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 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(a)gmail.com for more info
**Upcoming Fortnight: Events
*Monday, September 11, 2023, 4:00pm to 6:00pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group Reception
Jefferson Tent, Harvard University
(
map<https://mapprod.cadm.harvard.edu/portal/apps/indoors/?appid=2c3969f8…)
RSVP to analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu<mailto:analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu>
Tuesday, September 12, 2023, 5:00pm
Sponsored by the Early Modern World Initiative, Harvard
Early Modern World Aperitivo
Basement Seminar Room, Robinson Hall, Harvard Yard
Featuring four flashtalks:
Shawon Kinew (History of Art and Architecture, Harvard), “St. Paul’s Earth and Sacred
Sculpture”
Greg Given (Expository Writing, Harvard), “Fixing the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch in
17th Century England”
Alison Simmons (Philosophy, Harvard), “Our Bodies, Ourselves, Cartesian Style”
Tom Kelly (East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard), “The Ink-Maker's Mark in
Early Modern China.”
Followed by a reception.
*Thursday, September 14, 5:30 pm
Center for the Study of the Early Modern World, Brown University
Early Modern World Lecture: Rocío Gutiérrez Sumillera, University of Granada/Brown
University: “‘The Lands of Chivalrie’: Mapping Books of Errantry in the 17th Century”
Brown University, Rhode Island Hall 108. Read
more<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__brown.us16.lis…KPPobCfpZKo_uyF83XY&e=>.
Monday, September 18, 2023, 4:30pm to 6:30pm
Annual Parry Lecture at Harvard
Cátia Antunes (Leiden University), “De-nationalizing empire: Dutch involvement in the
Early Modern British, French, and Spanish empires”
CGIS South 050 (Thomas Chan-Soo Kang Room), Harvard University, 1730 Cambridge St,
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Early Modern European empires are portrayed and perceived as nationally geared
enterprises, as entangled spaces at the peripheries and as zones of contact. In the
Netherlands, these perceptions have filtered into the public debate that seeks to define
material and immaterial responsibilities for the colonial past. What the historiographical
perceptions, academic portrayals and public debate seem, however, to ignore is the role
played by foreigners (being non-subjects of a specific king or republic) in exploiting the
empires of other countries. It is thus pertinent to enquire to how and why Dutch
entrepreneurs (being those taking risks in matters of trade or production, introducing
innovations, making decisions based on information that others did not possess and
searching for opportunities where most perceived risk) participated in exploiting the
English, French and Iberian empires, as Dutch firms are particularly prominent in the
European colonial landscape. Since Dutch entrepreneurs engaged in exploiting the resources
of those other countries, what is the future of the public debate in the Netherlands, and
Europe at large, regarding a shared responsibility for the colonial past?
More
information<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/annual-parry-…
*Tuesday, September 19, 1pm EST
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Houghton Graduate Workshop by Greg Doran, the Royal Shakespeare Company's former
artistic director on the transmission history of Shakespeare's plays and the
director's perspective on the role of the First Folio in Shakespearean performance.
Attendance limited to Harvard Early Modern Graduate students and faculty.
Location: Hofer Room, Houghton Library
https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/harvard-eng-grad-colloquium/renaissa…
*Tuesday, September 19, 2023, 3:00pm to 5:00pm
Harvard History of Philosophy Workshop
Matthias Armgardt (University of Hamburg), "Leibniz's Legal Philosophy"
Robbins Library, Emerson Hall 211, Harvard Yard
*Tuesday, September 19, 2023, 4:30pm
Five College Renaissance
Seminar<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.umass.e…
Shannon McHugh (Associate Professor of Italian and French, UMass Boston)
"Petrarch and the Making of Gender in Renaissance Italy: A Conversation"
Moderated by Sanam Nader-Esfahani (Assistant Professor of French, Amherst College)
The Aliki Perroti & Seth Frank Lyceum, Room 101 (CHI Think Tank)
Amherst College
197 South Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01002
[
map<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__map.concept3d.c…]
Co-sponsors: European Studies Program (Amherst College); Dept. of French (Amherst
College)
*Tuesday, September 19, 4:30pm
MEMHS Brown University Medieval & Early Modern History Seminar
Dillon Webster (Graduate Student, History Department, Brown University), “Conquered Lands,
Strengthened Hands.” There will be a pre-circulated paper for this talk.
https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/
Tuesday September 19, 5pm-6:30pm
Opening event of the Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar in History of the Book, featuring
four flashtalks by:
Matt Aiello (Harvard Society of Fellows), “Material Traces of Linguistic Trauma in
Twelfth-Century England”
Devin Fitzgerald (Council on East Asia Studies and Beinecke Library), “Global and/or
Comparative Book Histories: The Problem of Comparing Editions”
Molly Schwartzburg (Houghton Library), “How to collect on a theme: developing Printing
& Graphic Arts holdings on print in the digital age”
Jennifer Roberts (History of Art and Architecture, Harvard), “Book Launch”
Followed by a reception. Barker Center 133, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA.
