Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library

CRS is pleased to spread the call for proposals for “The Material Text in Latin America: Local Traditions and Intercultural Dialogue,” a session at the 2025 College Art Association annual meeting sponsored by the Bibliographic Society of America, which will take place February 12-15 in New York City. The submission deadline for this session is August 29, 2024.

The goal of this session is to explore textual artifacts that have originated or been adapted for use in one or more Latin American cultures. The interplay between cultures, including relationships between different Latin American cultures or between Latin American and other cultures, will be a particular focus. Papers that address any period up to 1914 will be prioritized. A variety of media will be considered, including painted pottery, carved stucco, coins and other metalwork, engraved stone, and manuscripts or printed materials. Examples include the use and reuse of items bearing Indigenous or European script; the reinterpretation of imagery from elsewhere to illustrate Latin American texts; the early European historiography of indigenous Latin American ideographs and pictographs. While attending to the specificity of local traditions, the session will consider the significance of these textual artifacts in intercultural and historiographic perspective. The geographical definition of “Latin America” is open.

Please send proposals (title and 250-word maximum abstract) and your CV to Jeanne-Marie Musto, Bibliographical Society of America liaison to the College Art Association ([email protected]). If you are a current CAA member, please include your CAA member number with your proposal.

Earlier this month, CRS was honored to co-host “Empire of Concord? Communities and Authority in the Early Modern Iberian Worlds,” a conference organized by Maria Vittoria Spissu ((Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow, Department of the Arts - DAR - University of Bologna), at the University of Bologna. Two days of invigorating conversations focused on how artists, authors, religious leaders, political authorities and more attempted to create and sustain peace and stability in a complex global community. Though the conference focused on the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the themes resonated powerfully with events in our contemporary moment. We look forward to future conversations!

This symposium formed part of the dissemination activities of the research project: “Communities of Concord: Building Contentment and Belonging through Emotional Images in Early Modern Europe and Beyond” (COMCON). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101028785.

This event was part of a symposium series organized with the collaboration of the Center for Renaissance Studies of the Newberry Library in Chicago. The Newberry is the partner organization of the EU-funded COMCON project and has been the host institution of the outgoing phase of the MSCA. We also thank Center for Iberian Historical Studies at Saint Louis University for its support.

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One day remains to submit an abstract for “Emerging Scholars in Premodern Critical Race Studies,” a virtual symposium organized by Yasmine Hachimi (Newberry Library) that will take place December 6-7, 2024. The proposal submission deadline is tomorrow, June 15, 2024.

This symposium will highlight the research of emerging scholars working on race and race-making before 1800. Speakers will include graduate students and early career scholars from a variety of disciplines who will share their work on the development and influence of race from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, and explore how their research can inform our experience of race in the present.

We welcome abstracts from all fields and disciplines. Please submit a brief abstract (200-word maximum) and CV that includes your PhD or other terminal degree completion date (past or expected) to [email protected] with “Call for Papers” in the subject line by June 15, 2024. For more information about this program, click the link below.

Emerging Scholars in Premodern Critical Race Studies A virtual symposium highlighting the research of emerging scholars working on race and race-making before 1800.

CRS is pleased to announce that abstracts are now being accepted for “Skilled Hands, Virtuous Lives: Production and Reception of Early Modern Calligraphy,” a CRS-sponsored panel at the 2025 Annual Convention of the Renaissance Society of America in Boston that is organized by Daniela D’Eugenio and Melody Herr (University of Arkansas). To submit, send a 200-word abstract (with a 15-word title) and a three-page resume to Daniela D’Eugenio at [email protected] and Melody Herr at [email protected] by July 10, 2024.

Succinctly defined as “handwriting as an art” (Fairbank 1937), calligraphy appears in myriad media – writing, drawing, painting – on walls, vases, sacred books, and other objects. Joining textuality, visuality, and materiality, it works on the interplay of languages and visual arts, form and meaning, aesthetic design and readability (Korn-Metzler 2022).

