As a New Academic Year Dawns…
By Karen B | September 2, 2008
It’s nearly time to return to courses, lectures, and dissertations. To help catch up with all the summer’s history activities, pay a visit to Cliopatria’s History Blogroll. There are also plenty of interesting non-early modern links if you’re not quite ready to go back to school just yet!
Topics: Resources, Website of the Week | No Comments »
Houses and households in late Stuart London
By Karen B | August 31, 2008
Houses and Households in Late Stuart London
Date: 22 November 2008
Description: A day conference looking at the results of recent research on late 17th and early 18th century London, with an emphasis on the physical environment, the lives of Londoners and the sources available for their study. Topics will include wealth and poverty, housing, health, mobility, and the London family and household. Speakers are Mark Merry and Philip Baker (People in Place Project, Centre for Metropolitan History), Peter Guillery (Survey of London, English Heritage) and Andrew Wareham (Hearth Tax Project, Roehampton).
Details
Website: Houses and Households
Conference organiser: Adrienne Rosen
Venue: Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA
Contact: Rita Allingham
Email: ppdayweek@conted.ox.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1865 270368
Address: Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA
Many thanks to Daisy Shell for this link!
Topics: Of Early Modern Interest, Outside Events | No Comments »
Sea Shanties
By Karen B | August 16, 2008
The diary of a self-educated sailor in Nelson’s navy is expected to fetch £30,000 at auction. George Hodge’s 500 page memoir records his adventures between 1790 and 1833. It includes illustrations and words to sailors’ songs. Click here to see some sample pages and read more about this rare find.
Topics: In the News | No Comments »
Life and Living in Later Stuart London Conference, Saturday, 6 September 2008 at Roehampton University, London
By Karen B | August 13, 2008
Dr Vanessa Harding will be giving a paper entitled ‘People and Place in Restoration London’ at the ‘Life and Living in Later Stuart London’ conference at Roehampton University on 6 September.
The Hearth Tax Project is pleased to announce its third annual conference. This conference will examine evidence from a range of social and economic sources in order to provide both an insight into research methodologies and analysis in areas such as wealth and poverty, domestic life, occupations, religious belief and housing.
In addition to providing an overview of the period, the conference will engage in greater detail with sources such as hearth tax assessments, probate inventories, architectural plans, records of religious persecution and assessments for the Four shillings in the Pound Aid.
The day is suited to students, scholars and members of the general public who wish to gain an understanding of how to approach these seemingly complex and demanding sources in relation to social and cultural history as well as the history of the built environment and the social and occupational topography of Restoration London.
For details of the programme and how to book please visit: http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/hearthtax/Events/2008%20conference.html
Topics: Of Early Modern Interest, Outside Events | No Comments »
British Printed Images to 1700 Conference, Fri 12 - Sat 13 Sept 2008, Victoria and Albert Museum
By Stephen | August 10, 2008
Printed images were widely circulated in early modern Britain and they provide vivid and revealing evidence about many aspects of the culture of the period. Yet only recently have historians begun to give them proper attention, and this conference will be one of the first to draw out their significance. Themes will include the importance of printed images for the history of the Reformation and post-Civil War politics, the emergence of new genres like topographical engraving and mezzotint, and the place of prints in the developing consumer market.
Ancillary events include a session for ‘new researchers’ and an display of material from the National Art Library, and there will also be a presentation about the database of British Printed Images to 1700 which is currently being constructed with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The database will make available in fully searchable form a comprehensive corpus of printed images from early modern Britain, mostly from the British Museum but including selected material from the V&A and other collections. The project website can be found here: http://www.bpi1700.org.uk/
Costs: £110 for 2 days, £55 for 1 day, concessions available - students get in half price!