*Thursday, September 21, 6pm–7:30pm
Sponsored by the UMass Boston Frisone Scott Center for Italian Cultural Studies with the
New York University Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò
Book launch—Staging the Renaissance: A Conversation with the Authors of Three New Books on
Italian Renaissance Art and Culture
Lorenzo Buonanno (UMass Boston), The Performance of Sculpture in Renaissance Venice
Shannon McHugh (UMass Boston), Petrarch and the Making of Gender in Renaissance Italy
Eugenio Refini (NYU), Staging the Soul: Allegorical Drama as Spiritual Practice in Baroque
Italy
Location: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 25 Evans Way, Boston, MA 02115 (in person)
Free admission to talk and museum; RSVP required
RSVP:
https://bit.ly/StagingtheRen
*Thursday, September 21, 2023, 7:00pm
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Eighteenth-Century Studies
Tara Bynum, University of Iowa: Obour Tanner's Archive; or How to Remember a Friend
Online: registration see linked webpage
Tara A. Bynum is an Assistant Professor of English & African American Studies at
University of Iowa. She is author of Reading Pleasures.
Please add your name and email to this registration
page<https://northeastern.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYqduigqj8oE9MmjKGrE6CZ9QPrP8QO71Ff>.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about
joining the meeting.
See also: Eighteenth-Century
Studies<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/seminars/eighteenth-c…
Events later this Semester:
*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<mailto:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu> or
analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu<mailto:analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu>
*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-a…
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
*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 to a joint Medieval-Renaissance Colloquia audience.
Location: Harvard Barker Center 211, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/harvard-eng-grad-colloquium/renaissa…
*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<https://events.brown.edu/early-modern-world/event/264250-early-mode…am>.
*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
See also: Shakespearean
Studies<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/seminars/shakespearea…
*Thursday, October 12, 2023, 4:30pm
Five College Renaissance
Seminar<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.umass.e…
Eyob Derillo (Curator for the Ethiopic and Ethiopian Collections, British Library)
A Virtual Tour of the British Library's Illuminated Ethiopian Manuscripts
Virtual event on Zoom
[
register<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__umass-2Dam…]
*October 17, 2023, TBA
MEMHS Brown University Medieval & Early Modern History Seminar
Tiraana Bains (Assistant Professor, History Department, Brown University), TBA
https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/
*October 18, 5pm EST
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Graduate Student Presentation: Caroline Engelmayer, graduate student in English,
"'Forsake me not thus': Ovid's Heroides and Milton's Psychology
of Alienation"
Graduate Student Presentation and Workshop on the pre-circulated paper
Location: Barker Center 211
https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/harvard-eng-grad-colloquium/renaissa…
*October 20, 2023, 2:30pm - 7:30pm EDT
Center for the Study of the Early Modern World, Brown University
Early Modern World Colloquium: European Colonialism in the Americas: Consequences and
Contemporary Responses
Confirmed speakers are: Prof. Gustavo Verdesio (University of Michigan) and Prof. Kimberly
Borchard (Randolph-Macon College)
Rhode Island Hall, Room 108, Brown University
Center for the Study of the Early Modern
World<http://events.brown.edu/early-modern-world/>
*Tuesday, October 24, 2023, 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Sherah Bloor (Committee on the Study of Religion), “Anatomy of the Soul: Swedenborg and
Kant on the Mechanics of the Internal Senses”
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<mailto:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu> or
analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu<mailto:analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu>
*November 1st, 5pm EST
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Jessica Beckman, Assistant Professor of English at Dartmouth, "Reading the Room:
Spenser and the Space of the Text"
Location: Barker Center 211
https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/harvard-eng-grad-colloquium/renaissa…
*Tuesday, November 7, 2023, 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Hannah Kaemmer (Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning, Harvard),
“Engineers as Imperial Agents in 17th-Century England”
The meeting will be held in hybrid format, both on Zoom and in person in Science Center
room 252 (SC252). Email:
brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu<mailto:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu> or
analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu<mailto:analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu>
Tuesday, November 14, 2023, 5:00pm
Sponsored by the Asia Center and the Early Modern Workshop in the Department of History,
Harvard
Book launch and discussion featuring Joshua Ehrlich (University of Macau), author of The
East India Company and the Politics of Knowledge (CUP 2023) in conversation with Alex
Csiszar (History of Science, Harvard) and Rishad Choudhury (Oberlin College)
Belfer Case Study Room, CGIS S020, 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge MA
This is a hybrid event; please register here for the zoomlink:
https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qa_rmn8RRCqw5j6dSoUoKA
*Wednesday, November 15, 5pm EST
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Catherine Nicholson, Professor of English at Yale, "Reforming the Alphabet: The
Renaissance Before Reading"
Location: Barker Center 211
https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/harvard-eng-grad-colloquium/renaissa…
*Thursday, November 16, 2023, 5:30pm
Brown University History Department
44th William Church Memorial Lecture: Jennifer Morgan (NYU); TBA
Location: TBD
More information is coming soon.
