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<mailto:earlymod@fas.harvard.edu>.
For security reasons the list will usually 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:
https://shakespeareconference.com/; deadline Feb 29, 2024.
Undergraduate Shakespeare Conference: "Shakespeare & Play", an in-person
academic conference for undergraduate students from Greater Boston, Central Mass, and New
England more broadly.
Keynote speaker: David Sterling Brown, PhD (Assoc. Prof of English, Trinity College).
Conference Date: April 27, 2024 at Clark University, 950 Main St, Worcester, MA.
Please see the website (above) for submissions or email ClarkShaxConference2024(a)gmail.com
for more info
Upcoming Fortnight: Events
2/28/2024 5:00pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Renaissance Studies
Chad
Córdova<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/chad-c%C3%B3rdova…=0>,
Emory University, Margins Without Center: Grotesque Ontologies and the Ecopolitical
Thinking of Montaigne's
Essays<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/chad-c%C3%B3rdova-…
Location: Online (See Details)
Registration
link<https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUldu-hqzoiGNAFiYIlSGl9yQ3CsuC4X6No>
Wednesday, February 28th, 2024, 7:00 PM
Spotlight session: Torquato Tasso & the Italian madrigal
Featuring guest speaker, Emiliano Ricciardi (Associate Professor of Music History at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Online via Zoom
https://www.blueheron.org/concerts/spotlight-sessions/ricciardi/
In this talk, we will explore the musical reception of Tasso’s poetry, discussing the
cultural and social conditions that made Tasso’s poetry so influential. Likewise, we will
examine how composers reacted musically to his work. To do so, we will explore the variety
of musical styles composers employed to match the diverse character of Tasso’s poetry,
ranging from the lighthearted musical manner often found in settings of his lyric poems to
the quasi-operatic style that composers like Wert and Monteverdi championed in response to
the impassioned tone of the epic poem Gerusalemme liberata.
2/29/2024 3:00pm
History of Philosophy Workshop: Katherine Brading (Duke University) and Jeff McDonough
(Harvard University), “Emilie Du Châtelet: Time and Time
Again”<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/history-philosophy…
Location: Robbins Library, Emerson Hall 211, Harvard University
*2/29/2024 4:30pm to 6:00pm
CMES Harvard
Efe Murat Balıkçıoğlu, NYU: Verifying the Truth on Their Own Terms Ottoman Philosophical
Culture and the Court Debate between Zeyrek (d. 903/1497-98 [?]) and Ḫocazāde (d.
893/1488). Discussant: Maryam Patton,
Harvard<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/efe-murat-bal%C4%…
Location: Harvard CMES, Rm 102, 38 Kirkland St, Cambridge MA
*Thursday, February 29, 2023, 4:30pm
Five College Renaissance Seminar
Yael Rice, Associate Professor of Art & the History of Art and of Asian Languages and
Civilizations, Amherst College: Painting the Persianate World: Portable Images on Paper,
Cloth, and Clay: An Exhibition Preview
Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, 650 East Pleasant St. Amherst,
MA
Yael Rice will speak about the new Smith College Museum of Art exhibition, which she is
co-curating: Painting the Persianate World: Portable Images on Paper, Cloth, and
Clay<https://umass.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=14813fa107cdfebbc1…
(opened February 2, 2024). The exhibition looks at cultural, artistic, and other
connections across South Asia and Iran between the 13th and 19th centuries, and also
includes two works by the contemporary Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander.
Rice's seminar talk will focus on the exhibition materials dating from the 13th-16th
centuries, while also touching on contemporary makers in India, Iran, and Europe, who
continue earlier practices of painting on textiles, ceramics, and paper.
