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<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 EDT.
* indicates a newly announced event, ** indicates an updated event
Upcoming Events
*Monday, October 3 at 4:00 pm EST
Yale Department of the History of Art & Yale Early Modern Studies Colloquium
Talk: "Revisiting the Theme of Love in Vermeer"
Dr. Aneta Georgievska-Shine, University of Maryland
Location: virtual,
https://yale.zoom.us/j/8472619307
Abstract: Though “love” is widely recognized as one of Vermeer’s central concerns, his
approach to this theme is always full of self-conscious ambiguities. On the one hand, his
deliberately structured, highly refined compositions convey a deep engagement with the
object of representation as such. At the same time, they are often metaphors for something
more universal – if not metaphysical. This double perspective allows him to draw a
connection between the nourishments of physical love and those of art in works such as The
Music Lesson, or between a seemingly worldly, pregnant woman holding a balance and the
Virgin Mary. While this mode of thinking through analogies is part of his culture, what
sets Vermeer apart is his fine balancing between various possible ways of seeing and
representing these relationships between “things” observed and their culturally
established symbolic meanings.
**New Time: Mon Oct 3, 5:15pm
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, 5:30-6:30pm, 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<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.bc.edu_…
Tuesday, 10/4/2022 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Sarah Koval (Music, Harvard), “Music in Early Modern Recipe Books: Notation, Genre,
Wellbeing” (ESWG,
Harvard)<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/sarah-koval-musi…
Location: On Zoom and in person in Science Center room 252 (SC252), 1 Oxford Street,
Cambridge MA, 02138. RSVP:
oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu<mailto:oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu>
**Thursday, Oct 6, 2022, 4pm
Brown University Early Modern World Event
Cécile Fromont (History of Art, Yale University): “Images on a Mission in Early Modern
Kongo and Angola”
Location: Room 120, List Art Bulding, Brown University, 64 College St, Providence RI
The event is free and open to the public.
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:
https://events.brown.edu/early-modern-world/event/236722-early-modern-lectu…
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)<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/brendan-kane-uni…
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.<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__northeastern.…
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<mailto:lanser@brandeis.edu>
*10/7/2022 1:00pm to 2:30pm
Houghton Library Workshop: "Chaucer in Print, 16th & 17th
Centuries"<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/houghton-…
Location: Hofer Classroom, Houghton Library, Harvard Yard (Registration link in details)
October 9, 2022, 10:00am - 1:00pm
Materials Lab Workshop: Modeling Material Culture in
Paper<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__harvardartmus…
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": Charting the Study of Shakespeare, Race, and Book History
Boger Hall 113, 41 Wyllys Ave., Middletown, CT 06459
For more information see the Wesleyan Renaissance Seminar
website<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__rensem.site…pnuEA2JlH9p0WNdhHpk&e=>.
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/<https://urldefense…
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<htt…
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<https://camoes.fas.harvard.edu/schedule-bilingual> for forthcoming
information and registration for the zoom links.
*Friday, Oct 14, 2022, 3pm
Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies
Five College Renaissance Seminar with Adam Zucker (University of Massachusetts Amherst):
“The Soundscape of the Tempest”
Location: 650 East Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA, 01002
https://www.umass.edu/renaissance/event/fcrs-zucker-2022
Saturday, Oct 15, 2022
New England Renaissance Conference (NERC)
Theme: “Instruments of Power in the Global Early Modern.”
Amherst College, Amherst MA
Conference
Website<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.nerc202…
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)<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/ryan-low-history…
Location: On Zoom and in person in Science Center room 252 (SC252), 1 Oxford Street,
Cambridge MA, 02138, RSVP:
oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu<mailto:oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu>
*Tuesday, October 18 at 4:30pm
Medieval History Workshop
Angela Zhang, post-doctoral fellow in the Department of History at Harvard, title TBA
Location: History department conference room (formerly the Lower Library) on the
ground/first floor, Robinson Hall, Harvard Yard
*Tuesday, October 18, 4:30-6:30pm
Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies
Book Launch: Ari Friedlander, University of Mississippi: Rogue Sexuality in Early Modern
English Literature: Desire, Status, Biopolitics
Online via Zoom, contact: rencen(a)umass.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)”
<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/james-raven-university-cambridge-uk-%E2%80%9Cmonsters-myths-and-methods-global-book?delta=0>
Location: In person event: History Dept conference room (formerly the Lower Library) on
the ground/first floor, Robinson Hall, Harvard Yard
**Wednesday, October 26th, 3:00pm
The Gladys Brooks Foundation; Department of History and Classics; Latin American and
Latina/o Studies Program
Providence College Seminar on the History of Early America (PC-SHEA): “At the Center of
the World: Urban Life in Seventeenth Century Mexico City”
Tatiana Seijas; Rutgers University
More information:
https://history.providence.edu/providence-college-seminar-on-the-history-of…
or email Sharon.Murphy(a)providence.edu
Dr. Tatiana Seijas is an Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University who
specializes in Early Modern Global History, the Pacific World, and Latin America. The
Providence College Seminar on the History of Early America meets several times a year to
discuss pre-circulated works in progress, including chapters of doctoral dissertations,
book projects, and article drafts on any aspect of early American history.
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<https://urld…
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)<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/hannah-kaemmer-a…
Location: On Zoom and in person in Science Center room 252 (SC252), 1 Oxford Street,
Cambridge MA, 02138, RSVP:
oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu<mailto: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.
*Thursday, Nov 10, 2022
Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies
Five College Renaissance Seminar with Catherine Infante (Amherst College): “The Arts of
Encounter: Christians, Muslims, and the Power of Images in Early Modern Spain”
650 East Pleasant St, Amherst MA
https://www.umass.edu/renaissance/event/fcrs-infante-2022
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)<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/iman-darwish-his…
Location: On Zoom and in person in Science Center room 252 (SC252), 1 Oxford Street,
Cambridge MA, 02138, RSVP
oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu<mailto: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-lectu…
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<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__umass-2Damhers…MIWHHia06fbITwE_XBU&e=>.
More information:
https://www.umass.edu/renaissance/event/bookhistchaplin2022<https://urld…
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)<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/ashley-gonik-his…
Location: On Zoom and in person in Science Center room 252 (SC252), 1 Oxford Street,
Cambridge MA, 02138, RSVP:
oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu<mailto:oribenshalom@g.harvard.edu>
*Thursday, December 8, 2022, 4:30pm
Kinney Center for Interdiscipinary Renaissance Studies
Five College Renaissance Seminar with Douglas Pfeiffer (Stony Brook University)
650 East Pleasant St., Amherst MA
https://www.umass.edu/renaissance/event/fcrspfeiffer2022
***
*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