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.
Upcoming Events
*Tuesday, 9/6/2022 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Early Sciences Working Group at Harvard (ESWG): Reception with food (all are
welcome)<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/early-sciences-w…
Location: Science Center North Tent, Outside Harvard Yard.
RSVP: oribenshalom(a)g.harvard.edu
*Tuesday, 9/7/2022 5:15pm
English Department Renaissance Colloquium: Welcome Picnic and Amoretti
Reading!<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/english-departme…
Location: In-person, Barker Tent (outdoors), 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA, 02138
Mon Sept 12, 2022, 12pm-1pm
Department of the Classics and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies
Harvard Premodern Race Seminar
Session 1: Introductions; What Is PRS?; Plans for the year.
Room 133, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138
More information:
https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/81116
Harvard’s Premodern Race Seminar, a combination speaker series and discussion group, now
entering its third year, is for those interested broadly in the topic of race in the
premodern past. This fall, the seminar will meet biweekly for an hour on Mondays at 12:00
pm in Barker Center 133 (the Plimpton Room), most often to discuss precirculated readings.
PRS is jointly organized by faculty in the Department of the Classics and the Standing
Committee on Medieval Studies. Everyone is welcome to attend single sessions, but the
organizers hope for a core group who attend regularly, to foster open and rich discussion.
If you are interested in regular attendance, please email the organizers at
prs@fas.harvard.edu<mailto:prs@fas.harvard.edu>.
**Mon Sept 12, 2022, 4:30pm
Opening aperitivo in the Early Modern World Initiative at Harvard featuring four flash
talks: Melissa McCormick (East Asian Languages and Civilizations and History of Art and
Architecture), “The Gilded Library: Reevaluating Early Modern Japanese Manuscripts as
Bridal Books”; Eric Nelson (Government), “Philo and the Early-Modern Rehabilitation of
‘Democracy’”; Alan Niles (English), “Who Were Harvard’s First Indian Students?”; Si Nae
Park (EALC), “How Printers of Vernacular Novels Made Reading Easier in Early Modern
Korea.” Followed by a reception.
Event held in person in Robinson Hall, Harvard Yard, History Conference Room (Former Lower
Library), 1st/ground floor of Robinson Hall.
Wed Sept 14, 2022, 5:15pm
Opening event in the Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on History of the Book, featuring
four flash talks by:
Irene Peirano Garrison (Classics, Harvard), “Writing from the margins: women in the Latin
classroom”; Jeffrey Hamburger (History of Art and Architecture, Harvard), “Color in
Cusanus”; John Brewer (History, Harvard), “Visitors' Books: narratives, anecdotes and
data"; Matthew Battles (Arnold Arboretum, Harvard), “Cuttings: of leaves and names.”
Followed by a reception.
In person, Barker 133, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA, 02138.
Wednesday, September 14, at 6pm
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Seminar on American Literature and Culture
Britt Rusert (U-Mass, Amherst), “The World is a Severe Schoolmaster: Phillis
Wheatley's Poetry of Domination and
Submission.”<https://mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/event/britt-ruse…
Ianna Hawkins Owen (Boston University), will respond. The organizers request that all
attendees to this event wear face coverings.
Barker 403, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge MA, 02138
*Tuesday, 9/20/2022 12:00pm to 1:15pm
Mateo Montoya (History of Science, Harvard), Prospectus Workshop: "Jesuit reductions
among the Guaraní: 1600-1780" (ESWG,
Harvard)<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/mateo-montoya-hi…
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>
Monday, September 26, 12pm-1pm
Department of the Classics and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies
Harvard Premodern Race Seminar
Session 2: Reading: Dan-el Padilla Peralta, “Anti-Race” in A Cultural History of Race,
Vol. 1, ed. Denise McCoskey (Bloomsbury 2021).
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, September 26, 4pm
Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on China Humanities
Tian Yuan Tan, University of Oxford: “Writing and Reading ‘Local Court Drama’ in Late
Imperial China: Texts, Genres, and Identities”
Yenching Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave. 136, Cambridge MA, 02138
Tuesday, September 27, 4:30pm
Brown University Medieval and Early Modern History Seminar (MEMHS)
Andrew Romig (NYU Gallatin): “The Wrong Kind of Flattery: Critique and Praise in Walahfrid
Strabo’s De imagine Tetrici.”
More information coming soon at:
https://blogs.brown.edu/memhs/
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”
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): 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-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
*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(a)wesleyan.edu
Saturday, Oct 15, 2022
New England Renaissance Conference (NERC)
Theme: “Instruments of Power in the Global Early Modern.”
Amherst College, Amherst MA
Registration by September 23, 2022
Conference
Website<https://www.nerc2022.org/>
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>
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
<https://earlymodernworld.fas.harvard.edu/event/james-raven-university-cambridge-uk-%E2%80%9Cmonsters-myths-and-methods-global-book?delta=0>
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
*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.
*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.
*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>
***
*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