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Seminar Reports


Warwick Workshop for Interdisciplinary German Studies - 2018/19

 Overview

The Warwick Workshop for Interdisciplinary German Studies (WWIGS) is an interdisciplinary workshop series dedicated to all areas of German cultural studies. It offers a vital forum for the presentation and exchange of research ideas in the German Department and across the School of Modern Languages and Cultures. In 2018/19, the series consisted of nine events with speakers including writers and academics of national and international renown from the University of Warwick and other institutions. Each workshop attracted an audience of between 12 and 70 attendants. The series was funded through a contribution from the HRC, and for one event through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Goethe Institute, and for several events we collaborated with other Universities to keep costs down.

 Description

Meeting two to (exceptionally this year) five times during term, normally in the Department of German Studies, the WWIGS series hosts presentations by senior national and international scholars and writers, Warwick colleagues and doctoral students, usually on a Wednesday afternoon. Presentations can be delivered both as finished conference-style papers, or more informally as work-in-progress.

In 2018/19, the papers by Dr Ina Linge (University of Exeter), Prof. Susanne Luhmann (University of Alberta, Canada), Prof. Elizabeth Boa (University of Nottingham), Prof Holger Schulze (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Dr Thomas Martinec (University of Regensburg, Germany), and Prof. Kate Rigby (Bath Spa University), as well as Prof. Elisabeth Herrmann (Warwick German Studies) and Dr Chantal Wright (Warwick English and Comparative Literature) were well attended, and due to their interdisciplinary nature, attracted a substantial number of colleagues and postgraduates from other humanities and social sciences disciplines at Warwick (History, English, Sociology, Philosophy) and from neighbouring universities (Oxford, Birmingham). A number of these sessions were also attended by undergraduates from SMLC, and it will be a particular aim for the coming year to continue growing undergraduate attendance at these research seminars.

The funding generously contributed by the Humanities Research Centre was used to invite guest speakers from across the UK, and to pay for evening meals for the speakers after each talk. The German Department was also able to draw on a collaboration with the German Academic Exchange service (DAAD), the Goethe Institut, the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), Lincoln College and the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, University of Oxford, to host the internationally acclaimed German author Olga Grjasnowa, this year’s DAAD Writer in Residence at Warwick, for a public reading from her novel Gott ist nicht schüchtern, which attracted about 60 undergraduate students from across the department, many of whom had prepared the meeting with the author intensively in their classes in the preceding weeks. For other events (Susanne Luhmann, Thomas Martinec, Holger Schulze) we collaborated with other Universities to keep speakers’ travel costs to a minimum.

The WWIGS series will continue in 2019/20 with talks by Dr. Katharina Karcher, Dr. Emily Oliver and other external speakers, but the department decided to reserve more time for exchange about Warwick colleagues’ own research and possible collaborations next year in the run-up to the REF, and we will therefore schedule a greater number of work-in-progress sessions by Warwick colleagues and postgraduates. The Warwick Workshop for Interdisciplinary German Studies has always been a lively forum for exchange and discussion within and across the boundaries of the German Studies Department, and has contributed considerably to the Department’s character as a collegial and intellectually stimulating environment. We are therefore very interested in maintaining the German Studies workshop as an independent series of events. The slight rebalancing of internal work-in-progress seminars and external speakers would also make it possible, though, to combine attendance at the WWIGS events with involvement in a smaller series of more centralised SMLC research events currently under discussion in the School.


Italian Studies Research Seminars

In 2018/19, as part of the HRC-funded Italian Studies Research Seminars, we organized eight events with UK-based and international scholars, including seminars, lectures, book launches and an exhibition.

The wide range of topics and methodological approaches of these events reflected the variety of our research strands and facilitated a productive dialogue with the research community at Warwick and beyond. Specifically, we invited scholars from the core disciplines of our section, and in particular established and early career scholars in the fields of Renaissance Studies, Translation Studies, Classical Reception, Digital Humanities and Queer/Feminist Studies.

All the eight events were generally well-attended and effectively spoke to a wide-ranging audience that included the large and thriving community of early career researchers in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, MA and PhD students in our section and beyond, undergraduate students, and Erasmus+ incoming students.

Programme

Term 1

Thursday 17 October 2018, 5-7pm H4.03

Dr Fabio Camilletti (Italian Studies).
Book Launch: Italia lunare. Gli anni Sessanta e l’occulto (Peter Lang, 2018)
Respondents: Prof Jenny Burns and Dr Mila Milani (Italian Studies)

Wednesday 31 October 2018, 5-7pm MS.B3.03 (Zeeman Building)

Prof Martin Kemp (University of Oxford)

Leonardo and the Ineffable: Form and Content in the Salvator Mundi

Respondent: Prof David Lines (Italian Studies, Renaissance Centre)

Wednesday 31 October – Friday 30 November 2018, Modern Records Centre

Exhibition: "Vampires over Italy: Borders, Identity, Pop Culture". Inaugural Speech by Dr Fabio Camilletti (Italian Studies)

Term 2

Wednesday 23 January 2019, 5-7pm H4.03

Dr Cecilia Piantanida (University of Durham) and Dr Teresa Franco (University of Oxford).

Book Launch: Teresa Franco and Cecilia Piantanida (eds.), Echoing Voices in Italian Literature: Tradition and Translation in the 20th Century (Cambridge Scholars, 2018)

Guest Speakers: Dr Fabio Camilletti (Italian Studies), Dr Masha Belova (Italian Studies) and Dr Martina Piperno (University College Cork).

