Shakespeare supremo Stephen Greenblatt and Tudor historian David Starkey CBE are among the guest speakers secured for Queen Mary’s Renaissance Seminars 2009/10.
While recent scholarship has revolutionised understanding of the term and period Renaissance, not all academics are well informed about developments in this field of study in other disciplines.
“To counter this, and to convey new findings and ideas, we are inviting academics, students, curators, librarians and interested members of the public to hear world renowned scholars speak and discuss this rich period of history,” explains Kevin Sharpe, Professor of Renaissance Studies and Director of the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at the College.
Now in their fifth year, the Renaissance seminars continue to stage some of the most stimulating talks and discussions on this era. The first in the series is no exception, with guest speaker Professor Stephen Greenblatt of Harvard University talking about ‘Utopian Pleasure’ on Friday 6 November 2009.
Author of Shakespeare biography Will in the World – a New York Times bestseller - Professor Greenblatt has written and edited numerous other books and articles on Early Modern culture, the Renaissance and Shakespeare.
He is also regarded by many as one of the founders of New Historicism, a set of critical practices that he often refers to as "cultural poetics". Since 2000 he has been John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard.
Date: Friday 6 November
Venue: Skeel Lecture Theatre, People’s Palace, Mile End Campus, Queen Mary, University of London, E1 4NS
Time: 6.30pm
Utopian Pleasure
Speaker: Professor Stephen Greenblatt
John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities, Department of English, Harvard University
Chair: Quentin Skinner, Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary
See below for schedule details for the entire Renaissance Seminars series (all start at 6.30pm):
Thursday 28 January 2010
From Barbarism to Civility: Assumptions About Social Evolution in Early Modern England
Speaker: Sir Keith Thomas, Distinguished Fellow, All Souls College, University of Oxford, author of Ends of Life (2009)
Chair: Professor Colin Jones, Department of History, Queen Mary, University of London, President of the Royal Historical Society and Officier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académique.
Venue: Clinical Lecture Theatre, Francis Bancroft Building, Mile End Campus, Queen Mary, University of London, E1 4NS
Thursday 4 March 2010
The History We’ve Forgotten: Diplomacy and the Biography of Henry VIII
Speaker: Dr David Starkey, English historian, television and radio presenter, and specialist in the Tudor period
Chair: Dr Susan Brigden, Department of History, Lincoln College, University of Oxford
Venue: Mason Lecture Theatre, Francis Bancroft Building, Mile End Campus, Queen Mary, University of London, E1 4NS
Tuesday 5 May 2010
Representing Rule: Spin and Politics in Early Modern England
Speaker: Professor Kevin Sharpe, Professor of Renaissance Studies, Queen Mary (Inaugural Lecture)
Chair: Professor Peter Lake, Professor of the History of Christianity, Divinity School, University of Vanderbilt
Thursday 20 May 2010
Did the ‘Urban’ Reader Exist? Books and Reading Practices in London at the Start of the Early Modern Period
Speaker: Julia Boffey, Professor of Medieval Studies, Queen Mary
Chair: Greg Walker, Masson Professor of English Literature, University of Edinburgh
Wednesday 16 June 2010
The Present Terror of the World: European Visions of the Ottomans in the Renaissance
Speaker: Anthony Pagden, Department of Political Science, UCLA
Chair: Trevor Dadson, Vice-Principal (Humanities and Social Sciences), Professor of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary
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