Warwick Restoration Conference 2026: Fashioning, Forging and Faking Identities, 1660-1714
Conference on the Restoration, Warwick University, 28th, 29th & 30th July:
Call for Papers deadline – 1 March
It has long been recognised by scholars that the Restoration period was an age of spectacular reinvention. From political realignments to theatrical innovations, from sartorial experimentation to the proliferation of print, the “long Restoration” witnessed the construction, performance, and contestation of identities in remarkable ways. This conference invites scholars to explore how identities were fashioned, faked, forged, or fractured in this dynamic and often volatile cultural moment.
In the spirit of the Bangor Conference on the Restoration, we aim to bring together a broad range of interdisciplinary perspectives that illuminate how individuals and communities attempted to negotiate issues of authenticity, disguise, self-presentation, and social transformation. How were identities manipulated for political gain – be they religious, political, or social? How did literary and visual cultures participate in creating or questioning the “selves” of the Restoration?
Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Political performance and the re-construction of the monarchy
- Constructions of gendered identities
- The sociability of identity
- Religious conformity, dissent, and the performance of belief and disbelief
- Colonial encounters and racialised identities
- Theatrical performance, acting, and the aesthetics of disguise
- Fashion, clothing, cosmetics, and bodily presentation
- Authorial imposture, identity, and literary forgeries
- Court culture, courtly personas, and the spectacle of monarchy
- Print culture, pamphleteering, and the crafting of public selves
- Scientific “personae,” knowledge-making, and credibility
- Urban spaces, masquerade culture, and social mobility
- Economic speculation, fraud, and the performance of credit
- Visual and material cultures of deception or display
Submission Guidelines
We welcome proposals from scholars at all career stages. Papers may address any aspect of the long Restoration period (c. 1658-1720) and may approach the topic from history, literary studies, art history, theatre studies, material culture, gender studies, book history, or related fields.
Please submit:
A 300-word abstract for a 20-minute paper
A short biographical note (100–150 words)
Proposals for panels welcome (3-4 participants)
Submit proposals by March 1st 2026 to David Fletcher and Hannah Straw atRestoration_Conference@warwick.ac.uk
Publication Plans
Selected papers may be invited for inclusion in a proposed edited collection with the HRC Warwick Series in the Humanities (Routledge).
Thanks to the Humanities Research Centre at the University of Warwick and the Early Modern and Eighteenth Century Centre of the History Department at the University of Warwick for their support for this conference.