Wednesday 20 February 2019, 5-7pm H4.03

Dr Andrea Penso (Vrije Universiteit Brussel; Visiting Scholar Warwick)

La ricezione del romanzo inglese nella stampa periodica italiana tra Sette e Ottocento. Un approccio digitale

Respondent: Dr Valentina Abbatelli (Italian Studies)

Wednesday 6 March 2019, 4-8pm Ramphal Building R0.04
Identities in Motion 4
Organizers: Gianmarco Mancosu and Gioia Panzarella (Italian Studies)

Wednesday 13 March 2019, 5-7pm H4.03

Dr Michela Baldo (University of Hull)
Translation and queer feminist activism. Some examples from Italy, Spain and France

Respondents: Dr Mila Milani (Italian Studies) and Dr Alberica Bazzoni (Italian Studies)

Term 3

Tuesday 14 May 2019, 5-7pm H4.50

Prof. John Monfasani (State University of New York at Albany)

STVDIO Seminar: American Historiography on Renaissance Humanism: Discussion of a recent publication

Alberica Bazzoni and Maria Pavlova
(co-convenors of the seminars) SMLC


STVDIO Seminar Series: Report 2018-19

Thanks to the continued support of the Humanities Research Centre, the STVDIO seminar series has built on the success of previous years, with a consistently good turnout of staff, postdocs, and graduate students from the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance and other Humanities departments. As usual, we endeavoured to create a varied programme grounded in interdisciplinarity. The seminar has brought to Warwick a series of eminent scholars in various fields, including foreign scholars who happened to be in the UK or at Warwick for research purposes, while also providing a platform for new staff and postdocs in the Humanities to showcase their research.

The Autumn term began with a paper from Dr Vladimir Brljak (Durham), on ‘Dead Water in English Criticism: Tradition and Innovation from Bacon to Dryden’, before moving from literature to philosophy with Prof. María Morrás (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona/Magdalen College Oxford), who spoke on ‘The Diffusion of Aristotle’s Ethics in Fifteenth-Century Spain: A Reappraisal’. There followed two papers co-sponsored by the Medieval Seminar Series: Prof. Emilia Jamroziak (Leeds) spoke on ‘Late Medieval Monastic Culture: Tradition, Memory, and Materiality’, before Prof. Rita Copeland (Pennsylvania) came to Warwick while on a research trip to the UK, to deliver a paper on ‘Aristotle’s Rhetoric and the Medieval Preacher’.

During term 2, the STVDIO series hosted three events on topics relating to book history and public engagement, neo-Latin literature, and humanist epistolography. These included a speaker from Oxford, Prof. Cristina Dondi, with a paper on ‘Communicating High-End Research to the General Public: the Printing Revolution Exhibition at the Correr Museum in Venice’; followed by Dr. Bobby Xinyue (BA Postdoctoral Fellow at Warwick), who spoke on ‘The Renaissance Fasti Poem: Form, Politics, and Ovidian Reception’. The term closed with two papers given by the editors at an event to mark the publication of the London correspondence of Isaac Casaubon, as Dr. Paul Botley (Warwick) and Dr. Máté Vince (Trinity College, Dublin) spoke on ‘A Huguenot Scholar at the Court of King James: The New Edition of Isaac Casaubon’s Letters from London, 1610–1615’.

Term 3’s programme included speakers from Warwick, the USA, and Taiwan, who gave papers on Renaissance England, the historiography of the Renaissance, and the cultural legacy of the Italian Wars. These were: Dr. Alice Leonard (Warwick), on ‘Thomas Browne’s Errors’; Prof. John Monfasani (State University of New York at Albany), on ‘American Historiography on Renaissance Humanism’, discussing his latest publication in Rassegna Europea di Letteratura Italiana; and Dr. Chi-fang Sophia Li (National Sun Yat-sen University), on ‘Italy under the English Quill: the Impact of the Italian Wars (1494–1559) on the Literary Geography of the English Renaissance’.

The STVDIO seminar continues to prosper, and we look forward to welcoming another series of distinguished speakers to Warwick next year, thanks to the generous support of the HRC and the CSR.

Rich Rabone, School of Modern Languages and Cultures


Italian Research Seminar Report 2017/18


Medieval Seminar Series 2016/17

The HRC Medieval Seminar Series has enjoyed another year of diverse and stimulating events. The Seminar supported fourteen events last year, including a mixture of internal and external papers, reading group sessions, workshops and a conference. This year’s external speakers included Elizabeth Eva Leach (Oxford), Kathleen Neal (Monash), Tom Hinton (Exeter) Anthony Bale (Birkbeck), Marion Turner (Oxford) and David Wallace (Pennsylvania). An internal seminar was delivered by Linda Paterson (French). A number of speakers spoke about projects that intersected with postgraduate and undergraduate research across the Arts Faculty, generating interest in our events from students at all levels, as well as from more established colleagues.

In addition to our programme of talks, the Medieval Reading Group, coordinated by Sarah Wood, met regularly during the course of the year. Jane Sinnett-Smith, Louise Campion, and Liam Lewis also ran an afternoon workshop on medieval women’s writing for undergraduates. The seminar supported the HRC Bodies in Flux conference, which took place in the Wolfson Research Exchange on 20th May 2017, and included a roundtable discussion with Miranda Griffin (Cambridge), Robert Mills (UCL), and Debra Strickland (Glasgow).

Looking forward to next year, we are excited to be hosting a range of speakers from across the UK and a diverse Reading Group designed to compliment the external speakers and encourage interdisciplinary debate across the Arts Faculty. Further information on our activities can be found on the Medievalists at Warwick webpage; there are also updates year-round on Twitter @medievalwarwick and Facebook.


Early Modern & Eighteenth Century Centre Seminar Series 2016-17 and other events

The Early Modern and Eighteenth Century Centre was established in Spring 2017, growing out of the former Eighteenth Century Centre, the Early Modern Forum (a major AHRC-funded project), and the core strength in early modern history of Warwick's Department of History. Covering a large time period (1450 to 1850), the Centre works on major research projects, as well as providing an interdisciplinary forum for academic staff and postgraduate students in the Humanities, particularly History, English, French, History of Art, and beyond.

