italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
Dear Colleagues,
You are warmly invited to the following interdisciplinary conference on 'Renaissance Keywords' to be held in Birmingham on Friday, September 19th from 10.30am to 5.30pm. The conference website with a full programme, rationale and registration details will be up and running soon, but should you need any information in the meantime, please contact me at the email address below.
All best wishes,
Ita Mac Carthy
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Renaissance Keywords
University of Birmingham
Friday, September 19th, 2008
'Renaissance Keywords' are central to understanding the literature, art, politics and thought of the European Renaissance. Words like ingenium and grace - to take two major examples - describe qualities that express how individuals thought about themselves, each other and their experience of the world, yet they are as hard to define as they are ever-present in Renaissance discourse. This conference brings together scholars interested in offering new interpretations of these and other terms and in tracing interdisciplinary encounters that the terms make possible.
We offer as a point of departure the suggestion that keywords have a distinctive role in the making of the European Renaissance. They rise to prominence particularly in the context of the paragone, where literature and art are seen both to complement and to rival each other, and where one discipline may be employed either to enhance or to outclass the other. For a range of artists, writers and thinkers working within this context, keywords were used to argue for the pre-eminence of their chosen fields and to express the qualities that set the exemplary apart from the mediocre. Renaissance keywords thus constitute a means of interconnection between rival media and play a major role in the flourishing of literature and the arts that characterises the period. Rather than seeking catchall definitions, speakers will aim to do justice to the semantic versatility of these crucial terms and to investigate their contribution to those interdisciplinary transactions for which the European Renaissance is famous.
In contemporary scholarship, too, Renaissance keywords represent a locus of encounter between disciplines, languages and areas of specialisation. Accordingly, this conference aims to promote collective methodological reflection about the variety of approaches taken in Renaissance studies, from word histories and close readings of texts to comparative studies and formal analyses of art. In so doing, it offers a chance for specialists to assess the critical tools of our disciplines today, and to discuss how they may best be used and combined in order to make sense of Renaissance keywords and the period as a whole.
Confirmed speakers and keywords:
· Emily Butterworth (French Studies, Kings College London): 'Scandal'
· Tim Chesters (French Studies, Royal Holloway London): 'Discretion'
· Guido Giglioni (Neo-Latin Cultural and Intellectual History, Warburg Institute): 'Sense and perception'
· Dilwyn Knox (Italian Studies, University College London): 'Ingenium'
· Ann Moss (Neo Latin and French Studies, Durham University): 'Allegory'
· Barbara Ravelhofer (English Studies, Durham University): 'Grace'
· Ben Thomas, (History of Art, University of Kent): 'Disegno'
Respondents and chairs include:
Carlo Caruso (Durham), Stefano Cracolici (Durham), Ingrid deSmet (Warwick), David Hemsoll (Birmingham), Martin McLaughlin (Oxford), Mary O'Neill (Birmingham), Richard Scholar (Oxford), Dario Tessicini (Durham), Helen Swift (Oxford), Maude Vanhaelen (Warwick)
Programme: The conference will run from 10.30 am (registration) to 5.30 pm (round-table discussion) and will be followed by a conference dinner. A more detailed program with abstracts of papers will follow shortly.
Further information: If you require further information, please contact Dr Ita Mac Carthy: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
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http://www.italian.bham.ac.uk/staff/Mac_Carthy.htm <https://ex1.bham.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.italian.bham.ac.uk/staff/Mac_Carthy.htm>
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