Symposium on Reading and Health in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800

Registration Now Open

Medieval and Early Modern Research Group, Newcastle University

5-6 July 2013

DAY 1: Mining Institute, Newcastle City Centre
DAY 2: Herschel Building, Newcastle University

Keynote speakers:

Katharine Craik, Helen Smith, Richard Wistreich, Josie Billington, Phil Davis

Find out more and register at the ‘Reading and Health in Early Modern Europe’ Homepage: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/niassh/readingandhealth.htm

The conference programme is available here: HealthandReadingprogramme200313

CFP: Third Tudor and Stuart Ireland Conference, Dublin, August 2013

Proposals for papers and panels (of three speakers) are invited for the third Tudor and Stuart Ireland Conference, to be held in University College Dublin on 30 and 31 August 2013.

Papers relating to any aspect of Irish society during the Tudor and Stuart eras are welcome, including:

• Writing (and rewriting) History in Tudor and Stuart Ireland
• The pursuit of profit: The merchant class in Tudor and Stuart Ireland
• The Irish in England and on the continent
• The role of women in Tudor and Stuart Ireland
• Military History

Proposals from postgraduate students are particularly welcome.
Abstracts of 250 words may be submitted via the conference website. The closing date for submission of proposals is Friday, 10 May 2013.
For more information, please visit the conference website www.tudorstuartireland.com or email info@tudorstuartireland.com.

Prof Vanessa Harding: ‘Domestic Economies: London Households in the 16th and 17th centuries’

We are delighted to announce our next event a talk by Birkbeck’s own Professor Vanessa Harding entitled ’Domestic Economies: London Households in the 16th and 17th centuries’. The talk will take place on 26 April in Birkbeck Malet Street building room B30 at 6.30 and will be followed by refreshments.

A valued supporter of the Early Modern Society, Professor Harding works on the history of medieval and early modern period especially the interaction of social life and physical environment. She has published on a number of aspects of this, such as population and urban growth, gardens and open space, markets, bridges, and London’s archaeology.

After this event we have two more talks remaining this academic year

Friday 24 May, Dr Laura Gowing, ‘Gender, Custom and the City: Female Apprentices in Late Seventeenth-Century London’, room tbc

&

Thursday 6 June: Prof. Lyndal Roper, ’Love, Anger and Envy: Emotions and the Early Reformation’, room tbc, followed by our end of year party.

The charge for each event is: members free (membership £7), non-members £4, donations welcome.

Friday 22 March, Dr Richard Williams, ‘Realism in the Art of Jan van Eyck’,Malet St, room 414

Friday 26 April, Prof. Vanessa Harding, ‘Domestic Economies: London Households in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, room tbc.

Friday 24 May, Dr Laura Gowing, ‘Gender, Custom and the City: Female Apprentices in Late Seventeenth-CenturyLondon’, room tbc.

Thursday 6 June, June: Prof. Lyndal Roper, ‘Love, Anger and Envy: Emotions and the Early Reformation’, room tbc, followed by our end of year party.

Working it Out: A Day of Numbers in Early Modern Writing

Saturday 18 May 2013
Birkbeck, University of London
Keynes Library, 43-46 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

Registration Open

Early modern books are full of numbers, representing both practicality and mystery. This multidisciplinary one-day conference explores numbers in British early modern literature and textual culture. How were numbers and numerical techniques used in drama, dance, and poetry? What were the practical issues arising from printing numerical texts? How were numbers represented on the page in mathematical and accounting texts – and elsewhere? How were the index and the cross-reference created and used? To what extent would an early modern audience recognize mathematical references in literary texts and performance? Who would buy an arithmetic book and how might they use it?

The conference will bring together researchers from the fields of literature, history of mathematics and of accounting, economic and cultural history, performance studies, and more to think in new ways about early modern numbers.

Speakers include:

- Stephen Clucas, Birkbeck
- Natasha Glaisyer, York
- Richard Macve and Basil Yamey, London School of Economics
- Carla Mazzio, University at Buffalo, SUNY
- Emma Smith, Hertford College, Oxford
- Adam Smyth, Birkbeck

Conference fee £10, including lunch. Register at: https://www2.bbk.ac.uk/english/workingitout

Free for postgraduates, if registered in advance. Please contact us at numbersday@gmail.com if you are a postgraduate student and would like to attend.

General questions can be directed to the organisers, Rebecca Tomlin and Katherine Hunt, at numbersday@gmail.com; also check out the blog at http://numbersday.blogspot.co.uk.

The conference organisers are grateful for the generous support provided by the Society for Renaissance Studies, the Royal Historical Society, the London Renaissance Seminar, and ICAEW’s Charitable Trusts.