Hybrid Symposium: New Directions in the Materiality of Letter-Writing: From Antiquity to the Present Day

A hybrid symposium at University College Dublin, Ireland

29 and 30 May 2024
Organisers: Dr Helen Newsome-Chandler and Professor Danielle Clarke

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

Dr Alison Wiggins, University of Glasgow

DRAFT PROGRAMME (2/4/24) All times are Irish Standard Time (GMT +1)

WEDNESDAY 29th MAY 2024

12-12.45pm LUNCH AND REGISTRATION

12.45-1pm – Welcome

1-2pm Opening Keynote: ‘What is a digitised letter?’ Dr Alison Wiggins, University of Glasgow

2-3pm: Panel 1: Epistolary Materiality: Transmission and Enclosures

‘Hiding the Materiality of Letters: The Carriage and Concealment of Secret Correspondence in Sixteenth-Century France’, Penny Roberts, University of Warwick (Online)

‘Katharine Basset: Letter-Writing and Gift-Giving’, Valerie Schutte, Independent (Online)

3-3.30pm COFFEE BREAK

3.30-5pm Panel 2: Gender and the Materiality of Letter-Writing

‘“ready folded vp” Locking the Queen’s Letters in the Royal Secretariat, 1581-90’, Clodagh Murphy, Leiden University

‘Attending and Reading Deliberate and Accidental Materiality in the Boyle Women’s Letters’, Ann-Maria Walsh, University College Dublin

‘A Gendered Material Feature? The Spiral Lock in Early Modern Scottish Women’s Letters’, Jade Scott, Independent

5-6pm – DRINKS RECEPTION

End of Day 1

THURSDAY 30^th MAY 2024

9.30-10am WELCOME COFFEE

10-11.30am Panel 3: Social Variation and Epistolary Materiality

‘Social Variation in Letterlocking Practices in 17^th-century England’, Samuli Kaislaniemi, University of Eastern Finland (Online)

‘Salvage, Ingenuity and Right: The Materiality of English and Welsh Pauper Letter Writing 1830 to 1900s’, Steve King, Nottingham Trent University, Natalie Carter, Surrey Library Service, and Paul Carter, The National Archives

‘Navigating the Materiality of Embossed Letters in the British blind Community, 1840-1890′, Tilly Guthrie, University of Sheffield

11.30am-12pm – COFFEE BREAK

12-1pm Roundtable – The Unique Materiality of Letters in the Prize Papers
Marina Casagrande (Conservator), Maria Cardamone (Photographer), and Lucas Haasis (Historian), University of Oldenburg and The National Archives

1-2pm LUNCH

2-3.30pm Panel 6: Preserving and Editing Epistolary Materiality

‘Materiality and Accidental Preservation of the Correspondence in Thomas Plume’s Manuscript Collection’, Helen Kemp, Thomas Plume’s Library and The University of Essex

‘The Materiality of Early Modern Business Letters’, Siobhan Talbott, Keele University

‘A Bit One-Sided: Piecing Together a Story from Letters Received’, Elaine Treharne, Stanford University (Online)

3.30-4pm COFFEE BREAK

4-5pm Practical Workshop – Unlocking the Materiality of Early Tudor Queens’ Correspondence
Helen Newsome-Chandler, University College Dublin

5-5.15pm – Closing Remarks

Irish Renaissance Seminar – Marsh’s Library and UCD

“Early Modern Science and its Boundaries”

The 22nd meeting of the Irish Renaissance Seminar will be held in Marsh’s Library, St Patrick’s Close, Dublin 8, and hosted by UCD English on Saturday 12th October 2019.

