Conferences
Annual EMC Conference | Straws in the Wind: Ballads & Broadsides, 1500-1800 | February 24-25, 2006
The Early Modern Center at the University of California Santa Barbara invites paper proposals for “Straws in the Wind: Ballads and Broadsides, 1500-1800,” an interdisciplinary conference to be held at UCSB on February 24 and 25, 2006.
EMC Undergraduate Conference | May 26, 2006
South Hall 2635, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
1:00-1:15 | Opening Remarks, Professor Robert Erickson
1:15-1:45 | Arden of Tombstone
Viewing and Discussion with Sierra Christman
Zia Isola’s Engl 157: English Renaissance Drama
1:45-2:00 | “The Middle Passage Effect in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko”
Susan Rosenfeld
E. Heckendorn Cook’s Engl 102: English and American Literature from 1650-1789
2:00-2:15 | BREAK
2:15-2:45 | “The China Scene” from William Wycherley’s The Country Wife
Performance by: Danielle Allred, Luke Fretwell, Katie Desrochers, Niall Huffman, Stephanie Shenkman
Robert Erickson’s Engl 169: Restoration and Eighteenth Century Drama
2:45 | Open Discussion
Reception to follow
Events
Fall Colloquium | Ballads, Broadsides, & Popular Culture | November 18, 2005
South Hall 2635, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Speakers:
Kari Boyd McBride (Women’s Studies, University of Arizona), “Humanist Discourse Meets Popular Culture: The Misreading of Misogyny in Early Modern England”
The Woman Controversy of early modern England relied on a discourse about women that had been developed by humanist scholars of the late middle ages. Those humanist arguments seemed to argue for women’s excellence and virtue but were often elaborate scholarly jokes, travesties of humanist discourse that demonstrated women’s inferiority through the ironic and ultimately ridiculous display of rhetoric, argumentation, and biblical allusion. The early modern pamphlet debate about women relied on the very argumentative techniques and materials developed by late medieval scholars, but often (mis)used that discourse to argue earnestly for women’s virtue. I suggest that early modern reliance on the inherited arguments can be fruitfully understood as a creative misreading of the humanist discourse.
Paula McDowell (English, Rutgers University), “Popular Culture and the Idea of ‘Oral Tradition’ in Eighteenth-Century Britain”
This paper examines the relationship between the modern conceptual categories of “popular culture,” “oral culture,” and “oral tradition.” For most English authors in 1700, the phrase “oral tradition” would have first brought to mind a Catholic theological notion considered suspect by Protestants, and our modern idea of “oral culture” did not exist. While much recent scholarly work has been devoted to exploring the interface of oral and print cultures, this paper also works to historicize the concepts themselves. Specifically, I argue that eighteenth-century authors’ reflection on (and nervousness about) the spread of print was a key factor in the shaping of the modern intellectual category of “oral culture.” Whereas early eighteenth-century authors such as Jonathan Swift in A Tale of A Tub typically understood cheap print and popular oralities as on a continuum (associating both with vulgarity, sedition, dissent, and a lack of culture in the sense of refinement, learning, or taste) later eighteenth-century authors increasingly posited a distinct “oral tradition” at once antithetical to and threatened by print commerce. Select oral forms, such as certain types of ballads, would be reconceptualized as purer, more authentic forms under threat of contamination by the vulgar products of the press. Ironically, later eighteenth-century sympathetic reassessments of oral traditions and practices in fact have much in common with earlier phobic depictions: both are part of a historic coming-to-terms with the power and spread of print.
Followed by a panel of respondents with Patricia Fumerton, William Warner, Jessica C. Murphy, and Maggie Sloan.
This event is sponsored by the Early Modern Center, the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, and the Departments of English, History, Music, and Women’s Studies.
A selection of publications by Professors McBride and McDowell are available in the EMC to read onsite.
Frances Dolan Luncheon | November 21, 2005
South Hall 2635, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
Frances Dolan, professor of English at UC Davis, will be joining us for a luncheon on November 21st, 12:30-1:30. This event provides an excellent opportunity for graduate students to discuss Professor Dolan’s work with her as well as to get advice about their own projects and her experience with the profession. Copies of her two books, Whores of Babylon: Catholicism, Gender, and Seventeenth-Century Print Culture (Cornell UP, 1999) and Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime in England, 1550-1700 (Cornell UP, 1994) are available in the Early Modern Center to read on site.
Ken Hiltner Lecture | January 17, 2006
“What Else is Pastoral?”
South Hall 2635, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Coffee with Ken Hiltner
Early Modern Center (South Hall 2510), 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Graduate students are encouraged to join Renaissance job candidate Ken Hiltner for coffee on the morning of his talk. These coffees are excellent opportunities to meet and talk with the candidates.
James Kearney Lecture | January 20, 2006
“Doctor Faustus and the Seductions of the Text”
South Hall 2635, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Coffee with James Kearney,
Early Modern Center (South Hall 2510), 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Graduate students are encouraged to join Renaissance job candidate Jim Kearney for coffee on the morning of his talk. These coffees are excellent opportunities to meet and talk with the candidates.
Angus Fletcher Lecture | January 23, 2006
“Living Magnets and the Pathology of Grace in Donne’s Religious Verse”
South Hall 2635, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Coffee with Angus Fletcher
Early Modern Center (South Hall 2510), 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Graduate students are encouraged to join Renaissance job candidate Angus Fletcher for coffee on the morning of his talk. These coffees are excellent opportunities to meet and talk with the candidates.
EMC Brown Bag Lunch | Mac Test, Vanessa Coloura, & Maggie Sloan | May 5, 2006
South Hall 2635, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Please bring your lunch to this showcase of EMC Graduate Students’ work, including:
Mac Test, English: “Aztec Sacrifice in Spenser’s Faerie Queene”
Vanessa Coloura, English: “Science and Spectacle in Aphra Behn’s The Emperor of the Moon”
Maggie Sloan, English: “‘My brain is on fire!’: Aggression, Knowledge, and Mentorship in Frances Burney and Maria Edgeworth”
Each presenter will speak for 15-20 minutes and the event will provide ample time for response and discussion.
18th Century Reading Group | May 16, 2006
Early Modern Center (South Hall 2510), 4:30PM
Please join the long-18th-Century Reading Group for an informal discussion of William St. Clair’s book, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, Thursday, May 4th, at 4pm in the EMC.
The readings – Chapter One (Chapter Two optional); “The Political Economy of Reading” (St. Clair’s Coffin Lecture for the School of Advanced Study, University of London); and Andrew Elfenbein’s very short review of the book – will be available shortly at the front desk in the department office in a file marked “18th-c Discussion Group.”
EMC Brown Bag Lunch | Pavneet Aulakh, Laura Miller, & Revell Carr | June 9, 2006
South Hall 2617, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Please bring your lunch to this showcase of EMC Graduate Students’ work, including:
Pavneet Aulakh, English, “The Kingdom of Our Own Language”
Laura Miller, English, “Analytical Vision and the Argument from Design in The Rape of the Lock”
Revell Carr, Ethnomusicology, “Researching Song Texts in 19th Century Sailors’ Journals”
Each presenter will speak for 15-20 minutes and the event will provide ample time for response and discussion.