2/29/24, 4:30-6:00pm
Providence College Seminar on the History of Early America (PC-SHEA)
Dr. Aaron
Fogleman<https://history.providence.edu/providence-college-seminar-on-th…
(Northern Illinois University), “African Voices in the American Revolution: Atlantic
Perspectives”<https://history.providence.edu/providence-college-seminar-…
Location: Ruane Center for the Humanities LL49, Providence College, One Cunningham Square,
Providence, RI
*2/29/2024 5:30pm
Harvard MHC Seminar on Women, Gender, and Culture in the Early Modern World
Alisha
Rankin<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/alisha-rankin-tuft…=0>,
Tufts University, “A Useless Sack of Bones”: Old Women as Medical and Political Agents in
Early Modern
Europe<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/alisha-rankin-tuft…
Location: Warren House, Kates Room (201), Harvard Yard, Cambridge MA
3/5/2024 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Wenfei
Wang<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/wenfei-wang-epistemo…
- An Epistemology of Surgery as Technique in Early Modern
China<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/wenfei-wang-epistem…
Location: Harvard Science Center 252, Lunch is provided (1 Oxford St, Cambridge MA)
For any questions, please contact ESWG coordinators at
brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu<mailto:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu> or
analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu<mailto:analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu>
3/6/2024 5:00pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar Buddhist Studies Forum
Rae Erin
Dachille<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/rae-erin-dachill…=0>,
University of Arizona: “Regard the Seams and Sutures: Exegesis and Imagination in
Fifteenth-Century
Tibet”<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/rae-erin-dachille-…
Location: Harvard Barker Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
Events later on:
3/13/2024 5:30pm
Brown University Early Modern World
Natalie Van Deusen, Relics of an Ancient Past: Catholic Saints in Early Modern Iceland
Location: TBD
More
information<https://earlymodernworld.brown.edu/upcoming-events>
3/14/2024 5:30pm-7:00pm
Brown University Early Modern World and Brown Center for Latin American and Caribbean
Studies
Keynote Lecture: Ana Lucia Araujo, Howard University: “The Gift: A French Atlantic History
of Slavery and Memory”
Location: Cogut Institute, Pembroke Hall, room 305, Brown University, Providence RI
This keynote lecture opens “France and the Black Atlantic: Geographies of Slavery and
Memory,” a workshop that seeks to engage with the burgeoning scholarship on French and
francophone ideas and ideologies of race, Blackness (“négritude” in French), and the
economic foundations of the transatlantic slave trade, in the context of inter-imperial
rivalries and colonization schemes from Africa to the Americas. More
information<https://earlymodernworld.brown.edu/upcoming-events>
3/15/2024 9:30pm-5:30pm
Brown University Early Modern World and Brown Center for Latin American and Caribbean
Studies
Workshop “France and the Black Atlantic: Geographies of Slavery and Memory”
Location: Brown University, Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center, Petteruti Lounge
Provisional
Schedule<https://events.brown.edu/cogut/event/277319-keynote-lecture-ana…
3/15/2024 5:30pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Shakespearean Studies
Shankar
Raman<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/shankar-raman-profe…=0>,
Professor of Literature, MIT: “Nature’s Bias: Twelfth Night, King Lear, and The
Tempest<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/shankar-raman-pro…
Location: Harvard Barker Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
3/18/2024 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Harvard Early Modern Workshop
Markus
Krajewski<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/markus-krajewsk…
(Media Studies, University of Basel, Switzerland), “Comments on Edible Monuments as
Nutrition for Thinking on Baroque
Tables”<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/markus-krajewski-…
Location: History Department Conference Room, Robinson Hall, Harvard Yard
Please
RSVP<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc0xxOXxdyu2WoiAFoBymg2rce…
by March 8 to ensure that we have a lunch for you. Sponsored by the.
Thursday, March 21, 2024, 9:20 - 10:00 a.m.
Jesuit Studies Café, Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies, Boston College
From Early Modern Missions to Proselytism(s): History of a Seminar (EHESS, Paris)
Speakers: Dr. Hélène Vu-Thanh, Université Bretagne-Sud and Dr. Margherita Trento, École
des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
Online on Zoom, registration link at
https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/centers/iajs/programs/jesuit-studies-cafe…
This presentation will trace the history and evolution of a major seminar that gathers at
the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, discussing religious missions in
the Iberian world and different forms of proselytism. The presenters will highlight the
seminar’s contribution to studying the Society of Jesus.
Saturday, Mar. 23, 2024, 8:00 PM
Tasso & Wert: A concert of Italian madrigals
11 Garden St, Cambridge, MA
https://www.blueheron.org/concerts/season25/tasso-wert/
Blue Heron’s exploration of the Italian madrigal continues with a new program featuring
settings of dramatic scenes by Torquato Tasso (the most prominent poet of late
sixteenth-century Italy) with music by the great Giaches de Wert & others.