Schedule

1.30pm Welcome

1.45pm Natural philosophy and human bodies

Dr Sue Hemmens (Marsh’s Library), ‘Some things worth a philosophical pen’: queries and desiderata relating to Ireland, 1650 to 1700

Dr Harriet Knight (independent scholar), Meaningful chaos: Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle’s Indigested Particulars

Mark Ronan (UCD), From Hal to Henry, ‘breaking through the foul and ugly mists’: Addiction and Maturing Out in the Henriad

3.15pm Break

3.45pm Plenary: Prof. Kevin Killeen (University of York), “The symphonic unknowability of the world: early modern poetics, science and the Book of Job”

4.45pm Response to the afternoon’s papers by Prof. Danielle Clarke (UCD)

We are very grateful for the support of the Society for Renaissance Studies, the World Universities Network and Marsh’s Library.

         

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Conference CfP: Writing Lives in Europe, 1500-1700

University College Dublin, 6th-8th September 2018

This conference on life writing/self writing will address questions related to life writing across Europe between 1500-1700, in particular the influence of different religious, social, cultural and national perspectives on the emergence of various forms of self-writing. We are particularly interested in relationships, connections, textual traffic and circulation across Europe through networks such as intellectual circles/coteries, religious orders, and the experience of exiled communities. Life writing has long historical roots, but such writings are arguably the first examples of demotic, vernacular writing in the period. ‘Life writing’ describes narratives that allow us to interrogate how far ideas of self were fashioned by and through various forms of written representation, and to examine the stylistic, generic and social parameters to the formation of identities. Life writings comprise new, hybrid and emerging forms over the period 1500-1700, developing from relatively ‘static’ modes such as saints lives, eulogies, encomia, into more dynamic forms like biography, autobiography, chronicle histories, prison writing, prophecy, sermons, diaries, elegies, monumental verse, and letters. The conference aims to provide a more nuanced account of the emergence, creation and reception of narratives of the self, focussing not just on content, but on narrative, generic and material frameworks that inflect the representation of the “self” according to variables such as gender, class, region, language and religion.

The key questions that we hope that contributors will address include:
1. How do we define “life writing” and what kinds of narratives, texts and artifacts might it include?
2. What are the critical differences between biographically based criticism and the investigation of self writing/narrativization of selves?
3. What are the specific conditions (historical, cultural, local, religious/confessional, familial) that enable the emergence of life writing over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Why then?
4. How useful is standard periodisation for thinking about the emergence of these hybrid, complex forms from (mostly) domestic spaces?
5. How significant is it that women writers and subjects are so strongly represented in life writing, and what is at stake in these representations?
6. How might texts which are generically distinct from life writing be read through this framework, e.g. poems, romances, polemic etc?
7. What role does editing, transmission and circulation play in the construction and reception of life writing?
8. What light might comparative perspectives from other languages and cultures offer?

We welcome contributions from established and early career researchers, and encourage papers that address non-Anglophone writings, although papers will be delivered in English.

Papers (20 minutes) on the following topics are particularly welcome:
– memorialization
– exemplarity
– forms/modes/genres/language choices
– materiality/transmission
– privacy/publication
– historical contextualisation(s)
– authorship/collaboration
– community
– spirituality/religion/proselytising

Proposals (comprising a title, 200 word abstract, up to 5 keywords, and a 100 word bio) should be sent to: lifewriting@ucd.ie by Friday March 16th 2018.

Organisers: Prof. Danielle Clarke (School Of English, Drama & Film, UCD) and Prof. John McCafferty (School of History, UCD).

[Image credit: Print by Andrea Meldolla – mid-sixteenth century (Trustees British Museum)]

Irish Renaissance Seminar at UCD – “Conflict and Contestation in the Early Modern World “

The first meeting of the Irish Renaissance Seminar for 2017 will be held on Saturday 22nd April in the School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin.