Especially in the early modern period, this combination allowed (or did not allow) the viewers to decode and interiorize the text. In Europe and in the New World, as well as in Asian cultures, calligraphy served to preserve traditions and to define a social group by shaping cultural, linguistic, artistic, moral, and national identities (Calderhead-Cohen 2011; Lovett 2020). For this reason, calligraphy is frequently associated with moral lessons and ethical growth, produced by repeated viewing or reproducing of textual/visual examples. The combination of imageries and moral injunctions is intended to shape better professional calligraphers, artistically and technically skilled, and, simultaneously, good citizens educated in virtuous conduct.

We seek papers that take into consideration the creation, interpretation, and reception of early modern calligraphy in different cultures, places, and languages, explore the multiplicity of styles, techniques, and purposes of calligraphy, and underline the connection between writing and morality/ethics. We are particularly interested in how calligraphy techniques and practices were connected to the early modern cultures and communities to which calligraphy was directed and how they reflected these cultures and communities. We are intrigued by how the visual perception and textual understanding of calligraphy is directly linked to its contexts of production and use.

CRS is still accepting abstracts for “Emerging Scholars in Premodern Critical Race Studies,” a virtual symposium organized by Yasmine Hachimi (Newberry Library) that will take place December 6-7, 2024. The proposal submission deadline is June 15, 2024.

This symposium will highlight the research of emerging scholars working on race and race-making before 1800. Speakers will include graduate students and early career scholars from a variety of disciplines who will share their work on the development and influence of race from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, and explore how their research can inform our experience of race in the present.

We welcome abstracts from all fields and disciplines. Please submit a brief abstract (200-word maximum) and CV that includes your PhD or other terminal degree completion date (past or expected) to [email protected] with “Call for Papers” in the subject line by June 15, 2024. For more information about this program, click the link below.

Emerging Scholars in Premodern Critical Race Studies A virtual symposium highlighting the research of emerging scholars working on race and race-making before 1800.

CRS is pleased to announce "Empire of Concord? Communities and Authority in the Early Modern Iberian Worlds," a conference that will take place at the Università di Bologna on June 11-12, 2024.

Images and texts praising a merciful Catholic Church and a triumphant Habsburg Empire propagated a (fictitious?) projection of harmonious reality. Views of ideal communities committed to sharing instrumental virtues clashed with potentially disruptive factors: a planetary empire, political enemies, religious Otherness, and competitive sovereignties. Whereas the social and moral models promoted were presented under the banner of concord and perfection, the promise of happiness and salvation entailed a forced and centralizing pacification of dissents and conflicts.

What images and books were favored to captivate souls, soothe disparities, and uplift consciences? What practices were applied to propose a sense of belonging and legitimize authority? This symposium analyzes how religious orders, political rulers, images, and books conceived and distributed views regarding society and morality throughout the Habsburg Monarchy and its spaces of allegiance and interference. What works united, consoled, or (dis)connected the Iberian worlds? What–in the proximity granted by a newly expanded circulation–was transformed, omitted, or over-emphasized, and why?

Follow the link below for more information about the conference, including a complete schedule.

Empire of Concord? Communities and Authority in the Early Modern… Home / Calendar Event—Center for Renaissance Studies Empire of Concord? Communities and Authority in the Early Modern Iberian Worlds This event will be free and open to the public. No registration is required. Organized by Maria Vittoria Spissu (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow, Department of...

CRS is pleased to welcome proposals for the 2024-2025 Premodern Studies Seminar. This seminar provides a forum for new approaches to classical, medieval, and early modern studies. Our theme for this year is “Premodern Geographies,” and our aim is to explore the role of space and place (both real and imagined) in thought and culture before 1800. The proposal submission deadline is June 15, 2024.

We welcome submissions from all fields of premodern studies. Global approaches are particularly welcome, and we invite work that is both archival and theoretical. Papers will be pre-circulated, so that the majority of the seminar session will be devoted to discussion.

