CEMS KCL

Renaissance Skin Book Launch — CEMS KCL Blog Book launch for Prof. Evelyn Welch's Renaissance Skin, hosted by King's Centre for Early Modern Studies.

Book launch October 23rd!

Join CEMS for the launch of Prof. @evelynwelch.bsky.social's Renaissance Skin. We'll be gathering in King's History department. Comments from Dr. @historyelaine.bsky.social and Dr. Paolo Savoia. Chaired by Dr. @hsmurphy.bsky.social.

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/renai...

We are getting the Renaissance Skin band back together in a few weeks time! Do join us to discuss everything skin from piercing dog's ears to skin under the 17th-century microscope. Thank you @hannahmurphynews.bsky.social for organising such a special event @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social

Cosmographia Antarctica: The Early Modern invention of the Southern World between the Andes and the Mediterranean | King's College London Juan Carlos Mantilla explores how between the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Andean and Mediterranean intellectuals reinvented global cosmography from the equinox southward.

Join @kingsdllc.bsky.social for a seminar on the early modern invention of the southern world. LLC will be welcoming Dr. Juan Carlos Mantilla to hear about his project, Cosmographia Antarctica.

Tomorrow at 16:00!

www.kcl.ac.uk/events/cosmo...

Lots of great events this semester!

Events — CEMS KCL Blog 'What's On' at CEMS. We run workshops, seminars, conferences, social and networking events, symposia, and more.

Full details on all of our events can be found on our website.

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events

@hsmurphy.bsky.social @kingshistory.bsky.social @kingsenglish.bsky.social @kingsartshums.bsky.social

CEMS Book Club: Glorious Boides — CEMS KCL Blog Join the CEMS reading group for a discussion of Colby Gordon's Glorious Bodies.

Last but not least, our next reading group will take place on 26th November at 13:00. We'll be discussing Dr. Colby Gordon's Glorious Bodies. Convened by Dr. Emily Butterworth.

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/cems-...

Renaissance Skin Book Launch — CEMS KCL Blog Book launch for Prof. Evelyn Welch's Renaissance Skin, hosted by King's Centre for Early Modern Studies.

On 23rd October we're delighted to be launching Prof. @evelynwelch.bsky.social's latest book, Renaissance Skin (@manchesterup.bsky.social). Comments from Dr. @historyelaine.bsky.social and Dr. Paolo Savoia. The event starts at 17:00.

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/renai...

Kick off the new academic year with a networking brunch. — CEMS KCL Blog Kick off the new academic year with a networking brunch for early modernists across King’s. We’ll hear about ongoing research from early modernists across the A&H faculty.

CEMS events for semester 1! We have three events in the calendar for this term.

Firstly, on October 3rd, we'll be hosting a welcome event for early modernists across King's. Join us at 10:30 for a networking brunch.

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/welco...

Headed into London today for this to listen to these amazing keynotes. My new project is on the Caribbean and it’s relatively new territory for me, so can’t wait to learn from these brilliant colleagues. (can you tell how excited I am??)

THIS WEEK!!!

EXCITING WEEK THIS WEEK! #EarlyModern #SkyStorians

Tomorrow and Thursday! Come along if you can! 🗃️

Looks great, pity I can't make them! #WomensHistory

Hosted as part of "Caribbean Connections" a workshop organised by @hsmurphy.bsky.social's Medicine and the Making of Race project.

@kingsartshums.bsky.social @kingsartshums.bsky.social

Caribbean Connections: Seventeenth-Century Barbados and Britain — CEMS KCL Blog Join King's Medicine and the Making of Race for two keynote lectures by Dr. Jenny Shaw (University of Alabama) and Prof. Susan D. Amussen (University of California Merced). Each keynote will think thr...

Not one, but two keynote lectures! Join CEMS and MMoR next week.

25.06, 17:00 - @profjennyshaw.bsky.social on "The Women of Rendezvous"

26.06, 17:00 - @sdamussen.bsky.social on "Seeing Racial Patriarchy"

Full details below.

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/carib...

Thank you @jamie-gemmell.bsky.social & Claire Titley for organising this really interesting and insightful webinar! It was very helpful to find out more about what The London Archives do on a day-to-day basis aside from collections etc. 😊

There's no better way to spend your Thursday afternoon than with one our archivist @clairelouisetitley.bsky.social talking about cross-institutional collabs and site visits with @cemskcl.bsky.social.