Booking: available online at www.vam.ac.uk/tickets or call 020 7942 2211
Programme: Friday 12 September
International Conference Auditorium, Sackler Centre 10.30–18.15
10.00 Registration
10.30 Antony Griffiths British Museum, The Print in Stuart Britain after Ten Years
10.50 Margaret Aston, Symbols of Conversion:Proprieties of the Page in Reformation England
11.30 John King Ohio State, Word and Image in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
12.10 Special display of books from the National ArtLibrary in the Print Room Education Study Room
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Gill Saunders V&A, ‘Paper Tapistry’ and‘Wooden Pictures’: Printed Decoration in theDomestic Interior before 1700
14.40 Ben Thomas Kent, Noble or Commercial?The Early History of Mezzotint in Britain
15.20 Tea
16.00 Angela McShane V&A and Clare Backhouse Courtauld, Top Knots and Lower Sorts: Print and Promiscuous Consumption in the 1690s
17.00 New Researchers’ Session
David Davis Exeter, Divine Visions or Idolatrous Sights? Images of Godin Protestant prints 1558–1603
Adam Morton York, Living the Life of Antichrist: Representing the Invisible Nemesis in Early Modern England
Rhian Wyn-Williams Liverpool, The Visual Language of Kingship, 1640–53
Stephen Brogan Birkbeck, The Sovereign Remedy: Images of the Royal Touch in Restoration England
Rosemary Dixon Queen Mary, Portrait Engravings and the Material Book:Representing Archbishop Tillotson in Text and Image
Programme: Saturday 13 September
International Conference Auditorium, Sackler Centre 10.30–17.00
10.00 Registration
10.30 Lori Anne Ferrell Claremont, Ca. The Art in Techne: Diagrammatic Illustrations in Early Modern ‘How-to’ Books
11.10 Alex Walsham Exeter, “Like Fragments of a Shipwreck”:Printed Images and Religious Antiquarianismin Early Modern England
11.50 Michael Hunter, Katherine Hunt, John Bradley and Paul Vetch Birkbeck, CCH, and bpi 1700, Demonstration of database for theBritish Printed Images to 1700 website
12.30 Lunch
13.30 Malcolm Jones Sheffield, The Common Weales Canker Wormes
14.10 Kevin Sharpe Queen Mary, Images of Oliver Cromwell
14.50 Tea
Justin Champion Royal Holloway, Decoding the Leviathan: Doing the History of Ideas Through Images 1651–1700
15.50 Round table discussion led by Mark Knights Warwick, and others
Topics: Of Early Modern Interest, Outside Events | No Comments »
Scribal Culture and Political Information in Italy, 1450-1650
By Stephen | August 9, 2008
Birkbeck College, Malet Street, University of London, Friday, 12 September 2008
Many of Italy’s most famous authors combined literary production with work that is now less known as professionals of political information, whether as secretaries, counsellors, authors of reports, newswriters, or scribes. Other writers who specialised in information have been almost universally ignored, but were important figures in their own time. One reason for this is that traces of their information activities have remained in manuscript, while (mostly) literary works were printed at the time and have often been reprinted. This interdisciplinary workshop – the first step in a wider collective project on scribal culture in early modern Italy – seeks to understand the uses and mechanisms of manuscript as a means for obtaining, elaborating, storing, and circulating political information. We welcome participation by all those interested in the social history of literature, the history of the book, the history of information, the cultural history of politics, and the history of diplomacy and diplomatic practice in Italy at this time.