We are very grateful to HRC for the funding that allowed us to present this year’s seminar programme. The good attendance figures from last year continued, with again an average of 17-18 (the figure would be higher if not for Catriona Seth’s seminar in February coinciding with a major storm). The seminars with Will Pettigrew, Simon Ditchfield and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal were joint events with the Global History & Culture Centre, and the one with Carmen Soares was joint with Comparative American Studies. Events supported by HRC were:

Dr Will Pettigrew (University of Kent) - Corporate Constitutionalism and the Dialogue between the Global and Local in Seventeenth Century English HistoryDr Paddy Bullard (University of Reading) - Manuals: how to do things with booksDr Carmen Soares (University of Coimbra) - 'New World, Old Recipes: Portuguese Gastronomy and Brazilian Food in the Early Modern Era'Prof. Simon Ditchfield (University of York) - On Writing a History of the Counter-Reformation for a Postcolonial AgeDr Andrea Haslanger (University of Sussex) - The Ends of Elegy: Slavery and Death in the Atlantic WorldProf. Catriona Seth (University of Oxford) - A Clandestine Correspondence at Court: Marie-Antoinette's exchanges with Count MercyProf. Peter de Bolla (University of Cambridge) - Testing the structure and history of concepts: the case of negative libertyDr Kate Davison (University of Oxford) - Laughter on Trial in Early Eighteenth-Century EnglandDr Nicholas Popper (College of William & Mary) - Breaching Leviathan: The State as an Object of Knowledge in Early Modern EnglandDr Nathan Perl-Rosenthal (University of Southern California) - Toward a Cultural History of Atlantic Revolutions, c. 1760-1820

The HRC funding enabled us to use some of our core funding for additional events, including seminars which showcased Warwick’s postgraduates and staff, and to provide support for a workshop ‘The Early Modern Iberian World in a Global Frame, 16th-18th centuries’, convened by IAS ECF, Desiree Arbo.

We participated fully in the annual 18th Century Symposium held jointly with the University of Birmingham, and hosted this year by Birmingham. As well as presentations, the day included discussions about developing a wider network for Eighteenth Century research and collaboration across the Midlands and beyond.


Warwick Workshop for Interdisciplinary German Studies

2016/17

1. Overview

The Warwick Workshop for Interdisciplinary German Studies (WWIGS) is an interdisciplinary workshop series dedicated to all areas of German cultural studies. It offers a vital forum for the presentation and exchange of research ideas in the German Department and across the School of Modern Languages and Cultures. In 2016/17, the series consisted of seven events with eight speakers, including world renowned academics, nationally known scholars, and doctoral students from the University of Warwick. Each workshop attracted an audience of 15-30 on average. The series was funded through a contribution from the HRC, through an IAS fellowship, and through the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.

2. Description

Meeting two to three times during term in the Department of German Studies, the WWIGS series hosts presentations on a Wednesday afternoon by senior national and international scholars, Warwick colleagues and doctoral students. Presentations can be delivered either as finished conference-style papers, or more informally as work-in-progress. In 2016/17, the German Department was able to draw on the Horizon 2020 funding of Silke Horstkotte, Marie Curie research fellow in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, to invite a number of internationally renowned guest speakers from Canada and Germany: in term 2, Prof. Daniel Weidner, Deputy Director of the Centre for Literature and Culture (ZfL, Berlin), presented his current research on concepts of the secular; in term 3, Prof. Nancy Pedri (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada) and Dr. Maike Schult (Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel, Germany) discussed recent work in the interdisciplinary area of comics studies, visual media culture, and religion. These topics are of immediate interest to a number of colleagues in the department, most notably James Hodkinson and Silke Horstkotte, both of whom connect religion, secularity, and media culture in their current research projects. Moreover, through these international guest lectures, the German Department was able to strengthen its international network and to initiate new research collaborations: Silke Horstkotte and Maike Schult are planning to edit a new open access online journal of religion and literature.

The funding generously contributed by the Humanities Research Centre (£ 500) was used to invite guest speakers from across the UK, and to pay for evening meals for the speakers after each talk. The lecture by Dr. Michael Mack (Durham University) and the double workshop Music and Belonging in Germany with Dr. Luis-Manuel García (University of Birmingham) and Prof. David Pattie (University of Chester) were well attended, attracting large audiences from across humanities disciplines at Warwick and from neighbouring universities (Coventry, Birmingham). The music workshop was initiated by Dr. James Hodkinson, who also works in this field. It has led to a themed lead panel on Sound and sense at this year’s Association of German Studies conference, co-organised by Dr. Hodkinson and by Dr. Uwe Schütte of Aston University, who attended the workshop. Other workshops in the WWIGS series presented research by doctoral students in the German Department. The workshop with the most high-profile speaker in this year’s series, Prof. Steven Aschheim (Hebrew University Jerusalem), was included as a special event in the context of Prof. Aschheim’s Institute of Advanced Study fellowship.

The WWIGS series will continue in 2017/18 with talks by Prof. Carolin Duttlinger (University of Oxford), Dr. Godela Weiss-Sussex (University of Cambridge), Prof. Allison Gibbons (Sheffield Hallam University) and Dr. Anna Linton (King’s College, London). It should be pointed out that next year’s series will not receive any extra funding from the EU or IAS, relying on the HRC's funding alone, which will be all the more needed to continue offering these talks.