Follow the link below for more information on the seminar and how to submit a proposal.

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CRS is seeking graduate student organizers for our 2025 Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference, which will take place January 30-February 1, 2025 at the Newberry. The application deadline is May 31, 2024.

The annual graduate student conference is an exciting opportunity for graduate students to gain experience in a variety of organizational and administrative tasks, including selecting abstracts, arranging panels, chairing sessions, presenting collection materials, and more.

Applications will be submitted through a Google Form. Click on the link below to access the form. Please send any questions to [email protected].

2025 Newberry Graduate Conference Organizer Application

CRS reminds all graduate students that applications are still being accepted for the 2024-2025 CRS Dissertation Seminar, “Disability as Method: Cripping the Archive,” which will meet September 27 and November 1, 2024; February 7 and April 25, 2025. The application deadline is Wednesday, May 15, 2024.

Led by Jason Farr (Marquette University) and Elizabeth Bearden (University of Wisconsin-Madison), this seminar aims to assist graduate students in the early phase of dissertation writing who have an interest in disability studies and/or crip theory. No previous courses in disability studies or crip theory are required. The seminar welcomes dissertators who want to learn and write about intersectional approaches to disability and early modern and eighteenth-century embodiment more broadly – including projects that assess how disability intersects with race, Indigeneity, class, gender, sexuality, and so forth.

Click on the link below for more information, including instructions on how to submit an application.

Disability as Method: Cripping the Archive A seminar for dissertators seeking to learn and write about intersectional approaches to disability and early modern and eighteenth-century embodiment.

CRS reminds all that applications are now being accepted for academic programming in the fall term of the 2024-2025 academic year. Beginning in September, CRS is sponsoring three research methods workshops, a dissertation seminar, and a 10-week graduate seminar.

Click on the link below for more information about these programs and instructions for submitting an application. The application deadline for all fall academic programming is May 15, 2024.

Calendar Our calendar of events is always packed with classes, lectures, discussions, readings, tours, and performances.

CRS is pleased to announce the next meeting of the Premodern Studies Seminar, which will take place Friday, May 10, 2024 at 3:00 pm at the Newberry.

In this meeting, Claudia Brittenham (University of Chicago) will present “Reimagining Ancient Mesoamerican Identities.” Ancient Mesoamerican identity was complex and multifaceted. Fiercely local, identity was tied to community, lineage, place, and history. The ways that ancient Mesoamerican people understood difference do not correspond entirely to modern conceptions of race or ethnicity, which were beginning to take shape precisely at the time of the Spanish invasion of the Americas. Using colonial textual and pictorial sources as well as pre-invasion works of art and material culture, this seminar explores how Mesoamerican history might look different if it departed from emic categories of identity rather than the colonial frameworks that we have inherited.

This event is free, but all participants must register in advance. Space is limited, so please do not request a paper unless you plan to attend. Follow the link below for more information about the seminar and a link to register.

Claudia Brittenham, The University of Chicago Reimagining Ancient Mesoamerican Identities

CRS is pleased to announce the final meeting of the Milton Seminar, which will take place Saturday, May 11, from 12-2 pm at the Newberry.

In this meeting, Joshua R. Held (Southeastern Oklahoma State University) will present “Milton’s Pauline Universalism: Race and Religion in Early Modern England.” This paper introduces a study of Milton’s appropriation of Paul in Paradise Lost in order to uncover the universal inheritance of all people from Adam and Eve, the original human parents as that poem conceives them. Paul explains the “one blood” (Acts 17:26) of all human beings, and Milton reflects this thinking at various points. Milton often suggests the wide scope of a Pauline view by conjoining it with other classical texts, often Virgil but also Lucretius, Lucan, or Seneca. Since these writers were also sources or literary backgrounds for Paul, Milton offers a clearing-house for the religious and literary material that derives from a combination of these classical authors. This book uses Paul and Milton as hubs that serve a still larger network, extending back to antiquity and forward to modernity. These hubs support a theory of universal human participation in several areas, from ancestry to exile, and from loss to consolation.

