Following a packed 2 day programme of events, detailed the programme below, we will be editing a double special issue of Sidney Journal in 2023 with a selection of papers from the conference.

We are also delighted to share with you a recording of Mary Ellen Lamb’s paper ‘Scribal Readings of a Verse Exchange between William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke and Benjamin Rudyerd’

 

and copies of the two Pembroke and Rudyerd Poems 

which she discusses in the paper

 

Details of performance of Love’s Victory and the release of the filmed recording can be found on the linked page Love’s Victory 2022.

Conference Programme

We are delighted to announce the programme for ‘The Sidneys of Penshurst and Beyond: Contexts, Connections, Collaborations’ conference at Penshurst Place on 27-28 September 2022. Featuring Sidney scholars from around the world, our panels explore how the legacies of the acclaimed Sidney-Herbert family coterie continue to thrive in literary, sociohistorical, and theatrical fields – and beyond.

Please find accommodation details below.

 

Tuesday 27 September

9.15-9.30 Welcome (Alison Findlay and Philip Sidney)   

 

Panel 1: 9.30am – 11.00am Mary Sidney: Texts and Contexts          

Chair: Jessica Malay

Michele Osherow: ‘“A pattern to the rest”: More on the Convergence of Text and Textile in Mary Sidney’s Psalms’

Helen Hackett: ‘“Look on thy Mary with her bitter tears”: Nicholas Breton’s impersonations of Mary Sidney’

Alison Sorbie: ‘Amyntas Dale: Ivychurch’s celebrated Locus Amoenus’

 

Coffee and Tea break: 11.00am – 11.30am

 

Panel 2: 11.30am – 1.00pm Philip Sidney’s Connections                         

Chair: TBC

Henry Jones: ‘The Proportions of Poetry: Sir Philip Sidney and Nicholas Hilliard’

Gerit Quealy: ‘Astrophil’s Star: Penelope Rich and the Sidneys’

Penny McCarthy: ‘Moffett muffled: unspeakable secrets in Nobilis and Lessus Lugubris’

 

Lunch served in the Garden Restaurant 1.00pm – 2.00pm

 

Panel 3: 2.00pm – 3.00pm Textual and Museological Curations (online session with panellists live for questions)                                                             

Chair: Ramona Wray

Mary Ellen Lamb: ‘Scribal Readings of a Verse Exchange between William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke and Benjamin Rudyerd’

Rieko Ishibuchi: ‘Shakespeare’s Sisters in Japan: With Special Reference to the Reception History of the Sidney Ladies’ (10pm Japanese time)

 

Coffee / Tea break 3.00pm – 3.15pm

 

Panel 4: 3.15pm – 4.30pm Echoes in and of the Sidneys              

Chair: Philip Sidney

Gavin Alexander: ‘The Sidneys and Greek Lyric’

Camille Gontarek: ‘Sonic, Polyphonic and Architectonic Sounds: Listening to the Echoes of Lady Mary Wroth’s Urania’

 

4.30pm – 5.30pm Tour of Penshurst Place (25 places) or relax and walk round the gardens

 

6.00pm – 7.00pm Conference Dinner served in the Garden Restaurant (2 courses)

 

7.15pm Performance of Love’s Victory in Baron’s Hall with banqueting course

Arranged seating and banquet refreshments at banqueting tables. The performance will be filmed so please avoid wearing very bright colours which will upstage the actors. Please complete the form provided at the beginning of the conference giving your permission to be included in the filming as the cameras pan across.

 

10.30pm Carriages

 

 

Wednesday 28 September

Panel 5: 9.15am -10.45am The Sidneys in War and Peace           

Chair: Alison Findlay

Karen L. Nelson: ‘Sidney Women, Warrior Culture, and Literary Production’

Marion Wynne-Davies: ‘Relocating the Sidney Women: Mary Sidney Herbert and Mary Sidney Wroth in London’

Q&A with Actors, Director and Musicians on production of Love’s Victory

 

10.45am – 11.15am Tea and Coffee break

 

Panel 6: 11.15am – 12.45pm Arcadias and Urania                                   

Chair: TBC

Joel B. Davis: ‘Bildung in Arcadia, Building Properly Arcadian Narrative’

Aurelie Griffin: ‘Lady Mary Wroth between pastiche and parody in The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania (1621)’

Mabel Mundy: ‘Imagining “Uncouth Love” of “Some Third Sex”: Reader Participation in the Queer Arcadia’

 

12.50pm – 1.00pm Introduction to reading Naomi J. Miller: ‘Reimagining the Sidney Family Women Through Fiction’

 

1.00pm Lunch in the Garden Restaurant

 

2.00pm – 3.00pm Readings from the novels Imperfect Alchemist and Strange Labyrinth by Naomi Miller, accompanied by Tamsin Lewis.

 

Panel 7: 3.00pm – 4.30pm Philip Sidney: Fashioning and Refashioning an Aesthetic  

(accompanied by tea / coffee and pastries)

Chair: TBC

Martina Kastnerová: ‘Learned images of Nature: Physica, Philip Sidney and Camerariusʼ brothers’

Fraser McIlwraith: ‘The secret Image of an Imitator’: Philip Sidney meets Johannes Sturm’

Don E. Wayne: ‘An Ironic Succession: Sir Philip Sidney, Ben Jonson, and a New Aesthetic’

 

4.30pm Brief concluding remarks by Don E. Wayne, Philip Sidney and Alison Findlay

 

 

 

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A conference at Penshurst Place on 27-28 September 2022

 

We invite proposals for papers which explore the connections between the writings of the Sidney-Herbert family coterie and the world beyond. The conference aims to explore literary collaborations: exchanges between members of the family circles; conversations with writers in Britain, Europe, and beyond; and collaborations across time through critical and creative writings.

Another important area of investigation will be the Sidney-Herberts’ material collaborations with scribes, editors, printers, publishers and performers, both in their lifetimes and in their textual afterlives.

The Sidneys’ political, economic and diplomatic ties add a spatial-geographical dimension to our discussions and we welcome papers that place the Sidney-Herbert residences in wider contexts, looking to the City of London, the Court, the Continent and further afield to Arcadia, Tartaria and beyond.

Alison Findlay and Philip Sidney

Please send your proposals for 20-30 minute papers to a.g.findlay@lancaster.ac.uk by 30 July 2022.