Embedded Files
Spring 2024
Spring 2024
Thursday, January 25th
Welcome Event: Medieval & Renaissance Library Crawl. Medieval Studies Library, Widener, 6pm
Co-hosted with the Medieval Colloquium
Wednesday, February 7th
Adhaar Noor Desai (Bard), "Rude Mechanicals: Shakespeare and Aesthetic Education in the Age of Generative AI." Barker 114, 5pm
Wednesday, February 21st
Whitney Trettien (Penn), "How Shakespeare's First Folio Invented Digital Media." Barker 114, 6pm
Co-sponsored with the Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar in the History of the Book
Wednesday, March 27th
Kristen Poole (University of Delaware), "Living Insphered: Milton's Cosmic Proprioception." Barker 114, 5:30pm
Wednesday, April 10th
Sam Bozoukov (Harvard), "The 'Hideous Noise' of Samson Agonistes: Milton's Crisis of Dissonance." Barker 114, 5:30pm
Wednesday, April 24th
Jane Hwang Degenhardt (University of Massachusetts Amherst), "Shakespeare's Speculative Horizons: The Impossible, the Unknowable, and the Dream of Other Worlds." Barker 114, 6pm
Co-sponsored with the Theater & Performance Colloquium
Fall 2023
Fall 2023
Wednesday, September 4th
Medieval/Renaissance Labor Day Welcome BBQ, 12-5pm
Wednesday, September 19th
Special Workshop with Greg Doran, former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Houghton Library, 1pm
Wednesday, October 4th
Leah Whittington (Harvard), "Spenser, Chaucer, and the Supplemented Book." Barker 211, 5pm
Wednesday, October 18th
Caroline Engelmayer (Harvard), Graduate Student Talk: "'Forsake me not thus': Ovid's Heroides and Milton's Psychology of Alienation." Barker 211, 5pm
Wednesday, November 1st
Jessica Beckman (Dartmouth), "Reading the Room: Spenser and the Space of the Text." Barker 211, 5pm
Wednesday, November 15th
Catherine Nicholson (Yale), "Reforming the Alphabet: The Renaissance Before Reading." Barker 211, 5pm
Thursday, November 30th
James Simpson (Harvard), "Modernity's Selfhood and the Desacralization of Images; or, Being an Early Modern Image Hurts." Barker 024, 5pm
Wednesday, December 6th
MFA Visit: "Strong Women in Renaissance Italy." Museum of Fine Arts, 3pm
Spring 2023
Spring 2023
Wednesday, February 1st
Gordon Teskey (Harvard), "Prophetic Philology: Paradise Lost in the Twenty-First Century." Barker 211, 5pm
Wednesday, February 15th
Katherine Horgan (Harvard), "Playing Sappho: Biography as Form in Ealry Modern Sapphic Reception." Barker 211, 5pm
Wednesday, March 1st
Diana Henderson (MIT), "What were they thinking? Garnier's Les Juifves, Marlowe's Massacre at Paris, and the Dramatization of Religious Slaughter." Barker 211, 5pm
Friday, March 3
The Wife of Willesden at Loeb Drama Center, 7:30pm
Wednesday, March 22nd
Zichen Liu (Harvard), Graduate Student Paper: "The Inexplicable Voice: The Motif of Echo from Hellenistic Poetry to Milton." Barker 211, 5pm
Wednesday, April 5th
Folger Institute Information Session with Dr. Owen Williams, Interim Director. Zoom, 5pm
Wednesday, April 19th
Debapriya Sarkar (University of Connecticut), "Geographies of Race in The Tempest and Antony and Cleopatra." Barker 211, 5pm
Wednesday, May 3rd
Epyllion on the Lawn: Picnic and Hero and Leander Reading. Barker Center Lawn, 5pm
Fall 2022
Fall 2022
Wednesday, September 7th
Welcome Picnic and Amoretti Reading. Barker Center Lawn, 5:15 pm
Wednesday, September 21st
Chris Barrett (LSU), "Spenserian Lepidoptera and Parenthetical Ecologies." Barker 211, 5:15 pm
Friday, October 7th
Houghton Workshop: "Chaucer in Print, 16th & 17th Centuries." Hofer Classroom, 1pm
Wednesday, October 19th
Stephen Greenblatt (Harvard), "The Master's Books." Barker 211, 5:15pm
Wednesday, November 2nd
Jeff Dolven (Princeton), "Verse, Turn, Trope." Barker 211, 5:15pm
Wednesday, November 16th
Hudson Vincent (Harvard), "Carceral Colonialism: Thomas Morton, John Eliot, and the Puritan Origins of the Carceral State in America." Barker 211, 5:15pm
Wednesday, November 30th
Emily Vasiliauskas (Williams), "On the Way to Lyric." Barker 211, 5:15pm
Spring 2022
Spring 2022
Wednesday, February 9th
Victoria Pipas (Harvard), "Translatio materiae: Spenser's Poetics of Matter." Graduate Workshop, Zoom, 4:45 pm
Wednesday, February 23rd
Katie Kadue (University of Chicago), "Maintenance Work in Spenser and Montaigne." Zoom, 4:45 pm.