3/26/2024 5:00-6:30pm
Sponsored by the International Academic Programs-Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Legal
History Colloquium, and Harvard Early Modern Workshop
The IAP Annual Lecture in Legal History,
<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/silvia-di-paolo-medieval-and-modern-legal-history-roma-tre-university-law?delta=0>
Silvia Di
Paolo<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/silvia-di-paolo-med…
(Medieval and Modern Legal History in the Law Department, University of Rome Tre), “How
ill-gotten gains produced public good in Late Medieval canon law”
<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/silvia-di-paolo-medieval-and-modern-legal-history-roma-tre-university-law?delta=0>
Location: Law School, Wasserstein Hall (WCC), Harvard University, 18 Everett Street
(Corner with Mass Ave), Room 3008
Poster
Download<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/sites/projects.iq.harv…
3/27/2024 5:00pm
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Kristen
Poole<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/kristen-poole-profe…=0>,
Professor of English at University of Delaware, "Living Insphered: Milton’s Cosmic
Proprioception."<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/kri…
Location: TBA, Harvard University (in-person event)
3/28/2024 2pm-3pm
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester MA
Duncan Faherty: “The Haitian Revolution in the Early Republic of Letters”
Zoom Event. This virtual program is free, but registration is required:
Register<https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BpqC1h4JSGynimujy7J8yw>
American periodicals covered the Haitian revolution from its outbreak in 1791 until well
after it ended in 1804, describing it with sentimental and sensationalist undertones that
helped shape U.S. literary culture in the early nineteenth century. Yet, scholars have
often ignored how early Americans understood their nation as entwined with Haiti. Drawing
on his new book, The Haitian Revolution in the Early Republic of Letters (Oxford
University Press, January 2024), Duncan Faherty explores this phenomenon and shows how
obsessed early American readers were with the seismic force of the Haitian Revolution and
its aftershocks in the US domestic sphere. Not just an enigma occasionally deployed by
American writers, Haiti was rather the inspiration for new ideas of freedom and resistance
in a still-young nation.
More information:
https://www.americanantiquarian.org/virtual-book-talk-duncan-faherty-0
3/28/2024 5:30pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on the History of the Book
Roger
Chartier<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/roger-chartier-d…
(Dept of History, University of Pennsylvania, and Collège de France, Paris, emeritus),
“Erasure and Inscription in Early Modern Europe”
<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/roger-chartier-dept-history-university-pennsylvania-and-coll%C3%A8ge-de-france?delta=0>
Location: Barker Center, room 133. 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138 (Harvard
University)
*3/28/2024 5:30pm
Harvard MHC Seminar on Women, Gender, and Culture in the Early Modern World
Liza
Oliver<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/liza-oliver-depart…
(Department of Art, Wellesley College), "Threading Empire: Textile Training and
Anglo-Indian Assimilation in an 18th-Century Calcutta
Orphanage”<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/liza-oliver-de…
Location: TBD, Harvard University
4/2/2024 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Ana Luiza
Nicolae<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/ana-luiza-nicolae…=0>,
The Geometrization of Winds in Mesopotamian and Greek
Antiquity<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/ana-luiza-nicol…
Location: Harvard Science Center 252, Lunch is provided (1 Oxford St, Cambridge MA)
For any questions, please contact ESWG coordinators at
brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu<mailto:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu> or
analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu<mailto:analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu>
4/9/2024 5:30pm
Boston College, The Italian Studies Program and the Dept. of Art, Art History, and Film
Lecture by Dr. Alessandro Serrani (University of Bologna), “Art Patronage in the Bolognese
Renaissance: Revealing the Forgotten Role of the Trade Guilds.”
Location: in-person, Boston College, Devlin Hall 101, 140 Commonwealth Ave., Chestnut
Hill, MA 02467
More
information<https://events.bc.edu/event/art_patronage_in_the_bolognese_r…
4/10/2024 5:00pm
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Sam
Bozoukov<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/sam-bozoukov-hid…=0>,
"The 'Hideous Noise' of Samson Agonistes: Milton's Crisis of
Dissonance" (Graduate Student
Talk)<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/sam-bozoukov-hideou…
Location: TBA, Harvard University (in-person event)
4/10/2024 6:00pm to 7:30pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on the History of the Book
Spencer
Weinreich<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/spencer-weinrei…
(Harvard Society of Fellows and Dept of History of Science, Harvard), "Prison History
as Book
History"<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/spencer-wei…
Location: Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
April 12-14, 2024
Okeghem Weekend
Cambridge and Somerville, MA
https://www.blueheron.org/concerts/season25/okeghem-weekend/
A weekend of concerts, talks, and master classes celebrating the sublime music of Johannes
Okeghem (c. 1420-1497) and his colleagues and contemporaries.
