Society for Renaissance Studies

👀 you can even opt in to a 24 letter alphabet!!!! 🤗 🥰

It's the annual opening of our mentoring scheme together with the the Early Modern Scholars of Colour Network!

Applications for mentors and mentees open now. Apply by 30th November 2025.
all info: www.rensoc.org.uk/education-ou... #EarlyModern #SkyStorians

This book proposal webinar with @cathfletcher.bsky.social and me, hosted by @rsaorg.bsky.social, is tomorrow, Nov 6th, folks!

#renaissance #earlymodern #histsci #writingcommunity 💙📚 🗃

Tolerance and Dissent University of Fribourg (Switzerland), June 24, 2026 - June 26, 2026 Deadline for submission/application: January 15, 2026 9th biennial conference of the Swiss Association of Medieval and Early Modern English Studies We are inviting abstracts for 20-min papers or complete panels in the field of medieval and early modern English studies or adjacent disciplines for the 9th biennial conference of the Swiss Association of Medieval and Early Modern English Studies (SAMEMES), which will be dedicated to the topic of ”Tolerance and Dissent.” The conference will take place at the University of Fribourg, from 24-26 June 2026. The deadline for the submission of abstracts (c. 250 words + a short bionote of max. 100 words) is 15 January 2026. Please send your abstract, or any other conference-related query, to the following email address: samemes2026[at]unifr.ch. Select papers presented at this conference will be published in the open-access and peer-reviewed Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature (SPELL) in 2027. More information on the conference, travel recommendations, travel grants, etc. is available under www.samemes2026.com. Please send your abstract, or any other conference-related query, to samemes2026[at]unifr.ch. We would be delighted to welcome you to Fribourg in June 2026!

CFP: Tolerance and Dissent

Deadline for abstracts 15 January 2026
Conference: 24-26 June 2026, University of Fribourg
Travel grants available for graduate students
#EarlyModern #SkyStorians
all info: www.rensoc.org.uk/event/tolera...

MHRA – PG Editor for Working Papers in the Humanities Deadline for submission/application: November 10, 2025 The MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) is looking for a second postgraduate editor for its journal MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities (https://www.mhra.org.uk/journals/WPH). Working Papers was launched in 2006 and is aimed at early-career researchers and postgraduates. The successful applicant will serve as a second postgraduate representative to the MHRA Executive Committee, attending three committee meetings per year in London or online, and advising on postgraduate matters. Travel and subsistence costs for meetings are covered. For further information about the work of the MHRA see www.mhra.org.uk. This position starts formally in December 2025, and ends in November 2027. Whilst unpaid, it offers invaluable experience in the world of academic publishing, as well as representing a chance to work constructively for the future of the Humanities more broadly. Applications are welcome from UK-based postgraduates in their first or second year of doctoral study working in any of the ‘modern humanities’, defined as relating to the modern and medieval European languages (including English and the Slavonic languages), their literatures and cultures both within Europe and worldwide. Applicants should send a CV and cover letter (in a single Word file, please), together with a letter of support from their supervisor, as email attachments to Dr Barbara Burns (Barbara.burns@mhra.org.uk), by 5 p.m. on 10 November 2025. Informal enquiries are welcome and may be addressed to the current representatives at postgrads@mhra.org.uk.

The Modern Humanities Research Association is looking for a second postgraduate editor for its journal MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities.

Deadline: 10 November
Position: from December 2025 to November 2027

all info: www.rensoc.org.uk/event/mhra-p...

Gender, Violence and the Early Moderns European University Institute, Florence, May 22, 2026 - May 22, 2026 Deadline for submission/application: December 20, 2025 Call for Papers Organiser: Dr Giada Pizzoni Keynote Speaker: Dr Jonathan Davies (Warwick) Violence puts the gender roles in a society firmly on records. Although we can never fully grasp the motives behind past acts of violence, through them we can gauge what was tolerated or sanctioned in any given society. Historical violence can suggest which meaning early modern people had of assault and abuse, whether physical, verbal or psychological. This brings us to the fundamental methodological question of how modern categories can capture past social realities. In this regard, the aim of the workshop is to offer a more precise picture of gender violence, with a quantitative study on survivors, their witnesses, and the negotiating process. This gathering aims to promote a discussion on how to defy certain stereotypes around gender-based violence by investigating how women and men in the past viewed and talked about their roles within the abusive act. While some treated the violence suffered as an intimate matter, charged with shame and danger and therefore difficult to articulate, others saw it as a matter to be publicly outed and put into words. This workshop invites proposals for short papers (4,000-5,000 words) on any aspect of gender and violence in early modernity. Papers that investigate the possibility to offer significant input for the study of what we would regard as psychological/physical trauma; dynamics of power; for understanding responses to assault; to investigate the status and forms of victims and perpetrators. The past can share its feelings as violent acts are always initially expressed through language and shaped by specific social and cultural norms.