3. Program

Term 1

19 October Michael Mack (Durham University): Crises and contaminations

3 November Steven Aschheim (Hebrew University Jerusalem): Locating the Jewish Self in a Turbulent Germany: The Contrasting Visions of Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt and Victor Klemperer

23 November Katharina Forster (University of Warwick): Bildung, Kolonialismus und Propaganda in Sherko Fatahs Ein Weißes Land (2011)

Term 2

25 January Daniel Weidner (Centre for Literature and Culture, Berlin): Culture and the Afterlife of Religion. Concepts of the Secular today

8 February Luis-Manuel Garcia (University of Birmingham) / David Pattie (University of Chester): Music and Belonging in Germany

Term 3

26 April Nancy Pedri (Memorial University of Newfoundland): Visual Layerings of Self: Photography in Graphic Memoir

3 May Maike Schult (Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel): Traumics - The Church and Trauma in comic book format


STVDIO 2016/2017

Organised by Dr Sara Trevisan & Dr Máté Vince

Since October 2016, we have had eleven speakers at the seminar series, from the UK and Europe, who gave papers on subjects pertaining to English literature, history, philosophy, and biblical iconography of the period 1350-1700. The series has been well-attended, particularly by postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows from several Humanities departments. Further speakers are scheduled to speak in the next few months. For next year, we are looking into creating more collaborative seminars with the departments of History and with Italian Studies. Speakers this year were:

* Dr Sascha Becker (Warwick) on ‘Religion, Division of Labour and Conflict: Anti-Semitism in German Regions in the Early Modern Period’

* Dr Dario Tessicini (Durham) on ‘Comets and Meteorology in Early Modern Venice’

* Professor Raluca Radulescu (Bangor) on ‘High Feeling in Fifteenth-Century Vernacular Chronicles in England’

* Dr Matthias Roick (Göttingen) on ‘Easy Virtue? The Moral Thought of Italian Humanists and Its Reception in 17th-Century Germany’

* Professor Alessandra Petrina (Padua) on ‘Machiavelli’s Principe and the Scribal Community in Early Modern England’

* Dr Max Engammare (Institut d’histoire de la Reformation, Geneva / Director, Librairie Droz) on ‘The Biblical Figure of Bathsheba’

* Umberto Cecchinato (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) on ‘Public Dances as Social Situations: Behaviours and Conflicts at Balls in Renaissance Venice’

* Dr Matthew Champion (Birkbeck) on 'Erasmus' Bells: Word, Voice, Presence'

* Dr Sietske Fransen (Cambridge) on 'Communicating the Previously Unseen: Dutch microscopists and their correspondence with the Royal Society'

* Dr Alexander Samson (UCL) on 'Hispanic Worlds in the English Renaissance'

* Shanti Graheli (St Andrews) on ‘Knowledge, Print, and Power: The Rise and Fall of the Accademia Veneziana’


HRC-funded Italian Studies Research Seminars

In 2016/17, as part of the HRC-funded Italian Studies Research Seminars, we organized six events with UK-based and international scholars, as well as practitioners.

The wide range of topics and methodological approaches of these events reflected the variety of our research strands, and facilitated a productive dialogue with the research community at Warwick and beyond. Specifically, we invited scholars from the core disciplines of our section, and in particular established scholars in the field of Renaissance Studies, early career researchers in Classics, and international experts in Gothic literature. We also hosted events with internationally renowned philosophers and sociologists in order to promote interdisciplinary collaboration with the Departments of Philosophy and Sociology. Finally, we engaged with the professional world through seminars with translators, writers, photographers, and directors of cultural institutions.

All the six events were generally well-attended and effectively spoke to a wide-ranging audience that included the large and thriving community of early career researchers in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, MA and PhD students in our section and beyond, undergraduate students, and Erasmus+ incoming students.

Drs Mila Milani and Maude Vanhaelen
co-convenors of the seminars

Programme

Term 1

Thursday 24 November, 5-7pm R1.04

Dr Fabrizio Foni (University of Malta) Magic is the New Black: Gothic Tradition, Cross-Dressing, and Pulp Fiction
Respondent: Dr Fabio Camilletti (Italian Studies)

Term 2

Wednesday 25 January, 5-7pm H4.03

Dr Letizia Panizza (Royal Holloway, University of London) Seeking the Ideal Wife: A Man's Never-ending Task!
Respondents: Dr Bryan Brazeau and Anna-Laura Puliafito (Italian Studies)

Monday 30 January, 5-7pm H5.45

Literary Translation Workshop with translator Richard Dixon

Wednesday 22 February 2017, 4-8pm OC0.01 (The Oculus)
Identities in Motion

Confirmed speakers:
Marco Delogu (photographer - Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London),
Shirin Ramzanali Fazel (writer),
Simone Varriale (University of Warwick)
Organizers: Gianmarco Mancosu and Gioia Panzarella (Italian Studies)

Wednesday 8 March, 5-7pm H4.03

Dr Bobby Xinyue (University of Warwick) Ovid in the Renaissance: the Poetic Calendar of Ambrogio Novidio Fracco, between Paganism and Christianity
Respondent: Dr Maude Vanhaelen (Classics and Italian Studies)

Term 3

Thursday 4 May, 5-7pm in OC0.01 (The Oculus)

Book Presentation
Roberto Esposito (SNS, Pisa) will present his latest book Da Fuori. Una filosofia per l'Europa (Einaudi 2016), in conversation with Elettra Stimilli (Roma La Sapienza), Jennifer Burns (Warwick, Italian), Miguel Beistegui (Warwick, Philosophy). flyer

Followed by wine reception, Warwick University Bookshop, 7pm - 8pm

The event is supported by the HRC-funded Italian Studies Research Seminars and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 660528.

These book presentations are part of the series of events on Italian Thought: Origins and Actuality (University of Warwick, May 3-4 May) organized by Alessandra Aloisi and Fabio Camilletti (Italian Studies), in collaboration with the School of Modern Languages and Cultures (Italian) and the Department of Philosophy (Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts; Research Seminar in Post-Kantian Philosophy).


