Events 2013

Northern Renaissance Seminar: ‘Writing the Renaissance North’, Sheffield Hallam University, 22 June 2013

This one-day symposium will focus on the ways in which the idea of the north was understood, imagined and represented in the writing of the early modern period. The papers will consider early modern literary and cultural engagements with the north, both as a geographical space and an intellectual concept. Professor Loxley’s keynote paper will examine the recently discovered manuscript account of Ben Jonson’s walk to Edinburgh and consider the contrasting topographical constructions of north and south, and of England and Scotland.

Writing the Renaissance North poster

Topics that will be addressed by the papers include:

  • the political ideas associated with the north;
  • the roles of Scotland and the north of England in shaping the political landscape of the British isles;
  • the ambivalence of the cultural presence of the north in relation to English and British identity;
  • the ways in which the north figured in debates about transgressive behaviour, such as political insurrection and witchcraft;
  • the effect of the north upon the afterlives of literary texts in biographical narratives and modern dramatic performances.

 

Northern Renaissance Seminar: ‘The Politics of Puritan and Nonconformist writing 1558-1689’

Northumbria University, 20 April 2013

This conference is concerned with re-visiting the politics of religious writing in the ‘Long Reformation’, a broad chronology of early modern literary and political culture and across an inclusive range of literary genres. Proposals are invited for 20 minute papers that consider puritan and nonconformist writing and its engagement with / impact on a wide range of political and cultural contexts.

Themes to address might include:

  • Catholicism and anti-Catholicism
  • Separatists and sectarians
  • Puritanism, nonconformity and the established Church
  • Puritanism and dissent
  • Print culture, Puritanism and nonconformity, 1558-1689
  • Non-conformity and the stage
  • Literature and politics of toleration
  • Royalist Puritanism 1642-60
  • Satire
  • Migration, exile, and non-conformity
  • Persecution and propaganda
  • Puritan places and literary production