Wednesday, March 9th
Ayesha Ramachandran (Yale) and Carina Johnson (Pitzer), "Early Modern Multiplicities." Zoom, 4:45 pm
Wednesday, March 23rd
Justin Shaw (Clark), "Anatomizing Melancholy and the Quintessence in Shakespeare." Zoom, 4.45pm
Wednesday, May 4th
James Simpson & Leah Whittington (Harvard), "The Dark Age (16th and 17th centuries): A Debate." Barker 133- The Plimpton Room, 5pm
Fall 2021
Fall 2021
Tuesday, September 28
Masque Reading @ Barker Tent, 5pm
Tuesday, October 12
Sam Bozoukov (Harvard), "Aemilia Lanyer and the Protofeminist Politics of Listening." Graduate Workshop @ Zoom, 5pm
Tuesday, November 9
Yoojung Chun (Harvard), "'An occasionall mercy, if he call that his own knell': John Donne's Material Temporalities." Graduate Workshop @ Zoom, 5pm
Monday, November 22
Tour to Isabella Stewart Gardner Exhibition, "Titian: Women, Myth, and Power." @ Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Fall 2020
Fall 2020
Wednesday, September 25
Vanessa Braganza (Harvard), "'Many Ciphers, Although But One for Meaning': Lady Mary Wroth’s Many-Sided Monogram." Graduate Workshop @ Barker 218, 5:15 pm
Wednesday, October 2
Andrew Hui (Yale-NUS College), "Ruins / Fragments / Aphorisms: or, How to Write an Introduction." @ Barker 218, 5:15 pm
Thursday, October 10
Jason Crawford (Union University), "What the Wolf Knows: George Herbert’s Book of Wisdom." @ Barker 114, 5:15 pm
Co-sponsored with the Medieval Colloquium
Wednesday, November 6
Sarah Wall-Randell (Wellesley College), "'All by her directing': The Countess of Pembroke and her Arcadia." @ Barker 218, 5:15 pm
Wednesday, November 20
Read Not Dead! Table read of Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside @ Barker 218, 5:15 pm
Spring 2019
Spring 2019
Wednesday, February 6
Samuel Diener (Harvard), "Disaster and the National Body: Luís de Camões and Jerónimo Corte-Real." Graduate Workshop @ Barker 269, 6pm
Wednesday, February 20
Misha Teramura (Toronto), "The End of More: Dilation and Constraint in the Sir Thomas More Manuscript." @ Barker 211, 6pm
Wednesday, February 27
Ayanna Thompson (Arizona State) and Katherine Rowe (William & Mary), State of the Field Discussion @ Kresge Room (Barker 114), 6pm
Wednesday, March 27
Play Reading: Knight of the Burning Pestle @ Barker 012, 6pm
Thursday, March 28
Steve Mentz (St. John's), "Adamastor’s Gate: The World Ocean from Pangea to the Anthropocene." @ Boylston 403, 6pm
Co-sponsored with Romance Languages and Literatures
Wednesday, April 3
Harry R. McCarthy (Exeter), "Busy Boys: Youthful Activity on Early Modern Stages." Graduate Workshop @ Barker 211, 6pm
Wednesday, April 10
Micha Lazarus (Cambridge), "Shakespeare’s Aristotle: The Poetics in Early Modern England." @ Barker 114, 6pm
Wednesday, April 24
Jillian Luke (Edinburgh), "Reading Red Faces: Blushing in the Seventeenth Century." Graduate Workshop @ Barker 211, 6pm
Fall 2018
Fall 2018
Thursday, September 20
James Simpson (Harvard), "The Cultural History of Hypocrisy: Late Medieval to Early Modern." @ Kates Room, Warren House, 5:15 PM
Co-sponsored with the Medieval Colloquium
Wednesday, September 26
Launch Party: Othello's Story @ Houghton Library Edison & Newman Room, 5:30 PM
Co-sponsored with HarvardX and Houghton Library
Wednesday, October 10
Play Reading: Arden of Faversham @ Barker 211, 5:15 PM
Wednesday, October 31
Patrick Durdel (Freie Universität Berlin), "The 32 Bodies of Shakespeare's Henriad." (Graduate Workshop) @ Barker 211, 5:15 PM
Wednesday, November 14
Marina Leslie (Northeastern), "Pleading the Belly and the Body Politic: Leaticia Wigington and Elizabeth Cellier." @ Barker 211, 5:15 PM