4/12/2024 (All day) to 4/13/2024 (All day)
Hosted by the Center for History & Economics at Harvard University; and supported by
the Harvard Early Modern Workshop, the University of Birmingham, and the Arts and
Humanities Research Council (UK)
Conference ‘Rethinking Early Modern
Confessionalism’<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/conferen…
Location: TBA, Harvard University (in-person event, registration required, see link
details)
4/16/2024 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Briana
Brightly<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/briana-brightly-…=0>,
Dreaming of Tanaduk: Painting the Medicine Buddha’s Pure Land in the Golden Age of Tibetan
Medicine<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/briana-brightly-…
Location: Harvard Science Center 252, Lunch is provided (1 Oxford St, Cambridge MA)
For any questions, please contact ESWG coordinators at
brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu<mailto:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu> or
analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu<mailto:analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu>
Thursday, April 18, 2024, 9:20 - 10:00 a.m. (U.S. Eastern, UTC-4)
Jesuit Studies Café, Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies, Boston College
The Research Group on the Congregation of the Council and the Study of Religious Orders
(Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Theory, Frankfurt)
Dr. Benedetta Albani, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in
Frankfurt
Dr. Francesco Giuliani, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in
Frankfurt
Online on Zoom, registration link at
https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/centers/iajs/programs/jesuit-studies-cafe…
The Congregation of the Council was one of the leading actors of the post-Tridentine
Catholic Reform: it was responsible for the authentic interpretation of the Council’s
disciplinary decrees and their implementation throughout the Catholic world. This
presentation will focus on the multiple interactions between the Congregation of the
Council and the Society of Jesus and suggest fascinating avenues for future research in
this field.
4/18/2024 5:30pm
Brown University Early Modern World
James Hankins (Harvard): Can Political Virtue be Taught? Answers from the Western
Tradition
Location: TBD
More
information<https://earlymodernworld.brown.edu/upcoming-events>
4/18/2024 9am to 5pm
Brown University Early Modern World
Early Modern World Colloquium “Mirrors for Princes”
Location: TBD
More
information<https://earlymodernworld.brown.edu/upcoming-events>
4/19/2024 10:30am
Ashley
Gonik<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/ashley-gonik-histor…
(History, Harvard), dissertation defense of “Structuring Information: Printed Tables as
Organizing Tools in Early Modern
Europe”<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/ashley-gonik-hist…
Location: History Dept Conference Room, Robinson Hall, Harvard Yard
4/19/2024 5:30pm
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Shakespearean Studies
Leah
Whittington<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/leah-whitting…=0>,
Professor of English, Harvard University: Leah Whittington
Seminar<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/leah-whittington-…
Location: Barker Center, Room 133. 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138 (Harvard
University)
4/24/2024 5:00pm
Co-hosted by the Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium and the Theater and
Performance Colloquium, Harvard
Jane Hwang
Degenhardt<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/jane-hwang-deg…=0>,
Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, "Shakespeare's
Speculative Horizons: The Impossible, the Unknowable, and the Dream of Other Worlds"
<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/jane-hwang-degenhardt-professor-english-university-massachusetts-amherst?delta=0>
Location: TBA, Harvard University (In-Person Event)
4/25/24 4:30-6:00pm
Providence College Seminar on the History of Early America (PC-SHEA)
Dr. Jessica Roney
(<https://history.providence.edu/providence-college-seminar-on-the-history-of-early-america/>Temple
University), “The Colony That Wasn’t, and What That Meant for the Future of North America,
c.
1774”<https://history.providence.edu/providence-college-seminar-on-the-h…
Location: Ruane Center for the Humanities LL49, Providence College, One Cunningham Square,
Providence, RI
4/30/2024 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Alex
Garnick<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/alex-garnick-van-…=0>,
van Roomen on al- Khwārizmī and the Divergence of Early Modern
Algebras<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/alex-garnick-van…
Location: Harvard Science Center 252, Lunch is provided (1 Oxford St, Cambridge MA)
For any questions, please contact ESWG coordinators at
brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu<mailto:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu> or
analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu<mailto:analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu>
5/1/2024 5:00pm
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Closing Event: Spenser on the Lawn: Picnic and Faerie Queene
Reading<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/closing-event-spe…
Location: Barker Center Lawn, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138
*5/2/2024 5:30pm
Harvard MHC Seminar on Women, Gender, and Culture in the Early Modern World
Save the date: Mary Erica Zimmer (Concourse Program, MIT), title
TBA<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/save-date-mary-erica-…
Location: Harvard, TBD
5/6/2024
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on the History of the Book
Save the date for the annual Harvard-Yale-Brown graduate conference in Book History which
will include some sessions on the early modern context.
Harvard, Barker Center 133, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
***
*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<mailto:earlymod@fas.harvard.edu>
To be included in the Early Mod Events mailing, the event must take place or (in case of
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email with the announcement. If your event is being held in-person, please specify this,
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