Millburn House Seminars 2015/16

The Millburn Seminar Series is an interdisciplinary research seminar, bringing together staff and students from the Department of Film and Television Studies, Department of History of Art, and the School of Theatre & Performance Studies and Cultural & Media Policy Studies, to engage with a program of distinguished speakers drawn from the worlds of academia, art, media, and industry.Previous speakers have included Patrick Keiller, David Batchelor, Nigel Thrift, Vanessa Toulmin, Stephen Sutcliffe, and Iain Borden. Supported by the Humanities Research Fund.

The Millburn Research Seminar takes place in Millburn House once every term on the Wednesday of Week 5.

In Autumn 2015 we hosted Professor Nick Ridout, of Queen Mary University of London, who gave a talk entitled ‘Entertainment after Empire: Godspeed You! Black Emperor on Stage’, which focussed on the relationship between the contemporary entertainment industry and histories of empire and colony, read through an account of a recent concert at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire by the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. This synchronised nicely with the fortuitous scheduling of the band’s UK tour, which saw them playing the Warwick Arts Centre just two weeks before Professor Ridout’s talk. Several audience members had managed to attend the gig, and this led to a vibrant and very interesting discussion, that addressed the interdisciplinarity of the series in an interesting way.

Prof. Ridout is the author of Passionate Amateurs: Theatre, Communism and Love (2013), Theatre and Ethics (2009), Stage Fright, Animals, and Other Theatrical Problems (2006), and co-editor of Contemporary Theatres in Europe: A Critical Companion (2006), amongst other works. He has published extensively in international journals and also works as a performance creator and curator.

In Spring 2016 we hosted Dr. John David Rhodes from the University of Cambridge. He gave a talk entitled 'The Spectacle of Property' that drew upon his recent research into the relationship between cinema and the built environment, and his current work on a book on the subject of the house in American cinema. The seminar was well attended by an audience from several disciplines (including many attendees from outside of the Millburn House Departments).

Dr. Rhodes is Director of the Centre for Film and Screen at the University of Cambridge. His books include Stupendous, Miserable City: Pasolini's Rome (University of Minnesota Press, 2007), Meshes of the Afternoon (BFI/Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), and the edited collections Taking Place: Location and the Moving Image (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), Antonioni: Centenary Essays (BFI/Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), and On Michael Haneke (Wayne State University Press, 2010).


Sidelights on Shakespeare 2015/16

2016 marks four hundred years since the death of Shakespeare, and to celebrate the anniversary Sidelights on Shakespeare teamed up with The Birthplace Trust and the IAS International Visiting Fellowship scheme to produce a special event in Stratford-Upon-Avon. In July eminent historian, Professor Carole Levin (Lincoln, Nebraska, USA) and exciting, interdisciplinary scholar, Dr Michael Winkelman (Owens Tech, USA) gave complementary papers on Shakespeare’s Venetian plays. Prof Levin’s lecture, 'I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys: Shylock’s Turqouise, Queenship, and the Exotic', was followed by Dr Winkelman’s contrasting talk 'To Preserve This Vessel: Jealousy, Evolutionary Biology, and Othello', thus ending another successful year for Sidelights on Shakespeare.

Our seminars this year began with Professor Gary Watt of Warwick School of Law who shared some thoughts on As You Like It from his forthcoming book Shakespeare’s Acts of Will: Law, Testament and Properties of Performance. Stuart Elden, Professor of Political Theory and Geography at Warwick was our second speaker and his fascinating paper explored King John through the themes of majesty and territories. Lastly, Dr Velda Elliott, Associate Professor of English and Literacy Education, University of Oxford, discussed whether viewing Hamlet within the genre of ‘Crime Fiction’, as A Level students currently have the option to do, can be helpful and interesting.

Sidelights on Shakespeare has become a recognized feature of research life at Warwick, so we were keen to expand our open access policy for distance and part-time learners. This we have done, capturing seminars live and making audio versions available, as well as establishing an on-line chat room for those who wish to discuss our seminars further. 2016, a special year for Shakespeare scholars and next year we have exciting developments planned for Sidelights on Shakespeare.

Arts Faculty Postgraduate Seminar Series 2015/16

Once again the HRC was able to sponsor the Arts Faculty Seminar Series enabling postgraduate students from the Faculty to meet for research seminars. The aim of the series is to broaden awareness of the doctoral work taking place within the faculty whilst creating a relaxed forum for young researchers to practice presenting their work. The seminars provide an opportunity for all students to offer valuable feedback on this work, strengthening their critical tools and expanding their inter-disciplinary experiences, and fostering a great sense of community. Despite a challenging year the following panels took place:

Term 1

“Philosophy of the Postcolonial Body”, chaired by Mike Niblett.

Andrew Stones (English), "The Postcolonial Machinic Unconscious: Dambudzo Marechera and the Textual Ecology of the Planet of Slums".

Roxanne Douglas (English), "Articulating: The Body and Discourse in Egyptian and Lebanese Women's Writings”

Term 2

“Reappraisals of Renaissance Italy", chaired by Dr Louise Bourdua.

Ovanes Akopyan (Renaissance Studies), “Controversies on Astrology in Renaissance Italy (late 15th and early 16th centuries)”.

