Luther in Italy
Rome
23–25 February, 2017

Conference Website

The printing industry developed in mutual exchange with the Reformation. Luther’s ideas and actions deeply affected the book world. Theologians boosted the market with polemical works against or in favour of the former monk from Eisleben. This overwhelming book production inspired a call for an unprecedented, strict control over the printing press. To mark the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the year in which, according to tradition, Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Palace Church in Wittenberg, a conference in Rome will address the topic of the impact of the Reformation on the Italian book market.

Papers are invited on any aspects of the relationship between the Reformation and the book in Italy. They may include, but are not limited to:

• The rise of censorship in Counter-Reformation Italy
• The adjustments of the book trade
• Printing mobility as a contingency strategy
• Dissidence and nicodemism in print and visual arts
• The loss of works of banned authors
• Contemporary perceptions of Luther and his representation as a historical figure
• The development of modern propaganda
• The phenomenon of damnatio memoriae

Those interested in giving a paper should offer a title and a brief synopsis (300–500 words) of their proposed contribution. Proposals should be sent to Flavia Bruni at the address fb323@st-andrews.ac.uk by 31 May, 2016. To promote a genuinely international exchange between participants, proposals and papers must be in English. Italian and German abstracts will be provided at the conference. Travel costs will be reimbursed.

Organising Committee:
Andreea Badea, Deutsches Historisches Institut Rome; Flavia Bruni, Sapienza University of Rome – University of St Andrews; Margherita Palumbo, formerly Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome

Organised with the Biblioteca Casanatense, Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo.

Shakespeare and Fear
2017 Conference of the French Shakespeare Society
Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe, Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris
12–14 January, 2017

Conference Website

In an era fraught with economic violence, environmental anxiety, forced migrations, war and terrorism, it seems particularly relevant to examine the ways in which the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage made use of fear and to consider how these fears continue to reverberate in the present. Such connections are clearly envisaged by Robert Appelbaum, who applies the word “terrorism” to the violence that shook Early Modern Europe, including the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and countless plots and popular uprisings. The re-appropriation of Shakespeare’s plays in the context of the crises we are experiencing is a case in point. How has Shakespeare been used to fend off fear, or deconstruct the workings of terror, dictatorship or armed intimidation — from Ernst Lubitsch’s To be or not to be to Shakespeare productions recently performed in Syria?

Fear is present in one form or another in almost all of the dramatic works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. From the ridiculous apprehension of being made a cuckold to the dread felt by Macbeth when confronted to Banquo’s ghost, from the mechanicals’ worry that the “lion” might frighten the ladies to the terror on which Richard III’s tyranny relies, all degrees of fear are to be found in Shakespeare, as well as in Marlowe, Middleton or Webster. Be it in tragedies attempting to instil sacred terror or in comedies making fun of the staging of terrifying events, in historical plays critiquing the Machiavellian uses of political terror or in the new-fangled Jacobean taste for spectacular stage shows, fear is pervasive on the Shakespearean stage, reflecting individual emotions such as “the dread of something after death” mentioned by Hamlet, as much as the ever-present social apprehension of the plague or foreign invasions. Shakespeare, for one, distinguishes fear (which occurs over 800 occurrences in the canon) from dread (50 occurrences) or fright, which is often to be found in ironic contexts, with an underlying suggestion that the events in question are not really worth the fretting they cause.

The notion of fear in connection with Shakespeare goes well beyond the modalities specific to the Early Modern English stage: the fact that the Bard’s works have been canonised and become compulsory reading at school and university has generated a fear of Shakespeare, while the arrival of his plays on the continental stages in the 18th century spawned trepidation among audiences and authors alike: there is certainly a form of fear in Voltaire’s loathing of, as much as in the Romantic playwrights’ desire to emulate, the master. This lasting dread is epitomized today under the alliterative heading of “no fear Shakespeare” and in the various attempts to domesticate the intricacies of Elizabethan writing with the help of reading companions, modernized editions, etc. The fear of Shakespeare can also become a fear for Shakespeare, in view of the endless probes and conspiracy plots around his identity that has arisen since the end of the 19th century.

We look forward to bringing together historians, literary scholars and theatre practitioners, as well as specialists in drama, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, sociology and anthropology to offer contributions on topics including (but not limited to):

• Theories of/about fear in Early Modern England
• The different degrees of fear in Early Modern England
• Symptoms of fear on the Early Modern stage (body language, vocal language, masks, costumes, makeup, etc.) / a phenomenology of fear
• What and who is feared on the Shakespearean stage? (terrifying portents, threats, exemplary sentences, horrible and horrifying shows, mutilations and murders, ghosts, supernatural interventions, etc)
• How and why is fear elicited in audience members? (staging tricks, noises, smoke, visions, etc.)
• The fear of Shakespeare / “No fear Shakespeare”
• Fear for Shakespeare
• Updating Shakespeare in the context of war, terror or terrorism
• Invoking Shakespeare to allay fear

Please send an abstract (maximum 500 words) and a short biography (maximum 200 words) by 25 May, 2016 to contact@societefrancaiseshakespeare.org.

