Centre for Early Modern Studies Research Seminar Programme

Wed 6^th Oct, 1-2 pm - Welcome

A welcome event open to all staff, PGRs, and PGT students with research interest in Late medieval, Renaissance and Early Modern studies across all disciplines.  

This is an opportunity to connect with others working in related fields and to find out about our programme of events, and the various opportunities that (free!) CEMS membership provides via our links with research institutes across Europe and US. It's also an opportunity for you to shape the agenda of CEMS going forward, and to let us know about ideas and events you'd like to see happen and find out about how CEMS can support you. 

Weds 13^th Oct, 1-2 pm - Municipal Play and the Home Fans (A Leisure Complex in Congleton)

with Callan Davies (Roehampton/Kent) 

What can a council leisure centre from the 16^th and 17^th centuries tell us about the early modern English playhouse?  And what connections does it reveal between recreation and community identity? I address these questions by sharing a draft case study from the forthcoming book, What is a Playhouse? England at Play, 1520-1620 (Routledge 2022), and research emerging from the AHRC Box Office Bears and Middling Culture projects (www.boxofficebears.com | www.middlingculture.com).  We will take a visit back in time to a sports complex run by the Corporation of Congleton in Cheshire, comprised of a cockpit, archery butts, bearbaiting sites, and bull-rings, with spaces for music and drama. 

Wed 3rd November, 1-2 pm - Taking Licences: Shakespeare, Forgery & Early Modern Rogue Culture 

with Derek Dunne (Cardiff) 

Derek is a lecturer in English literature at Cardiff University. His current research project is on ‘Shakespeare’s Licence’, examining the power of paperwork in early modern England and how this makes its presence felt in the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. His first monograph, Shakespeare, Revenge Tragedy, and Early Modern Law: Vindictive Justice (Palgrave, 2016) was in the area of Law & Literature. He has written articles on Shakespeare and forgery, the mathematics of revenge, and the forensics of the blush in early modern drama. Previously he has worked at Shakespeare’s Globe (London), Queen’s University Belfast, and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland).  

Wed 17th November, 1-2 pm - Thomas Coryate and the Histories of “Tourism”

with Natalya Din-Kariuki (Warwick)  

Watch this space for news of future events, including Urvashi Chavravarty (Toronto) speaking on ideologies of slavery in early modern England, on Wed 16^th Feb, 2022, 1-2 pm. 

All seminars are running online via Teams. 

We will be sending out Teams invites for students and staff with University of Aberdeen registration. External visitors will be able to register via Eventbrite.

For any queries please email a.gordon@abdn.ac.uk