This event is free, but all participants must register in advance. Space is limited, so please do not request a paper unless you plan to attend. Click below before more information about the seminar.

Joshua R. Held, Southeastern Oklahoma State University Newberry Milton Seminar

CRS is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for “History of Mapmaking and Mapmakers in the Muslim World,” a research methods workshop that will take place Friday, November 15, 2024 at the Newberry. The workshop will be led by David Weimer (Newberry Library) and Pinar Emiralioglu (Sam Houston University). The application deadline is Wednesday, May 15, 2024.

Knowledge of mapmaking and geography moved around and across the Mediterranean between European states and the Ottoman and Byzantine empires. Indeed, the revolution in Early Modern mapmaking in Europe relied on the transmission and translation of Ptolemaic texts from Byzantium to Florence. In turn, Islamic mapmakers and geographers spent centuries processing similar texts and maps with dramatically different results. In this workshop, we will trace the production, circulation, and consumption processes of medieval and early modern mapmaking in the Muslim World, especially its similarities and differences with European mapping in the same period. Participants will be able to obtain a better understanding of Islamic mapping practices and follow the changing patterns of mathematical and instrumental techniques that undergirded competing views of the world.

Click the link below for more information about the workshop, including instructions for submitting an application.

History of Mapmaking and Mapmakers in the Muslim World A workshop examining the production, circulation, and consumption processes of medieval and early modern mapmaking in the Muslim World

Applications are now being accepted for “Digital Humanities and Premodern Studies: An Introduction,” a 10-week CRS graduate seminar led by Christopher Fletcher (Newberry Library). The seminar will meet on Thursdays from September 19 to November 21, 2024. This course will mostly meet online via Zoom, but some class meetings will take place in-person at the Newberry Library. The application deadline is May 15, 2024.

This course will introduce you to the methods, approaches, uses, and challenges of digital humanities with respect to the study of the premodern world. We will discuss the ways in which digital humanities shape premodern studies, consider the advantages and disadvantages in the increasing use of digital tools in the classroom, and learn the ins and outs of digital projects from the scholars creating them. We will also familiarize ourselves with some basic tools, approaches, and platforms available for the creation of digital resources, and learn how to use them by engaging with medieval and early modern materials from the Newberry’s collections.

Click the link below for more information about this seminar, including instructions for submitting an application.

Digital Humanities and Premodern Studies: An Introduction A graduate course introducing the methods, approaches, uses, and challenges of digital humanities for studying medieval and early modern cultures.

CRS is pleased to advertise the Klesch Collection’s scholarships for graduate students in Baroque and Renaissance painting. These scholarships have supported the global studies of graduate students (MA, MPhil, or PhD level), with the aim of contributing to their academic and professional development. The deadline to submit an application is June 20, 2024.

Any graduate student who has been accepted into a full-time Art History MA, MPhil or PhD course of study worldwide, beginning the next academic year is eligible to apply. PhD students are welcome to apply for any year in their programme. Applications will be considered from students who will focus/are focusing their studies on European and British painting of the Renaissance and Baroque periods (c. 1400–1700).

The scholarship will include a grant towards the yearly cost of the university fees and a paid internship opportunity at the collection for a minimum of 1 month

Follow the link below for more details on the scholarship and how to apply.

Grants for education - The Klesch Collection The Klesch Collection Scholarship The Klesch Collection is proud to support academic excellence and is committed to promoting the training of the next generation of Art Historians through a scholarship for graduate studies in Baroque and Renaissance painting. These scholarships have supported the gl...

CRS is pleased to accept abstracts for “Emerging Scholars in Premodern Critical Race Studies,” a virtual symposium organized by Yasmine Hachimi (Newberry Library) that will take place December 6-7, 2024. The proposal submission deadline is June 15, 2024.