Brown University Center for the Study of the Early Modern
World<http://events.brown.edu/early-modern-world/> and MEMHS Brown University
Medieval & Early Modern History
Seminar<https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/>
*Friday, November 17, 2023, 5:30pm
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Shakespearean Studies
Yu Jin Ko, Professor of English, Wellesley College: Consent and Animation in A Midsummer
Night’s Dream: The Korean Madang as a New Green World
Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
See also: Shakespearean
Studies<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/seminars/shakespearea…
*Monday, November 20, 5pm EST
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
James Simpson, the Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor Emeritus of English at
Harvard, "Modernity's Selfhood and the Desacralization of Images; or, Being an
Early Modern Image Hurts"
Professor Simpson will speak to to a joint Medieval-Renaissance Colloquia audience.
Location: TBA
https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/harvard-eng-grad-colloquium/renaissa…
*Tuesday, November 28, 2023, 3:00pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group and Philosophy Department
Gideon Manning (Associate Professor of History of Medicine and Humanities at the
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Director of the Cedars-Sinai Program in the History of
Medicine): “Descartes, Images, and the Iconography of Actions"
Robbins Library, Emerson Hall 211, Harvard Yard
Email:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu<mailto:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu> or
analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu<mailto:analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu>
*Tuesday, November 28 (Due to the Thanksgiving Break, MEMHS is moved forward to November
28), 4:30 PM
MEMHS Brown University Medieval & Early Modern History Seminar
Gershon D. Hundert (Leanor Segal Professor of Jewish Studies, McGill University. (This is
a joint event, MEMHS & Judaic Studies, Brown University).
Location: TBA
https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/
Wednesday, November 29, 2023, 5pm
Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar in History of the Book
Molly Hardy (Independent scholar), “Plant Machines: Information Ecologies from Carl
Linnaeus to Asa Gray,” followed by a comment by Whitney Barlow Robles (Visiting Scholar,
Dartmouth).
Barker Center 133, 12 Quicy St, Cambridge MA
*Thursday, November 30, 3pm EST
Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
MFA Visit: "Strong Women in Renaissance Italy"
Please join us for a visit to and self-guided group tour of the MFA's Special
Exhibition, "Strong Women in Renaissance Italy." More info on the exhibition can
be found
here<https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/strong-women-in-renaissance-italy#fi…96>.
Location: Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave, Boston
https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/harvard-eng-grad-colloquium/renaissa…
*Monday, December 4, 2023 8:00pm
Robert Darnton, Harvard: Talk on his forthcoming book, The Revolutionary Temper, Paris
1748-1789
Location: Boston Athenaeum, 10½ Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108
*Tuesday, December 5, 2023, 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Ori Ben-Shalom (History of Science, Harvard), “With Armed Eyes: Plague, the Perplexities
of the Microscope, and the Struggle over History”
Location:
Hybrid format: In-person at Science Center room 252 (SC252), Harvard University, 1 Oxford
St, Cambridge MA, 02138 and on Zoom (see event details)
The meeting will be held in hybrid format, both on Zoom and in person in Science Center
room 252 (SC252). Email:
brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu<mailto:brianabrightly@g.harvard.edu> or
analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu<mailto:analuiza_nicolae@g.harvard.edu>
*December 6, 5:30pm EST
Center for the Study of the Early Modern World, Brown University
Early Modern World Lecture: Ben Leeming (Rivers High School, Boston)
Location: TBD
More information will be coming soon.
Center for the Study of the Early Modern
World<http://events.brown.edu/early-modern-world/>
*Wednesday, December 13, 2023, 6pm
Robert Darnton, Harvard: Talk on his forthcoming book, The Revolutionary Temper, Paris
1748-1789, in conversation with Ann Blair, Harvard
Location: French Library, 53 Marlborough St., Boston, MA 02116
***
*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
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