Risk, Crisis, Speculation: 1500-1800

Faust WoodcutFebruary 8-9, 2013
Annual EMC Conference
McCune Conference Room (HSSB 6020)

The Early Modern Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara is pleased to announce our twelfth annual conference, “Risk, Crisis, Speculation: 1500-1800,” which will take place in the McCune Conference Room, HSSB 6020, on Saturday, February 9, 2013. Our keynote speakers for this year’s conference are Professors Joseph Roach (Yale University) and Wolf Kittler (UCSB). This year’s conference is being hosted in conjunction with a one-day UC multi-campus research group (“w/Shakespeare”) symposium on “Shakespeare & Risk,” which will take place on UCSB’s campus on Friday, February 8th, and feature keynote speaker Professor Richard Halpern (New York University). Conference attendees and presenters are cordially invited to attend both Friday’s and Saturday’s events.

Early Modern GamblingContemporary discussions of “risk” or “speculation” often identify these concepts as distinguishing features of modern or postmodern societies. In this conference, we seek to explore and investigate early modern English cognates, forebears, and analogues of “risk” (including, but not limited to, “hazard” and “venture”). We hope for a range of presentations investigating religious, economic, political, or environmental aspects of risk in early modern literature and history.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to: maritime trade and the rise of insurance; mathematics and the early history of probability; civic and political crises and governmental intervention; environmental and social crises (plague, famine, etc.) and their “management”; gambling, play, and games of chance; erotic and romantic exposure; religious reform and upheaval; conversion and the specter of apostasy; hermeneutics and reading; the stigma of print and publication; violence and the vulnerability of the body.

The EMC would like to thank the following conference co-sponsors

EBBA Sailing Ship Voyage“w/Shakespeare” UC Multicampus Research Group

UCSB Graduate Division

Interdisciplinary Humanities Center

Graduate Students Association

Departments of Philosophy, History, Religious Studies, Environmental Studies, & Comparative Literature

Risk, Crisis, Speculation 1500-1800 Flyer


Call for Papers


Conference Schedule

Friday, February 8th

Please note: these Friday afternoon events are co-sponsored with the inaugural w/Shakespeare MRG event on “Shakespeare and Risk.”

1:10-1:15 | Welcome Address: James Kearney, UCSB

1:15-2:45 | Panel: “Shakespeare and Risk”
Moderator: Megan Palmer Browne, UCSB

Megan Herrold, University of Southern California: “‘A Game Played Home’: Fixed Wagers and Tyranny in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale
Rachel Levinson-Emley, UC Santa Barbara: “Bloody Exposure: The Hazards of Antonio’s Thwarted Melancholic Masochistic Martyrdom”
Samuel Arkin, UC Irvine:  “Tragedy and the Genre of Risk: Hamlet and Moral Character”

2:45-3:00 | Coffee Break

3:00-4:30 | Keynote Address: Richard Halpern, New York University, “The Loss of Hazard: Fugitive Risk in The Merchant of Venice
Introduced by James Kearney, UCSB
Respondent: Julia Reinhard Lupton, UC Irvine

4:30-5:30 | Theatrical Performance: UCSB Acting Program
Irwin Appel, Director
Introduced by Andrew Griffin, UCSB

Saturday, February 9th

8:30-9:00 | Coffee & Light Pastries

9:00-9:15 | Welcome Address: Christopher Foley, UCSB

9:15-10:45 | Panel: “Risk in Early Modern Drama”
Moderator: Rachel Levinson-Emley, UCSB

Holly Moyer, UC Los Angeles: “‘Pleas’d to Yield’: Managing the Risks of Defeat in Marlowe’s Tamburlaine Plays”
Kimberly Hedlin, UC Los Angeles: “The Risk of Forgiveness in Chapman’s Bussy Plays”
Robin Stewart, UC Irvine: “Providential ‘Collateral Damage’: The Trouble with Investing Abroad in Thomas Heywood’s If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, Part 2 (1605)”

10:45-11:00 | Coffee Break

11:00-12:00 | Panel: “Plagues in Early Modern England”
Moderator: Theresa Russ, UCSB

Christopher Foley, UC Santa Barbara: “Isabella Whitney’s A Sweet Nosegay (1573) and the Dangers of Smelling the Plague in Early Modern London”
Eirik Steinhoff, University of Chicago: “Providence & Probability, Or Swerves, Wagers, and Plagues in the 1660s”

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:15-2:30 | Keynote Address: Wolf Kittler, UC Santa Barbara, “A Brief History of Risk”
Introduced by William Warner, UCSB

2:30-3:30 | Panel: “Managing Financial Risk in the Eighteenth Century”
Moderator: Bethany Wong, UCSB

Bridget McFarland, New York University: “‘From Small Beginnings to Large Winnings’: Financial Instruction for Children in Eighteenth Century Britain”
David Alff, SUNY Buffalo: “Writing Mitigation: Projection Cultures of Restoration England”

3:30-4:00 | Coffee Break

4:00-5:15 | Keynote Address: Joseph Roach, Yale University, “Deep Play, Dark Play: Games of Love and Chance”
Introduced by Elizabeth Heckendorn Cook, UCSB


Conference Hotel