Thursday, November 29
Amy Appleford (Boston University), "'Behold, my life is but a distraction': Ascetic Reading, Poetry, and Prayer." @ Barker 114, 5:15 PM
Co-sponsored with the Medieval Colloquium
Spring 2018
Spring 2018
Wednesday, February 7
Andrew Sofer (Boston College), "How to Undo Things With Words: Theater and the Unraveling of the World." @ Barker 211, 5:15 PM
Co-sponsored with the Harvard Theater & Performance Colloquium
Thursday, February 15
Leah Whittington (Harvard University), "Textual Repair: Humanism, Lost Texts, and the Renaissance Pursuit of Completeness." Barker 211 @ 6:00 PM
Co-sponsored with the Harvard English Department
Wednesday, April 4
Lucy Munro (King's College London), "New Histories of the Blackfriars Playhouse." Barker 114 @ 4:30 PM
Co-sponsored with the Harvard Theater and Performance Colloquium
Monday, April 23
Ayesha Ramachandran (Yale University), "The Making of Worldmakers." Barker 018 @ 12:00 PM
Thursday, April 26
Jay Zysk (University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth), "Babbling Bishops and 'Scurvy Jack-Dog Priests': Representing the Clergy in Early English Drama." Barker 114 @ 5:00 PM
Co-sponsored with the Harvard Medieval Colloquium
Monday, April 30
Elizabeth Samet (West Point), Title TBD, Barker 114 @ 5:15 PM
Monday, May 9
Maria Devlin (Independent Scholar), "Moral Luck." Barker 269 @ 12:00 PM
Fall 2017
Fall 2017
Monday, October 23
Play Reading: Shoemaker’s Holiday @ Barker 114, 5:15 PM
Wednesday, November 7
Bailey Sincox (Harvard University), "The Winter’s Tale as Revenge Comedy." @ Barker 269, 5:15 PM
Wednesday, November 29
Hélio J. S. Alves (University of Évora), "Cervantes’s Portuguese Painter." @ Barker 114, 5:15
Co-sponsored by the Robert C. Smith, Jr. Fund for Portuguese Studies
Fall 2016
Fall 2016
Wednesday, September 28
Björn Quiring (Freie Universität Berlin), "'All Things With Double Terror': Nature as First and Last Judgment in Milton's Paradise Lost."
Wednesday, October 19
Hudson Vincent (Harvard), "Baroque Optics and Góngora’s El Polifemo."
Wednesday, October 26
Bailey Sincox (Harvard), "The Dumb Show Speaks: Religious Re-Creations in Early Modern Drama."
Monday, November 7
Juliet Fleming (NYU), "Gleaning."
Co-sponsored with Mahindra Humanities Center History of the Book Seminar
Wednesday, November 16
David Nee (Harvard), "Tragedy as Simple Form: Romeo and Juliet, 1475-1599."
Wednesday, November 30
William Porter (Harvard), "Utopian Negative Space."
Spring 2015
Spring 2015
Thursday, February 19 and Friday, February 20
Events with Dan Shore (Georgetown)
Wednesday, March 4
David Marno (UC Berkeley)
Wednesday, March 11
Roundtable with RSA panelists Elizabeth Weckhurst and Misha Teramura (Harvard)
Wednesday, April 1
Will Porter (Harvard)
Wednesday, April 15
Hudson Vincent (Harvard)
Wednesday, April 22
Billy Junker (University of St. Thomas, Minnesota), "Periodization and Sovereignty and Macbeth."
Fall 2014
Fall 2014
Wednesday, September 10
Joseph Roach (Yale), "Biography and Celebrity Culture."
Wednesday, September 24
Jeffrey Wilson (Harvard), "The Figure of Stigma in Shakespeare's Drama."
Wednesday, October 8
James Simpson (Harvard), Colloquia Roundtable: "How to Write an Article about Anything."
Monday, November 3
Julia Lupton (UC Irvine)
Wednesday, November 12
Sanford Buddick (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Spring 2014
Spring 2014
Wednesday, February 5
State-of-the-Field Roundtable, "Where are Renaissance studies now and where would we like them to go?"