Music and Politics in Britain, c.1780-c.1850
King’s College, London
2-3 June, 2017

Music was everywhere in early nineteenth-century British politics. Coronations, commemorations, marches, protests, dinners, toasts, rallies, riots, festivals, dances, fundraisers, workplaces, streets—all hummed to the sounds of music. It provided anthems for anointing and songs for sedition, rhythms for rituals and ballads for ballots, chants for charters and melodies for militaries. In all these spaces, media, and fora, radicals, reformers, loyalists, and conservatives all competed for the best tunes. And they did so because of their belief in music’s capacity to affect its listeners—to arouse joy and indignation, sadness and sympathy, merriment, mischief, and mirth—and its ability to bind participants together in new visions of community, nation, and identity.

Yet, for all its omnipresence, music often struggles to be heard in the dusty silence of the archive. Music’s evanescence and impermanence defies established, text-based methods of historical enquiry. Indeed, most historical analysis of music and political culture has focused exclusively on song lyrics. We need a much broader frame of analysis to understand how music connects to the political. Music, text (if present), and the circumstances and social dynamics of performance, all combine to generate a range of meanings for those taking part—one person’s pleasant entertainment might be another’s call for revolution, and for some, both at once. This multiplicity of meanings projected by musical performance is at once challenging and beguiling, precisely for the ways in which it variously circumvents, contradicts, reinforces, or interweaves with the textual elements of political discourse. Bringing music to the centre of analysis has rich potential to offer fresh insight into political traditions, symbols, divisions, and struggles. An explicit aim of this conference is to facilitate this by promoting a deeper interdisciplinary exchange between historians, musicologists, and scholars of visual, literary, and theatrical culture.

To these ends, we invite proposals for papers from scholars in any discipline that address the role of music in political culture in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. Chronological boundaries are flexibly conceived, and proposals for papers which address earlier and later periods but which overlap with 1780–1850 are welcome.

The conference will consist of a series of round-table discussions among all participants of pre-circulated papers. Papers will be circulated by 12 May, 2017. Once revised, these will form the basis of a collection of essays on the intersection of music and political culture in this period. The conference is supported by the ERC-funded project ‘Music in London, 1800–1851’ led by Professor Roger Parker. There is no registration fee, accommodation and dinner will be provided, and travel costs will be reimbursed where possible.

Abstracts (max. 500 words) for 5,000 word papers should be sent, with a short biography, to david.kennerley@history.ox.ac.uk by 1 June, 2016.

For more information please contact the organisers, Drs David Kennerley (Oxford) and Oskar Cox Jensen (King’s College London) at david.kennerley@history.ox.ac.uk or oskar.cox_jensen@kcl.ac.uk.

Potential themes for papers include:

• The politics of opera, theatre, melodrama, and concert music
• Political movements and musical creativity
• Gender, race, participation and exclusion
• Occasion and commemoration
• Music and the politics of space
• Communities and sociability
• Political songs and melodies
• Bands, choirs, ensembles
• The politics of dance
• Class and citizenship
• State/official music
• Music on trial
• Nationalism
• Pedagogy
• Empire
• Labour

Contact david.kennerley@history.ox.ac.uk for more information about this event.

Shakespeare and Music Studies: From Theory into Practice Symposium
Monash University, Caulfield Campus
Friday 4 November, 2016

**Call For Papers Extended to July 1**

Hosted by The Monash Shakespeare Company & The Melbourne Shakespeare Society

When the field of Shakespeare and music studies emerged in the late-nineteenth century, it mainly concerned itself with the problems reconstructing the musical materials and practices of early modern theatre cultures. Since then, the field as evolved to encompass a vast body of methodologies and contexts, incorporating discussions of literature and history, and linking them to musical and theatre practices. As the field stands today, it is characterised by its eclecticism, even as it asserts its intrinsic value to Shakespeare studies more generally.

This symposium calls upon these diverse areas of expertise that make up the modern field to assist in identifying and developing strategies for the integration of music into productions of Shakespeare. We invite submissions from theatre and music practitioners, academics in literature, theatre, history and music studies, as well as postgraduate and undergraduate students, to contribute to this conversation. We impose no particular restrictions on paper topics, provided they are generally relevant to the field of Shakespeare and music studies. However, the following questions may act as a guide to submissions:

• Why should music be considered a priority in the production of Shakespeare?
• How can an understanding of early-modern music practice be applied to modern theatre productions?
• How can knowledge of modern musical practices be applied to the staging of Shakespeare?
• What specific challenges do composers face when setting Shakespeare’s language to music?
• What types of musical resources can small theatre companies employ when staging Shakespeare?
• How can theatre directors employ music in audition, rehearsal and production processes?

NB – Since the symposium will be practice-focused, we are also interested in considering workshop sessions.

Please submit an abstract or proposal of approximately 200 words to christian.griffiths@monash.edu by 1 July, 2016. Some travel bursaries will be available for interstate or international scholars. All submitted papers will also be considered for inclusion in an edited volume.

Expanding Visions: Women in the Medieval and Early Modern World
University of Miami
March 2-4, 2017

Sponsored by the University of Miami Department of Modern Languages and Literatures,
the Center for the Humanities, and the Joseph Carter Memorial Fund

Keynote Speaker: Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Distinguished Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

The Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Symposium at the University of Miami and Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal invite papers and three-paper sessions on new research on women’s activities—their literary, cultural, social, and/or political interventions in the medieval and early modern world. We encourage papers with interdisciplinary approaches that focus on the period 1400–1750. The presentations, in English, should not exceed twenty minutes. Please send 350-word abstracts and a scholarly biography of 200 words by October 15, 2016 to emwj@miami.edu.

The organizing committee will respond no later than December 1, 2016.