The theme for this meeting is Conflict and Contestation in the Early Modern World. The meeting will convene in Room J207-8, John Henry Newman Building, UCD, and the schedule is as follows:

1-1:30pm: Welcome

1:30-3:00pm: Panel
Chair: Dr Jane Grogan

Dr Marc Caball (UCD): ‘Hugh O’Neill and his Gaelic and Renaissance Cultural Context’

Professor Andrew Hadfield (Sussex): ‘James Shirley’s The Politician: Anglo-Irish Literature and Politics in the 1630s’

Dr Ann-Maria Walsh (UCD): ‘The Boyle Sisters and the Familial Correspondence Network: A Life-Line in Times of Civil Strife and Beyond’

3:00-3:30pm: Refreshments

3:30-4:30: Keynote
Chair: Dr Colin Lahive

Professor Nicholas McDowell (Exeter): ‘The Poetics of Civil War: Shakespeare to Marvell (to W.B.Yeats)’

4:30-5:00: Roundtable
Convener: Dr Naomi McAreavey

Early Modern Studies in Ireland: Current Locations, Future Directions

6:30: Dinner

The event is generously supported by the School of English, Drama and Film, UCD, and the Society for Renaissance Studies.

For further details on this meeting of the IRS, contact Dr Colin Lahive (colin.lahive@ucd.ie)

 

            

Programme: Shakespeare Lives, 2016

The full programme of events marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death is now available for download: Shakespeare Lives Across the Island – Conversations and Celebrations 2016.

This fantastic line-up, happening all across Ireland, is in partnership with the British Council, and involves universities, museums, libraries and theatres on both sides of the border.

Here’s a preview of just some of the upcoming events:

 

Irish Renaissance Seminar, QUB: Shakespeare Lives across the Island

on Saturday 7th May, 12pm- 7pm, in the Old Staff Common room, QUB

 

“Shakespeare: Here and Elsewhere” workshop, dlr Lexicon

a workshop on Shakespeare in film and modern popular culture at dlr Lexicon, Dun Laoighaire, 14th May 

 

Public talks: UCD – Abbey Theatre Shakespeare Lectures 2016

11^th May, 7pm, Pearse Museum:  Prof. Andrew Murphy (University of St Andrews),‘Shakespeare and Irish Radicalism: The Road to 1916’

12^th May, 5pm, Abbey Theatre (Peacock):  Prof. Gordon McMullan (King’s College, London), ‘Remembering and Forgetting Shakespeare in 1916’

27^th May, 4pm, Abbey Theatre (Peacock): Dr Farah Karim-Cooper (Shakespeare’s Globe), ‘Gesture on the Shakespearean Stage’

9^th June, National Library, 7pm: Prof. Margaret Kelleher (UCD) and Prof. Danielle Clarke (UCD): ‘An “Irish Mode”? The Literary Writings and Legacy of Thomas MacDonagh. A conversation, with selected readings from MacDonagh’s works, performed by the UCD Ad Astra Drama Scholars

 

Symposium: Shakespeare 400 Ireland, NUIM, 21-22 Oct 2016

with a keynote lecture by Professor Willy Maley (University of Glasgow) ‘”They are rising, they are rising”: Shakespeare and 1916’, and papers by Professor Mark Burnett (Queens University Belfast), Dr Jane Grogan (UCD) and Professor Patrick Lonergan (NUI Galway)

 

More events can be found here.

 

Check back for more details soon, including an exhibition on Sir Kenneth Branagh at Queen’s University Belfast, a Shakespeare Day at Trinity College Dublin, and a performance of Pericles, Prince of Tyre in association with University College, Cork.

You can also follow what’s happening on Twitter @ShakesinIreland and using the hashtag #ShaxIRL400. Get in touch and let us know what you think!

Irish Renaissance Seminar, 22 November, UCD

The next meeting of the Irish Renaissance Seminar will be held at UCD on 22 November on the theme of “Renaissance Pedagogies”. Further details to follow soon.

The Irish Renaissance Seminar meets twice a year, bringing together academics and postgraduates from across the island of Ireland working on early modern literary studies. If you’ve just started a new position or fellowship in Ireland or are a new Masters or PhD student, you are particularly welcome and it would be great to see you there. Please leave a comment or send an email if you’d like to know more.