CFP: Gender, Violence and the Early Moderns

Confirmed keynote speaker: @jddavies66.bsky.social

Deadline: 20 December 2025
Conference: 22 May 2026, European University Institute, Florence
all info: www.rensoc.org.uk/event/gender... #EarlyModern #SkyStorians

The Challenge of Historical Distance: Historicism and Anachronism in the Study of Art Nederlands Interuniversitair Kunsthistorisch Instituut (NIKI), Florence, Italy, November 6, 2025 - November 7, 2025 In-person/online International Conference 6-7 November 2025 Nederlands Interuniversitair Kunsthistorisch Instituut (NIKI), Florence, Italy View the programme here Click here to register for online attendance via Teams. Click here to register for in-person attendance at the NIKI, located at Viale Evangelista Torricelli 5 in Florence. How can art historians explore, understand, or even ‘feel’ the material evidence of the past? How can we approach the problem of historical distance, of our anachronistic nostalgia and our intellectual desire for pre-modern periods and artefacts? Can we inhabit the time of past artworks, or do artworks constantly re-construct their own times? And what role do contemporary concerns play in our interpretations of the ancient, medieval, and early modern periods? Numerous recent publications have explored the study of the past through different lenses. They have complicated the idea of ‘historical contexts’ by showing the ability of artworks to simultaneously refer to various time periods. They have also encouraged cross-temporal and sometimes ahistorical interpretations of premodern artefacts in the light of modern theories and concerns. This conference will bridge the ‘historicist’ and ‘anachronist’ camp in an attempt to theorise the thorny issue of time which sits at the core of both history and art history.

THIS WEEK! Join via MS Teams (or still make your way to Florence! which we can recommend) for two days of brilliant conversations about Historicism and Anachronism in the Study of Art

6-7 NOV in Florence
all info: www.rensoc.org.uk/event/the-ch... #EarlyModern #SkyStorians #ArtHistory

You have been fabulous! And hoping your new academic home in Durham is proving inspiring!

😅 listen... the filters are strong on this website... Hope it's all going well!

Finishing up on the first day of my postdoc with @srsrensoc.bsky.social! I was hoping to share a fun image of early modern aphrodisiac foods, but can't find anything polite enough for social media 🙈

Today is day 1 of my @srsrensoc.bsky.social Postdoc Fellowship. Excited to get started on my new project 'Animals, the environment & the 'Protestant' worldview in c.17th Scotland' 🐄🌷⛪

Now to make an elaborate to do list for the next few months of research, monograph writing & a whole load more ...

early modern centres (@srsrensoc.bsky.social)

Ah. That will be the Church Militant.

WE ARE OFF!

If you're still on commute or school run, you should be able to pick this up later as it's recorded. But always lovely to be able to actually ask questions of our brilliant post-docs.
#SkyStorians #EarlyModern

Lecturer in the History of Early Modern Europe and the World at King's College London Discover an exciting academic career path as a Lecturer in the History of Early Modern Europe and the World at jobs.ac.uk. Don't miss out on this job opportunity - apply today!

AN #EARLYMODERN POST!! They still exist! And a lovely one at that, for five years and with the brilliant people at KCL who have turned that place in quite the hub of exciting early modern research.

Run, don’t walk.

I had a brilliant set of UG dissertation students last year.

One wrote an excellent blog on counterfactual history and the North Berwick witch-hunt: blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/cardiff-supe...

Have a read! I think counterfactual history is a tool that #earlymodern #hextag peeps should use more often. 😊

GREEN ROOM ABUZZ! Do join us to hear about all the brilliant work by our post-graduate fellows! #EarlyModern #SkyStorians

Thanks so much!

Absolutely! Thanks for spotting it, otherwise we may not have noticed and that would have been a problem! We are happy to confirm that there is now a full plain text version of the CFP that can be found on our website:

memrnchase.wordpress.com/memrn-winter...