This symposium will highlight the research of emerging scholars working on race and race-making before 1800. Speakers will include graduate students and early career scholars from a variety of disciplines who will share their work on the development and influence of race from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, and explore how their research can inform our experience of race in the present.

We welcome abstracts from all fields and disciplines. Please submit a brief abstract (200-word maximum) and CV that includes your PhD or other terminal degree completion date (past or expected) to [email protected] with “Call for Papers” in the subject line by June 15, 2024. For more information about this program, click the link below.

Emerging Scholars in Premodern Critical Race Studies A virtual symposium highlighting the research of emerging scholars working on race and race-making before 1800.

CRS is pleased to announce “Social and Moral Communities in Early Modern Text and Image,” a symposium that will take place April 18-19, 2024 at the Newberry Library.

Organized by Maria Vittoria Spissu (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow, University of Bologna/Newberry Library), this symposium explores early modern representations of and debates about the concepts of concord and tolerance. It addresses how images (e.g., allegories and emblems) and texts (such as religious and political treatises) promoted and codified systems of pacification and ideal communities. How did images and texts forge individual and collective visions of perfection and happiness? Did these materials play a role in political thought, religious policies, and moral philosophy? How did they challenge or legitimize social inclusion or exclusion, military campaigns, and imperialistic propaganda?

This program is organized in collaboration with the Department of the Arts, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna.

Follow the link below for more information about the symposium, including a complete schedule.

Social and Moral Communities in Early Modern Text and Image A symposium exploring how texts and images were used to create peace and tolerance in the tumultuous early modern period.

CRS is pleased to call for applications for Early Modern Indigenous Studies, a research methods workshop that will take place Friday, November 1, 2024 at the Newberry. The application deadline is May 15, 2024.

Led by Michaela Kleber (Northwestern University), this workshop offers the opportunity for scholars of the Renaissance and early modern era to consider how their research interests could be productively informed through the lens of Indigenous Studies and by more carefully considering Indigenous perspectives. Participants will learn about some of the methods of Indigenous Studies and gain an understanding of how the Medieval, Renaissance, and early modern eras played out locally, what contributions Native nations made to that pivotal era, and how to extend their research beyond Europe to include Indigenous voices. With particular emphasis on local Indigenous groups, we will consider how incorporating Native sources transforms narratives of the Renaissance and early modern era, and how Indigenous studies priorities like language revitalization, as well as skills and knowledge Renaissance and early modern scholars already have, can bring new insight to well-known European sources.

Click on the link below for more information about the workshop and instructions on how to apply.

Early Modern Indigenous Studies A workshop offering scholars in early modern studies the opportunity to consider how their work could be productively informed through the lens of Indigenous Studies and by more carefully considering Indigenous perspectives.

Applications are now being welcomed for the 2024-2025 CRS Dissertation Seminar, “Disability as Method: Cripping the Archive,” which will meet September 27 and November 1, 2024; February 7 and April 25, 2025. The application deadline is Wednesday, May 15, 2024.

Led by Jason Farr (Marquette University) and Elizabeth Bearden (University of Wisconsin-Madison), this seminar aims to assist graduate students in the early phase of dissertation writing who have an interest in disability studies and/or crip theory. No previous courses in disability studies or crip theory are required. The seminar welcomes dissertators who want to learn and write about intersectional approaches to disability and early modern and eighteenth-century embodiment more broadly – including projects that assess how disability intersects with race, Indigeneity, class, gender, sexuality, and so forth.

Click on the link below for more information, including instructions on how to submit an application.

Disability as Method: Cripping the Archive A seminar for dissertators seeking to learn and write about intersectional approaches to disability and early modern and eighteenth-century embodiment.

CRS is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for Medieval Afterlives, a research methods workshop that will take place Friday, September 20, 2024 at the Newberry Library. The application deadline is May 15, 2024.