Wednesday, February 19
Adam Rvekta
Wednesday, March 5
Erin Murphy (Boston University)
Wednesday, March 26
Jeffrey Shoulson (University of Connecticut)
Tuesday, April 1
Richard McCabe (Oxford)
Wednesday, April 2
Joe Moshenska (Cambridge University)
Thursday, April 3
Maria Devlin (Harvard University)
Fall 2013
Fall 2013
Monday, September 9
Bradin Cormack (Princeton University)
Wednesday, September 18
Renaissance Colloquium Roundtable
Wednesday, October 2
Craige Plunges (Harvard University), "Illustrating Darkness: Perspectival Snares in Spenser's Allegory."
Wednesday, October 9
Leah Marcus (Vanderbilt University)
Wednesday, October 23
Mary Crane (Boston College)
Wednesday, November 6
Taylor Cowdery (Harvard University)
Wednesday, November 20
Yun Ni (Harvard University)
Fall 2012
Fall 2012
Wednesday, September 26
Taylor Cowdery (Harvard), "Fixing Chaucer: William Thynne and the Addition of a Lollard Tract to the 1542 Canterbury Tales."
Saturday, October 13
Trip to the Globe Theatre's production of Hamlet
Co-sponsored with the Drama Colloquium
Wednesday, October 17
Richard Rambuss (Brown), "Crashaw's Divas."
Wednesday, October 24
Craig Plunges (Harvard), "'The bravery was shown, it was not possessed': Ben Jonson and the Vanishing Spectacle."
Monday, November 5
Randall McLeod (Toronto), "Hammered" and "Fearful Asymmetry."
Wednesday, November 7
Leah Whittington (Harvard), "Coriolanus: Shakespeare's Suppliant Drama."
Tuesday, November 13
Henry S. Turner (Rutgers), "Corporation as Common Constitution: More's Utopia."
Spring 2012
Spring 2012
Wednesday, February 1
Ramie Targoff (Brandeis University), "Uncommon Graves: The Afterlife of Renaissance Sonnets."
Thursday, February 9
Stephen Hequembourg (Harvard University), "Monism Lost: Philosophy as Plot in Milton."
Wednesday, February 15
Ken Hiltner (University California Santa Barbara), "Renaissance Texts in the Age of Digital Production."
Wednesday, February 22
Maria Devlin (Harvard University), "When you say 'Here I am,' where is here and who are you? Shaping and locating the self in Shakespeare’s Roman plays."
Thursday, March 1
Daniel Donoghue (Harvard University), "Misreading Ambrose's Silence: An Episode in the History of Reading."
Thursday, March 22
Bernadette Meyler (Cornell University), "Stoic Clemency and Slave Rebellion in Massinger's Bondman."
Thursday, April 5
Brian Cummings (Sussex University), "Soliloquy and Secularization in Shakespeare."
Thursday, April 12
Joel Altman (University California Berkeley), "Julio at the Crossroads: Intertextuality, Intermediality, and Transfiguration in The Winter's Tale."
Thursday, April 19
Rhema Hokama (Harvard University), "(Re)Crucifying Christ in Donne's Divine Poems."
Thursday, April 26
Barbara Lewalski (Harvard University), "Milton, the Prophets, the Muses, the Spirit, and Prophetic Poetry."
Wednesday, May 2
Catherine L.R. Woodring (Harvard University), "'This is too long': The Pestilent Theater and Delay of Revenge in Hamlet."
Fall 2011
Fall 2011
Thursday, September 15
Jamey Graham (Harvard), "If All the Men and Women are Merely Players, Then Who is the Audience?: Conscience and Consciousness in Shakespeare's Middle Plays."
Thursday, September 22
Chris Barrett (Harvard), "Notes toward a Study of Crisis Literature."
Thursday, October 20
Misha Teramura (Harvard), "The Anxiety of Auctoritas: Chaucer and The Two Noble Kinsmen."
Wednesday, November 2
David Womersley (Oxford), "Defoe and the Devil."
Co-sponsored with the Long 18th Century and Romanticism Colloquium
Thursday, November 10
Craig Plunges (Harvard), "Sovereign Sense and Treasonous Signs: Alternative Communications in Shakespeare."
Thursday, November 17
Rachel Eisendrath (University of Chicago), "Spenser and Objectification."
Wednesday, November 30
Luke Taylor (Harvard), "Digression and The Faerie Queene."
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