Reading Conference in Early Modern Studies

Whiteknights campus, University of Reading

Early Modern Research Centre

9 – 11 July 2013

We invite papers for the 2013 Reading conference on any aspect of the rich and diverse material cultures through which early modern women’s writing was produced, transmitted and received. Criticism of the last decade has increasingly emphasised women’s engagement with diverse generic forms and modes of circulation, expanding the parameters of the field beyond literary interpretation of the texts themselves to a new engagement with their textual histories.

The proposed strand for this conference builds upon this increased visibility of form and transmission in the field to focus specifically on early modern women’s engagement with material textual cultures: the material objects they produced, the forms in which they wrote, the ways in which they circulated their work and the ways in which their texts were read by both their contemporary and later audiences. Questions that might be considered include:

• How was early modern women’s writing originally packaged and promoted, how did it circulate in its contemporary contexts, and how was it read in its original publication and in later revisions and redactions?

• How do we configure publication and authorship in relation to early modern women’s writing? What shifts are necessitated by recent theories within history of the book scholarship that view

texts as material artefact, textual collage, social network, publication event and collaborative enterprise?

• What relation do the material cultures of early modern women’s writing have to the material cultures surrounding male-authored writing of the period?

We welcome the submission of individual papers as well as proposals for complete panels, roundtables, and workshops on women’s writing from any nation in the early modern period.

Proposals for panels should consist of a minimum of two and a maximum of four papers. Each panel proposal should contain the names of the session chair, the names and affiliations of the speakers and short abstracts (200 word abstracts) of the papers together with email contacts for all participants. A proposal for an individual paper should consist of a 200 word abstract of the paper with brief details of affiliation and career.

Proposals for either papers or panels should be sent by email to Wendy Alexander ([log in to unmask]), Administrator of the Material Cultures of Early Modern Women’s Writing Project by 31 January 2013.

For more information on the conference, please see: https://www.reading.ac.uk/emrc/conferences/emrc-conference.aspx

The Early Modern Women’s Research Network (EMWRN) is an Australian-based network of scholars. The network meets at major conferences, sponsoring panels and symposia, often inconjunction with other early modern networks. EMWRN currently holds a three-year grant from the Australia Research Council on the material cultures of early modern women’s writing. In 2013 EMWRN will partner with the Early Modern Studies Conference at the University of Reading to produce a strand of papers devoted to the Material Cultures of Early Modern Women’s Writing.