Led by Christopher Fletcher (Newberry Library), this workshop explores the long reach of the Middle Ages into the present through the editions, versions, and re-imaginings of medieval culture produced through the early modern period and into the modern day. Through discussions, group work, and hands-on activities with Newberry collection items, participants will better understand what post-medieval manifestations of texts, artworks, and other objects can teach us about the medieval past. In this way, we will also consider how the medieval can inform our present and guide our future.

Click on the link below for more information about this workshop, including instructions on how to apply.

Medieval Afterlives A workshop exploring what post-medieval manifestations of texts, artworks, and other objects can teach us about the medieval past and its continued relevance today.

CRS is pleased to announce the next meeting of the Premodern Studies Seminar, which will take place Friday, April 19, 2024 at the Newberry, beginning at 3 pm. Caroline Egan (Northwestern University) will present “Identity and Grammar in the Anonymous ‘Examen crítico de la gramática otomí de Neve y Molina.’”

In this paper, Egan examines the arguments and style of a late-eighteenth-century manuscript that criticizes studies of the Otomi language in colonial Mexico, and suggests that the trenchant critique contained within this manuscript, targets both Neve y Molina (its apparent object of criticism) and the long history of grammatical studies of vernacular languages, especially the missionary linguistic tradition and its attempts to record Indigenous languages like Otomi in alphabetic script.

This event is free and open to all, but registration in advance is required. Follow the link below for more information.

Caroline Egan, Northwestern University “Identity and Grammar in the Anonymous “Examen crítico de la gramática otomí de Neve y Molina””

CRS reminds all that the next conversation in our Race in Dialogue series, “Considering Race in Global Medieval Contexts” will take place TODAY, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, from 12-1 pm Central Time on Zoom.

In this conversation, Andrea Achi (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Bryan Keene (Riverside City College) will discuss race in a global Middle Ages. Calling on their experiences as researchers, educators, and curators, they will share the opportunities and challenges inherent in understanding and explaining how artists visualized peoples and communities in contact in the medieval world, both in their own context as well as for contemporary audiences.

This Zoom webinar is free and open to the public, and no registration in advance is required. Follow the link below for more information.

Considering Race in Global Medieval Contexts Home / Calendar Event—Center for Renaissance Studies Considering Race in Global Medieval Contexts —A Race in Dialogue Conversation Featuring Andrea Achi (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Bryan Keene (Riverside City College) Apr 10, 2024 12:00pm–1:00pm Online Andrea Achi and Bryan Keene Descrip...

CRS is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for academic programming in the fall term of the 2024-2025 academic year. Beginning in September, CRS is sponsoring three research methods workshops, a dissertation seminar, and a 10-week graduate seminar.

Click on the link below for more information about these programs and instructions for submitting an application. The application deadline for all fall academic programming is May 15, 2024.

Calendar Our calendar of events is always packed with classes, lectures, discussions, readings, tours, and performances.

CRS is pleased to announce the next meeting of the Eighteenth Century Seminar, which will take place Friday, April 12, 2024 from 3-5 pm at the Newberry.

In this meeting, Nikki Hessell, Te Herenga Waka (Victoria University of Wellington) will present “The Poetics of Treaties: Eighteenth-Century Topographical Poetry at the Treaty of Chicago (1821).” The seminar examines the 1821 Treaty of Chicago, signed by representatives of the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Bodéwadmi, and the US federal government. It sets the negotiations and text of this treaty in conversation with Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s account of the negotiations, Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley (1825). Schoolcraft draws on eighteenth-century topographical poetry throughout this text to explain, contextualise, and argue for the benefits of the treaty. In doing so, he demonstrates the centrality of topographical poetry not only to the epistemological world of settler officials, but to the actual text of the treaty itself.

This event is free, but all participants must register in advance. Space is limited, so please do not request a paper unless you plan to attend. Click below before more information about the seminar.

Nikki Hessell, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington "The Poetics of Treaties: Eighteenth-Century Topographical Poetry at the Treaty of Chicago (1821)"