Programme
9.30 Coffee and registration (room 541)
10 Introduction: Filippo de Vivo (Birkbeck) and Brian Richardson (Leeds)
10.30-12.30 SECRETARIES, DIPLOMATS, AND SCRIVENERS
Chair: Dilwyn Knox (UCL)
Robert Black (Leeds), ‘The Capitoli: An untapped source for Machiavelli’s political and diplomatic experiences and for the genesis of his political thought’
Catherine Fletcher (Royal Holloway), ‘Scholarship and diplomacy in the Italian campaign for Henry VIII’s divorce’
Brian Richardson (Leeds), ‘A scribal publisher of political information: Francesco Marcaldi’
2.00-4.00 PRACTICES OF LONG- AND SHORT-DISTANCE NEWS GATHERING
Chair: Warren Boutcher (Queen Mary)
Camilla Russell (Newcastle), ‘News from the Indies: The Jesuits and the history of information in late-Renaissance Italy’
Angela Nuovo (Udine), ‘L’informazione politica e di attualità nella biblioteca di G. V. Pinelli’
Dorit Raines (Ca’ Foscari), ‘Political information and official historiography in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Venice’
4.30-6.30 EVENTS AND INFORMATION IN THE SEICENTO
Chair: Stephen Milner (Manchester)
Caroline Callard (Sorbonne), ‘Una lega, due culture della scrittura politica: Venezia e Firenze contro la Santa Sede (1643-1644)’
Mario Infelise (Ca’ Foscari),‘Consulenti politici e professionisti dell’informazione nel ’600’
Gianvittorio Signorotto (Modena e Reggio Emilia), ‘Le scritture sui conclavi nel Seicento’
The organisers gratefully acknowledge the support of the British Academy, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of London, and the British Library.
For more information, and for registration (by 1 September 2008), please contact Filippo de Vivo or Brian Richardson. A registration fee of £15 (£7.50 for postgraduates), will include coffee/tea and lunch. Cheques should be made payable to ‘Birkbeck College’, and sent to Filippo de Vivo, School of History, Classics, and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX.)
On the morning of Saturday 13 September, a half-day workshop on planning further collaborative projects in scribal culture will be held at the British Library. If you are interested in participating, please write to one of the organisers.
Topics: Of Early Modern Interest, Outside Events | No Comments »
Shakespeare in Shoreditch
By Karen B | August 8, 2008
The site of the Theatre playhouse may have been found in Shoreditch. Read the story from the BBC here: The Bard’s ‘first theatre’ found. The excavations are preliminary to the building of a new theatre on the site.
Topics: In the News, Of Early Modern Interest | 1 Comment »
Film Night : Ridicule
By Karen B | August 1, 2008
You are invited to our next free film night on Friday, 15 August.
We will be showing a ‘Ridicule’ (dir. Patrice Leconte) a film of danger, deception and desire, set in the Versailles court of Louis XVI.
The story critiques the corruption of religion and the callousness of the aristocrats at Versailles who use biting wit and ridicule for self advancement.
All welcome: Usual refreshments
Date: Friday August 15
Venue:Room B35, Birkbeck Malet Street,London WC1
Time: 6.15. Screening 6.30 prompt. The film lasts 103 minutes and has subtitles.
Topics: Events | No Comments »
Wallis Notebook Found in Berkshire
By Karen B | July 26, 2008
From the BBC:
The chance discovery of an antique notebook could have solved a 350-year-old scientific mystery.
Alexander Popham was born deaf in around 1650 but his mother, determined to communicate with her son, hired two eminent scientists, John Wallis and William Holder, to teach him to speak.
Both claimed success in what became a celebrated scientific controversy. Wallis’s notebook, found in the butler’s cupboard at Littlecote House, shows his methods and theories. Read the whole story here: Wallis Notebook.
Topics: In the News, Of Early Modern Interest | No Comments »
Turmoil and Tranquility at the National Maritime Museum
By Karen B | July 24, 2008
The National Maritime Museum’s unrivalled collection of sixteenth and seventeenth century Dutch and Flemish maritime paintings is currently on display. The collection charts the emergence of the Dutch Republic as a great maritime power and the rise of the seascape as a distinct art form in the Low Countries.
Between 1550 and 1700 artists from the Netherlands, both Flemish and Dutch, depicted the sea in a new and particular way. For the first time they saw it as a natural setting in its own right and this new approach allowed them to integrate the elements of air, light and water in art.
Find out more here: Turmoil and Tranquility. The exhibition is on until 11 January 2009. Check the website before you go as the exhibition may occasionally be closed.
Topics: Of Early Modern Interest | No Comments »
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