Matteo Carpiniello (History of Art), “Bartolomeo Montagna: Art and Business in Early Modern Vicenza”

Eighteenth Century Centre Seminar Series 2015/16 and Workshop

We are very grateful to HRC for the funding that allowed us to present this year’s seminar programme, plus a one day workshop. Sarah Easterby-Smith’s seminar was a joint event with the Global History & Culture Centre. This year’s programme was:

Dr Kate Retford (Birkbeck, University of London): ‘‘Light Incidents': Humour and the Conversation Piece in Eighteenth-Century England’

Prof. Paul Monod (Middlebury College): ‘The Occult Revival in late 18th Century England’

Dr David Taylor (Warwick, English): ‘Looking, Literacy and the Printshop Window’

Prof. Emeritus Penelope Corfield (Royal Holloway, University of London): ‘Lauding Merit Over Birth: Intimations of a Coming Meritocracy 1700-1830’

Dr Sarah Easterby-Smith (St. Andrews): ‘The Emperor's New Cloves: Tipu Sultan, French Botany and Empire 1788’

Prof. Farid Azfar (Swarthmore College): ‘The Golden Age of the Assiento’Prof. Keith Baker (Stanford): ‘Marat: Prophet of Terror’

In May, it was Warwick’s turn to host the annual workshop held jointly with the University of Birmingham. This year’s theme was 'The Eighteenth Century Past and Present' and it set out to explore how the C18th helps/hinders us to think about contemporary issues, how aspects of the C18th are presented/represented in any form now, parallels/discontinuities between past and present, and C18th issues which still have purchase on current debates. The keynote presentation by Steve Pincus (Yale) on ‘Making a State in 1776: Political Economy, Imperial Politics and the Declaration of Independence’ was followed by panels on The Culture of Objects, The Digital Eighteenth Century, and Historical Perspectives. Postgraduate researchers from both institutions had the opportunity to present alongside established scholars. 30 people took part and the day was judged a great success.

Italian Research Seminars: 2015/16

Co-organisers: Cecilia Muratori and Alessandra Aloisi

TERM 1

Tuesday 17 November

Digital Tools for Humanities Research: A Workshop with Bryan Brazeau, Tomi Oladepo, Gioia Panzarella.

Wednesday 2 December

Bryan Brazeau (University of Warwick) on A Good Offense: Poetics and Society in Sixteenth-Century Italy (respondent tbc).

TERM 2

Wednesday 27 January

Federico Faloppa (University of Reading) presents his book Sbiancare un etiope (Aracne, 2013)

Respondent Naomi Wells (University of Warwick).

Wednesday 10 February

Mila Milani (University of Warwick) on Translation and Post-hegemony in post-WWII Italy: Left-wing Publishers and the Italian Communist Party (respondent tbc)

Tuesday 23 February

Alessandra Aloisi (University of Warwick) will present her research project Distraction as a Philosophical Concept and a Stylistic Device in France and Italy. 17th-19th Centuries (respondent tbc)

Wednesday 9 March

Presentation of Ten steps. Critical enquiries on Leopardi (Peter Lang, 2015), with Fabio Camilletti (University of Warwick) and Paola Cori (University of Birmingham)

TERM 3

Tuesday 10 May 2015

Angelo Maria Mangini (University of Bologna) on A Tale of Two Sirens: Tomasi di Lampedusa, Ozick, and the Gender of the Uncanny Respondent: Fabio Camilletti (University of Warwick).

Thursday 5 May 2015

Lunch Workshop with translator Richard Dixon

Medieval Seminar Series 2015/16

It has been another excellent year for the Warwick Medieval Seminar Series. The Seminar, which now supports around fourteen events every year, again hosted a mixture of internal and external papers, reading group sessions, and workshops. This year’s external speakers included Marilynn Desmond (Binghampton), Adrian Armstrong (QMUL), Juan Miguel Valero Moreno (Salamanca), Thorlac Turville-Petre (Nottingham), and Daniel McCann (Oxford). Colleagues from a range of departments at Warwick also gave papers: Giorgio Tagliaferro (History of Art), Simon Gilson (Italian Studies), and Merryn Everitt (PhD candidate, French Studies). A number of speakers spoke about projects that intersected with postgraduate and undergraduate research across the Arts Faculty, generating interest in our events from students at all levels, as well as from more established colleagues.

In addition to our programme of talks, the Medieval Reading Group, coordinated by Sarah Wood, met regularly during the course of the year. Jane Sinnett-Smith and Louise Campion also ran an afternoon workshop on cannibalism and the Eucharist in medieval literature. Preparations are underway for our final event of the academic year: a day workshop on Medieval Material Matters, organised by Merryn Everitt and Liam Lewis and generously funded by the HRC, the Society for French Studies, and the Warwick French Studies department. This workshop will take place in the Wolfson Research Exchange on 18 July 2016, and will include a plenary lecture by Professor Catherine Brown (Michigan). Further information is available on the website: medmaterialmatters.wix.com/warwick

Looking forward to next year, two of our postgraduate organisers have secured HRC Doctoral Fellowship funding for an interdisciplinary conference on the transformation of the body in the Middle Ages. We look forward to hosting this event, as well as our usual programme, next year.

Further information on our activities can be found on the Medievalists at Warwick webpage; there are also updates year-round on Twitter @medievalwarwick.

STVDIO 2015/2016

This year’s STVDIO Seminar series brought together a distinguished selection of speakers from the UK and abroad. It was valuable in eliciting inter-disciplinary dialogue and in strengthening Warwick’s links with other research institutions. We were delighted to jointly host speakers with other departments, thus enhancing the profile of the CSR across the Faculty of Arts at Warwick. Dr Jennifer Oliver’s talk on machines in French Renaissance literature was co-hosted with the French Department and Professor Mark Greengrass’s presentation on the Epistolary Reformation was jointly supported by the History Department and had a particularly broad audience.

The varied line-up of speakers fulfilled the CSR’s brief to act as a forum for interdisciplinary thinking, crossing traditional boundaries between the early modern and the medieval. Ideas were traded on a variety of fields, from the role of gender in medieval cross-dressing narratives (Emma Campbell, Warwick) to the structure of parish government in fifteenth and sixteenth-century England (Gabriel Byng, Cambridge). Alessandra Panazelli (University of Oxford) drew our attention to the importance of networks of early book production in the fifteenth century and Grace Allen (Warburg Institute) spoke about Aristotelianism in fifteenth-century Italy. The seminar group was particularly grateful to Richard Serjeantson for an illuminating paper on Thomas More’s Utopia which pointed to the text’s connection with the genre of civic panegyric. Warwick’s own staff had the opportunity to contribute to the series. In addition to Emma Campbell’s paper, Dr Máté Vince spoke about Virgilian influence in the oeuvre of the Hungarian poet Miklós Zrinyi, opening up new literary horizons for his audience.

