Dear SEFR Friends and Colleagues

It is with great sadness that we write to let you know that J.R. (Ronnie) Mulryne died on Monday 28 January. He had become increasingly unwell in the past two months and, although he remained mentally alert, his body had become very frail as the cancer had spread and the treatments became more difficult to cope with. He died at home in his sleep.

As a co-founder and convenor of the Society for European Festivals Research Ronnie collaborated in numerous international and interdisciplinary conferences in Warwick, Venice, Edinburgh, the Warburg Institute (London), Bergamo, Mons and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. As a general editor of the European Festival Studies, 1450–1700 series he encouraged interdisciplinary research in an increasingly international context for students, doctoral and early career researchers and more senior scholars, collaborating in research networks with curators, archivists and performance practitioners.

He was able to enjoy the last of our volumes from the Routledge imprint, Occasions of State: Early Modern European Festivals and the Negotiation of Power, published in December 2018. Many thanks to all who helped to make that possible. Occasions preview pdf

In his last weeks he was very much engaged with our plans for a SEFR conference in Turin, as well as further conferences at Versailles and then in Warwick, even though he knew he would not be able to be there.

He has also been closely involved with the transfer of our European Festival Studies Series from Taylor and Francis/Routledge to Brepols. Our new publisher has assured us of a comparable quality and the inclusion of a generous number of illustrations.

Ronnie has been a tireless and distinguished contributor to academic teaching, research and publication as well as to the theatre community more widely. He has inspired generations of students and scholars, developing resources and a scholarly framework for the interdisciplinary study of European Renaissance culture and of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in performance in their own time and today. For more details of his publications see here. 

His energy, his dedication, his generosity in encouraging others and his love of theatre, music, poetry, architecture and history have been an inspiration to many. He will be greatly missed.

Margaret Shewring, Margaret M. McGowan and Marie-Claude Canova Green

The Politics of Water in the Art and Festivals of Medici Florence: from Neptune Fountain to Naumachia.

A monograph by Felicia Else (Gettysburg College).

Crossing Boundaries: confessional, political and cultural interactions in early modern festivals and diplomatic encounters

Venue: Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

A highly successful conference including excellent contributions by new and early-career as well as established scholars. Invited conference papers will lead in due course to a volume, edited by Richard Morris, in the European Festival Studies 1450-1700 series.

Occasions of State: Early Modern European Festivals and the Negotiation of Power

Edited by J.R. (Ronnie) Mulryne (Warwick), Krista De Jonge (K.U. Leuven), R.L.M. Morris (Cambridge) and Pieter Martens (K.U. Leuven).

Architectures of Festival in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning and re-fashioning Urban and Courtly Space

Edited by J.R. (Ronnie) Mulryne (Warwick), Krista De Jonge (K.U. Leuven), Pieter Martens (K.U. Leuven) and R.L.M. Morris (Cambridge).