Capitalism’s Hardwiring: Money,
Credit, and Finance in a Globalizing World, 1620-2020”
Simon Middleton (College of William and Mary), “Current Money and Community in Early
America”
Harvard Law School (WCC 3019)
Thursday, May 4, 5:30pm
Harvard Mahindra Center Seminar on Women, Gender, and Culture in the Early Modern World
ZOOM roundtable on Keeping scholarship and teaching on early modern gender studies vital
and healthy in the current climate of shrinking humanities.
More information to come.
Friday, 5/5/2023 to Saturday, 5/6/2023
Kant’s Theory of Imagination: A Workshop (Harvard History of Philosophy
Workshop)<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/kant%E2%80%99s-…
Location: The Thompson Room, Barker Center, Room 110, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
(see link for details)
Monday, May 8, 2023, 1:00pm to 5:30pm
Harvard MHC Seminar on Eighteenth-Century Studies
Symposium in two parts, presenting ideas recovered from “The Radical Eighteenth Century”
Location: Thomson Room of the Barker Center, Harvard University (12 Quincy St., Cambridge
MA)
Twelve leading feminist scholars, including Ros Ballaster, Kristina Straub, Mona Narain,
Jennie Batchelor, Tita Chico, Betty Schellenburg, Manushag Powell, Regulus Allen, and
Susan Carlisle will present ideas recovered from “The Radical Eighteenth Century.” The
first roundtable discussion, from 1-3 will be about “Critiques of Capitalism” that
surfaced in the eighteenth century. The second roundtable discussion from 3:30 to 5:30,
will be about those ideas that went against the grain of individualism but were examples
of ”Thinking Through the Community.” Questions will also be taken from the floor and
discussion among the participants and the audience will be encouraged.
Tuesday, May 16, 2023, 12pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Spencer Weinreich (Harvard Society of Fellows), “Daily Bread: Towards a Material History
of the Eucharist”
Hybrid format: In-person at Science Center room 252 (SC252), Harvard University, 1 Oxford
St, Cambridge MA, 02138 and on Zoom (email Mateo Montoya, mateomontoya(a)g.harvard.edu, to
register either for the in-person meeting or for the Zoom link, and to receive the
precirculated paper)
June 5-9, 2023
Co-sponsored by Folger Institute and Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance
Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Introduction to English Paleography (course)
Course Director: Dr. Heather
Wolfe<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.folger.ed…PK-Y1COYuswrlCqHkR4&e=>,
Curator of Manuscripts and Archivist, Folger Shakespeare Library.
This weeklong course provides an intensive introduction to handwriting in early modern
England, with a particular emphasis on the English secretary hand of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. The course will highlight the strengths of our rare book collection
and materials related to The Renaissance of the Earth. Find more information
here<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.folger.edu…
Application deadline 6 March 2023 was for admission and grants-in-aid for Folger Institute
Consortium<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.folg…
affiliates.
***
*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 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.
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RSVP or Registration information/link