We were also pleased to host a paper by a former member of the CSR, Paola Tomè, who spoke about Greek authors in Giovanni Tortelli’s Orthographia. The STVDIO series acts as an important venue for postgraduate and undergraduate students to deepen their studies, make contacts with academics from other institutions and share their own research with the academic community at Warwick. We are deeply grateful to the HRC and other institutions for enabling such a valuable opportunity for staff and students to meet and share ideas.

Arts Faculty Postgraduate Seminar Series 2014/15

The Arts Faculty Postgraduate Seminar Series has had an outstanding year, with papers covering interdisciplinary topics from different disciplines within and outside the Arts Faculty. This year, we have had two themed panels pairing presenters from the Department of Politics and International Studies and the Department of Sociology respectively with presenters from the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies. These panels addressed shared topics that are bringing together researchers from the Arts and Social Sciences, and pointed to ways in which researchers across disciplines can work together and share insights.

For the first time in the Seminar Series’ history, this year’s Series invited full-time faculty members from Warwick University and Coventry University to chair several of the panels. We plan to continue this practice in the following academic year, as the postgraduate presenters benefitted greatly from discussing their research with more experienced academics.

The Series ended on a high note with our final session on the theme of travel and migration, which was generously funded by the Travel and Mobility Studies Network in the Institute of Advanced Studies. We would like to thank the Humanities Research Centre and the IAS for their support of the Series.

Seminar panels 2014-2015:

Representing Non-Western Worlds

Jenny Mak (English and Comparative Literary Studies): The Kin-Erotic Tongue in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy

Charles Marshall (French Studies): Encountering the Orient through the Lens of Europe: Contrasting Early Modern French Travel Narratives

Chair: Dr Chris Campbell, Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies

Constructing Postcolonial Identities

Madeleine Scherer (English and Comparative Literary Studies): Eavan Boland’s Reception of Greek Mythology

Polly Gallis (French Studies): Nancy Huston: renegotiating the space between the global and individual subjectivities.

Chair: Waiyee Loh, English and Comparative Literary Studies

Perspectives on Comack McCarthy

James Christie (English and Comparative Literary Studies): ‘Days of Begging, Days of Theft': The Philosophy of Work in Blood Meridian

Ronan Hatfull (English and Comparative Literary Studies): ‘A Man May See How This World Goes With No Eyes’: Blindness and Bloody Triumvirates in Outer Dark, Macbeth and King Lear

Chair: Dr Nick Monk, English and Comparative Literary Studies

Gender Relations in Literature

Maria Cohut (English and Comparative Literary Studies): The Spectral Woman vs the Usurping Portrait in the Poetry of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti

Iman Sheeha (English and Comparative Literary Studies): “I think ’tis I am tainted”: Loss and Restoration of Male Honour in Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness (1603)

Chair: Dr Joanna Rzepa, English and Comparative Literary Studies

Economic and Social Histories

Nathan Murphy (Classics and Ancient History): A denarius perpetuus? The circulation of the “legionary denarii” of Mark Antony in Roman Italy and Britain 32 BC to AD 294

Michael Tsang (English and Comparative Literary Studies): Xu Xi’s History’s Fiction: History of Place vs History of People

Chair: Dr John Gilmore, English and Comparative Literary Studies

Early Twentieth-Century Japanese Political Philosophy and its Legacy

Atsuko Naito-Watanabe (Politics): Going Back to Nature? Nishida Kitaro’s Theory of Place, Japan’s Cosmopolitanism, and Manga

Waiyee Loh (English and Comparative Literary Studies): Empire of Cool: Imperialism, Commodities, and Cultural Capital in Neo-Victorian Shojo Manga

Chair: Dr Felix Rösch​, Coventry University

Travel in Past and Present

Elsa T. Oommen (Sociology): ‘Mobile Youth’ and Binaries of Work and Leisure

Chiaki Ohashi (English and Comparative Literary Studies): ‘Sensational Alliance’: The Risorgimento, Feudalism, and the Aristocratic Identity of Count Fosco in The Woman in White

Chair: Dr Tara Puri, Institute of Advanced Studies, Travel and Mobility Studies Network

Eighteenth Century Centre Seminars 2014/15

We are very grateful to HRC for the funding that allowed us to present a packed seminar programme with a record number of events (13). We successfully varied the seminar format on occasion by starting with an invited commentator’s presentation of a pre-circulated paper, followed by a response from the author, leading into a general discussion. More than half the seminars were presented jointly either with other research centres within History (Global History and Culture and the Early Modern Forum) or other departments (French, English and IATL). This year’s programme was:

Silvia Sebastiani (EHESS, Paris): 'Orangutans and Black Slaves in Global Perspective: Challenging the Boundaries of Humankind at the End of the 18th Century'

William Doyle (University of Bristol): ‘Thinking about the Ancien Regime’Melodee Beals (Sheffield Hallam): ‘Mennon and McGillivray: Scotland and the North American Frontier (1790-181’

David Bell (Princeton University): ‘Mr Boswell Goes to Corsica: Charismatic Authority in the Age of Revolutions’

John Morgan and Sara Miglietti (Warwick): ‘Flooding and Politics in Early Modern England’ and ‘Changing Place, Changing Man: Climate Theory and 'Human Engineering' in the Early Modern Period’

Giorgio Riello (Warwick): ‘With Great Pomp and Magnificence: Royal Gifts and the Embassies between Siam and France in the 1680s’Antoine Lilti (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales): ‘The Origins of 'Célébrité' (1750-1850)’

