Daily Archives: 29 October 2025

Folger Institute Short-Term Fellowships

Applications are open through January 15th, 2026 for Folger Institute Short-Term Fellowships.

Each year the Folger Institute awards research fellowships to create a high-powered, multidisciplinary community of inquiry. This community of researchers may come from different fields, and their projects may find different kinds of expression. But our researchers share cognate interests in the history and literature, art and performance, philosophy, religion, and politics of the early modern world. 

Short-term fellowships support scholars whose work would benefit from significant primary research for one, two, or three months, with a monthly stipend of $5,000 per onsite month and $4,000 per virtual month. These fellowships are designed to support a concentrated period of full-time work on research projects that draw on the strengths of the Folger’s collections and programs.

For the 2026-27 fellowship year, short-term fellows will have the option to take their fellowship fully onsite, fully virtual, or a combination of the two. Applicants may propose any research schedule that best fits their project’s needs.

The deadline for short-term fellowship applications is January 15, 2026.         

https://www.folger.edu/research/the-folger-institute/fellowships/apply-for-a-fellowship/short-term-fellowships

Bill Kent Memorial Lecture

The 2025 Bill Kent Memorial Lecture
Wednesday, November 19 · 6 – 8pm AEDT
Monash Conference Centre

Register Here

Despoiling the King in 1525: Capture, Plunder, and the Battle of Pavia
Associate Professor John Gagné

On the 500th anniversary of Renaissance Europe’s most renowned battle, we return to the Park of Mirabello, the walled hunting grounds outside the old Visconti palace at Pavia. It was here that Imperial forces destroyed France’s army and captured King François I as he fought to regain the duchy of Milan. Leaving aside questions of military history, this lecture explores the cultural significance of ensnaring one of Europe’s great kings on an Italian battlefield. By focusing on the monarch’s capture, we investigate not just the seizure of the royal person, but also the plundering of objects charged with his charisma: armour, weapons, decorations, flags, and clothing. These despoiled objects authenticated Imperial victory and exalted their owners. The “disassembly” of the royal warrior produced a host of these battle relics, whose traces – both real and legendary – this presentation reconstructs.

John Gagné is Cassamarca Associate Professor of History at the University of Sydney. His research pursues the intersections between war, representation, material culture, and the human body. He is the author of Milan Undone: Contested Sovereignties in the Italian Wars (Harvard University Press, 2021), co-editor with Stephen Bowd and Sarah Cockram of Shadow Agents of Renaissance War: Suffering, Supporting, and Supplying Conflict in Italy and Beyond (Amsterdam University Press, 2023), and co-author with Timothy McCall of Fabric of War: The Material Culture and Social Lives of Banners in Renaissance Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2025). His research has appeared in Renaissance Quarterly, Sixteenth Century Journal, Art History, and I Tatti Studies in the Renaissance.

For any enquiries, please contact Jessica O’Leary via jessica.oleary@monash.edu

ANZAMEMS Conference – Registration and Program Updates

Registrations for the 2025 ANZAMEMS Conference, to be hosted at the University of Melbourne between the 3rd and 5th December, will close on Sunday 9 November.

Register Here

Registration fee covers:

  • Entry to all programmed talks and panels
  • Catered morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea on each day
  • Opening night wine reception

You can also add the conference dinner, accommodation at Newman college, and various tours and events to your registration.

An updated conference programme has just been be released.

Please direct any enquiries to ANZAMEMS-conference@unimelb.edu.au.

Symposium on Academic Freedom

The right to enquire? A Symposium on academic freedom

Tuesday 25 November 2025
The University of Melbourne, Parkville

Presented by the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS)

What does it mean to define, contest, and safeguard academic freedom in the 21st century?

Academic freedom is a cornerstone of democratic societies and the lifeblood of scholarly endeavour. Yet, across the world, we are witnessing growing pressures — political, cultural, and economic — that threaten to constrain open inquiry. Australia is not immune. Join leading scholars, journalists, and advocates to explore how academic freedom can be understood, protected, and renewed in our time. This is a free public event.

Register for the Symposium