Spoilers, The London Archives DOES offer site visits. #archives #EarlyModern #HigherEducation

Teaching the Early Modern - Webinar Series — CEMS KCL Blog A series of webinars on teaching the early modern, from building syllabi to using digital repositories to site visits.

Tomorrow at 14:00! Join us for our final webinar on teaching the #earlymodern. We'll be joined by Claire Titley (@thelondonarchives.bsky.social) to talk about cross-institutional collaboration.

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/teach...

Doing a thing this Thursday with @cemskcl.bsky.social!

Teaching the Early Modern - Webinar Series — CEMS KCL Blog A series of webinars on teaching the early modern, from building syllabi to using digital repositories to site visits.

Join us next Thursday for our final webinar on Teaching the #earlymodern. We'll be joined by Claire Titley (@thelondonarchives.bsky.social) to talk about cross-institutional collaborations.

Online, June 19, 14:00

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/teach...

I had a wonderful time at KCL’s Early Modern War Narratives conference last Friday! All of the papers were absolutely fascinating! @cemskcl.bsky.social

I am very grateful for the opportunity to present my own research into the non-elite experiences of siege in Newark! ⚔️

#earlymodern #skystorians

Some early moderns dressed in sheets with torches, pretending to be the deceased James VI/I.

Today at the @cemskcl.bsky.social conference I learned that ghosts are a Jesuit conspiracy. They stick candles on crabs, then release them into graveyards to convince the unwary of the doctrine of Purgatory. (Either that or they’re just chaps dressed up in bedsheets.)

A PowerPoint slide showing a battle between Matthias Corvinus and some Ottomans, with the title of my presentation - ‘“Scutum inde gero”: Truth, memory, and self-promotion in an early modern war poem’ - superimposed.

Putting the finishing touches on some slides for tomorrow’s @cemskcl.bsky.social colloquium on early modern war narratives. It’s a great joy to return to the crusader I call ‘Bob’, whose story has been the jumping off point for so many fascinating lines of research since I first ‘met’ him in 2018.

Join us this Friday! In person and online tickets available.

Join us next Friday!

Early Modern War Narratives - Annual CEMS Colloquium — CEMS KCL Blog Join CEMS for our annual colloquium. This year's theme is early modern war narratives. Keynote: Prof. Andrew Hopper and Dr. Ismini Pells.

Next Friday! CEMS Colloquium on #earlymodern war narratives. Join us for a day of panels.

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/lamen...

@kingsartshums.bsky.social @kingsenglish.bsky.social @kingshistory.bsky.social

Teaching the Early Modern - Webinar Series — CEMS KCL Blog A series of webinars on teaching the early modern, from building syllabi to using digital repositories to site visits.

Thanks to all those who came along to today's webinar on Teaching the Early Modern. Our next session will be on June 19. We'll be discussing cross-institutional collaboration with @clairelouisetitley.bsky.social (Archivist, @thelondonarchives.bsky.social).

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/teach...

This Thursday! A couple of spaces left. Do join us to talk about teaching and digital repositories with @emilymayvine.bsky.social

Reflecting on photographs emerging from Gaza in 2023, one New York Times war reporter wrote, “One of the hardest parts of journalism is witnessing horror and then trying, in words, sound and image, to convey that pain to the wider world. Many people may want to look away, to see the world as they prefer to see it. But what should we see when we see war? What should war demand all of us to see and understand?”. These questions, faced by both war reporters and readers, troubled early modern writers as much as they trouble us now. After witnessing the bloody attack on Antwerp by the Spanish in 1576, the soldier poet George Gascoigne wrote that war reports might “fetche brinysh teares out of the most craggy rocke” as we “lament and bewayle the burning houses of so neare neighbours”, yet the reporter must resist sensationalism and only “set downe a plaine truthe”. Questions of truth, bias, emotion, memory, and the affective power of the written word plague war narratives then and now. This colloquium brings together scholars interested in early modern war narratives (historical, literary, and visual) and addresses how these narratives navigated the difficulties of depicting war, physical and emotional trauma, and violence, as well as the emotional, political, moral, and religious responses they attempted to evoke from their audiences. Some questions we hope to address include: ● How do war narratives balance the need for truthfulness with the risk of sensationalism? ● What ethical responsibilities do war reporters or writers bear when depicting violence and trauma? ● How did early modern writers use literary devices to evoke empathy or action from their audiences? ● In what ways can the study of early modern war narratives inform contemporary debates on conflict reporting, empathy, and accountability?

Registration now open: Annual @cemskcl.bsky.social Colloquium: Early Modern War Narratives, KCL, June 6th 2025

We've just activated a waiting list!