Charlotte Roberts (UCL): ‘Sympathy at the End of History: Edward Gibbon and his Romantic Legacy’

Elodie Duché (Warwick): ‘Brahmins, Brothers or Lovers? British prisoners of war and their contacts with Napoleonic France’

Margot Finn (UCL): ‘Harem Histories & Princely Politics: Tipu Sultan (the Family & East India Company Rule’Tita Chico (University of Maryland): ‘Experimentalism: Literary Knowledge and Science in Eighteenth-Century Britain’

Michael Bycroft (Warwick): ‘Alchemy, Art and Electricity: Gems at the Académie Royale des Sciences c.1700-1750’

Jim Livesey (University of Dundee): ‘The Global History of la France profonde: Languedoc in the Eighteenth Century’

Sidelights on Shakespeare 2014/15

Another year, and Sidelights on Shakespeare has continued to flourish with extraordinary vigour. 2014/15 was always going to be exceptional as we celebrated our 5th birthday, but it also proved to be remarkable for the quality of the research presented. During the summer of 2014, Warwick’s Dr Paul Prescott undertook an epic road trip across North America. Over 63 days he travelled 10,000 miles, witnessed 14 theatre festivals and saw 40 productions of Shakespeare’s plays. In November, Paul shared his experiences with us, and asked what they had revealed about America’s ‘special relationship’ with Shakespeare.

In December, Anna Marsland was invited to talk about her time at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she had been working as the Assistant Director on Webster’s The White Devil and Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring Girl. Then in March, Dr Sarah Olive, York University, discussed her innovative analysis of the television detective drama Lewis. Sarah is interested in tracking the series’ long history of Shakespeare appropriation in the context of the traditions of ‘whodunit’ fiction.

In June, we were especially delighted to welcome back Dr Peter Kirwan. Currently Assistant Professor of Shakespeare, University of Nottingham, during his time as a PhD student at Warwick, Peter was one of the original founders of Sidelights on Shakespeare. We felt it particularly appropriate that he drew our year to a close, at the same time as celebrating all that has been achieved over the past five years. Peter’s thought-provoking paper examined the so-called ‘Shakespeare Apocrypha’, opening up key questions about editing and author-ising plays whose authorship may never be resolved beyond doubt.

A huge thank you to Peter and all those who have, over the years, made Sidelights on Shakespeare possible. To the HRC, to audiences and speakers alike: we look forward to another exceptional five years.

STVDIO 2014/15

This year’s STVDIO Seminar series brought together a distinguished selection of speakers from the UK and abroad. It was valuable in eliciting inter-disciplinary dialogue and in strengthening Warwick’s links with other research institutions. We were delighted to jointly host speakers with other departments, thus enhancing the profile of the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance across the Faculty of Arts at Warwick. Professor David d’Avray’s paper on bigamy was co-hosted by the Medieval Seminar; Dr Jan Machielsen’s presentation on the Counter-Reformation was jointly supported by the History Department and Professor Denis Robichaud’s paper was jointly organised with the Italian Department. The varied line-up of speakers fulfilled the CSR’s brief to act as a forum for interdisciplinary thinking. Ideas were traded on a variety of fields, from theories about birds in French Renaissance literature (Emma Herdman) to the use of music as a cure for lovesickness in the works of Marsilio Ficino (Jacomien Prins). Warwick’s own staff had the opportunity to contribute to the series. Alongside Jacomien Prins, Dr Alexander Lee and Professor Brenda Hosington gave papers on the artistic theory of Girolamo Savonarola and the translation of works on women and marriage in England (respectively). The STVDIO series acts as an important venue for postgraduate and undergraduate students to deepen their studies, make contacts with academics from other institutions and share their own research with the academic community at Warwick. We are deeply grateful to the HRC for strengthening Warwick’s profile as a vibrant research institution and for providing it with such a valuable opportunity for staff and students to meet and share ideas.

Medieval Seminar Series 2014/15

The Medieval Seminar Series at Warwick has had another busy year, supporting the research of medievalists and those interested in the Middle Ages across the faculties of English, Modern Languages, History, and the History of Art. Last year’s invited speakers included David D'Avray (UCL) in a joint seminar with STVDIO from the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, Ros Brown-Grant (Leeds), Ardis Butterfield (Yale), Tamas Karath (Peter Pazmany Catholic University), and Michelle Bolduc (Wisconsin-Milwaukee), with internal papers given by Julian Gardner and Sarah Wood. The Series also supported a Medieval to Renaissance Lunch and the presentation of graduate research at the beginning of the year, in this case by Liam Lewis in French Studies.

Once again, with the generous financial support provided by the HRC, the MSS was able to provide an interdiscliplinary forum for scholars from Europe and the US to meet and exchange ideas on medieval cultural and literary studies. The Series also actively contributed to the organisation of two conferences held at Warwick over the course of the year: Reassessing Courtliness in Medieval Literature held by the British Branch of the International Courtly Literature Society, and a Research Day in Medieval English Studies, bringing together scholars and postgraduate researchers from the Universities of Padua, Lausanne, Peter Pazmany Catholic University, Budapest, Warwick, and with the University’s partner Queen Mary UL.

Not only has all of this taken place in the space of this academic year however; the MSS also held five sessions for the new Medieval Reading Group, which aims to bring students, researchers, and teachers together to provide new insight on materials that have included recent scholarship by Jill Mann, the Gawain poet’s perplexing masterpiece Cleanness, a medieval French Saints Life, and episodes from the Lancelot prose cycle. These have been supported by a revamped online presence for Medievalists at Warwick with the help of the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, and through our new twitter feed @medievalwarwick.

The next year promises to be just as intense and exciting as the last with a full programme of visiting and internal scholars, and the MSS is hoping to revitalise links with other Universities in the UK to enrich our relationships with scholars in the field and to create a hub of activity in Medieval Studies here at Warwick.