TODAY!

Thanks so much, really appreciated! Sorry technology was unhelpful but great that now it hopefully can be solved :)

So looking forward to the book launch for this fantastic edition of Margaret Tudor’s letters tomorrow— @hnewsome-chandler.bsky.social and I will be ‘in conversation about the book, the fascinating features of Margaret’s correspondence and what it reveals about the practice of queenship 👸

THIS WEDNESDAY! #EarlyModern #SRSlyGood #EarlyModernEvents #SkyStorians

Should have remembered to add hashtags!
Here, have some: #BookHistory #EarlyModern #EarlyModernEvents #Skystorians #MaterialCulture

postdoctoral showcase Jean David Eynard, ‘Hearing Colours, Seeing Noises: Sensory Disability & Synaesthesia in Seventeenth-Century England’ Claire Turner, ‘Cancer, Identity, & the Senses in Early Modern England, c.1583-1699’

POSTDOCTORAL SHOWCASE!

Come and hear all about the exciting work our post-doctoral fellows have done this past year! Starring @claireturner.bsky.social & Jean David Eynard.

25 September, 5-6pm, Crowdcast. Register here: www.crowdcast.io/c/postdoctor... #EarlyModern #SkyStorians

Early Modern Scholars of Colour mentoring scheme with the Society of Renaissance Studies. Graphic with plumb, mint green and off-white.

SYMPOSIUM with the brilliant team of the Early Modern Scholars of Colour Network. Join us for an afternoon of exciting research papers as well as discussion of academia beyond the academy.

11 September, 12:45-17:15, Liverpool John Moores Uni
All info & programme: www.rensoc.org.uk/event/emsoc-...

Call for Papers This two-day interdisciplinary symposium will invite scholars to re-consider practical texts written between c. 1558 and 1642 as productive sources for literary criticism. In a period best known today for its poetry and drama, practical texts such as Gervase Markham’s The English Husbandman were ‘almost literally read to pieces’, Thomas Tusser’s Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry ‘led the market’ as ‘a Tudor best-seller’, and cookery books enjoyed a staggering 70% reprint rate. That these texts occupied such a prominent position in the publishing industry is testament to their importance in early modern life. Yet despite this, literary criticism has been slow to embrace such texts as more than merely contextual sources for canonical texts by poets and dramatists such as Shakespeare and Spenser. Critics continue to frame Tusser’s work as an agricultural manual or almanack rather than a book of poetry, for example, while literary scholars tend to note his significance in the same breath as they denigrate the quality of his verse: an ‘agrarian book of jingles’ or ‘collection of doggerel’. Other practical texts such as receipt books and surveying texts have been interrogated primarily as a means of understanding early modern culture and society. Less common are studies of practical texts as works of literature, studies that centre the practical text rather than positioning it as context for the work of more canonical writers. This symposium seeks to address this gap, and invites contributors to consider how studying non-traditionally canonical texts can help scholars to reassess established positions. It is designed to lead to an edited collection, provisionally aimed at Routledge’s Studies in Renaissance and Early Modern Worlds of Knowledge series, so speakers are encouraged to propose papers suitable for extension into a 6000-8000 word chapter. Recent scholarship by Katarzyna Lecky, Jessica Rosenberg, and Kyla Tompkins has begun to demonstrate

CFP: Reading the Practical in #EarlyModern Literature

University of Sheffield, 16-17 April 2026
Deadline for submissions: 24 November 2025
All info: www.rensoc.org.uk/event/readin...
#SkyStorians #EarlyModernEvents @sheffieldcems.bsky.social

machine-readable CFP on the webpage: ecclesiasticalhistorysociety.com/26-winter-me...

hello! Thanks for this, looks exciting! Trying to maintain a policy of alttext or explicit links to accessible text. Is there a webpage with this CFP in an accessible format?

Call for Papers This two-day interdisciplinary symposium will invite scholars to re-consider practical texts written between c. 1558 and 1642 as productive sources for literary criticism. In a period best known today for its poetry and drama, practical texts such as Gervase Markham’s The English Husbandman were ‘almost literally read to pieces’, Thomas Tusser’s Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry ‘led the market’ as ‘a Tudor best-seller’, and cookery books enjoyed a staggering 70% reprint rate. That these texts occupied such a prominent position in the publishing industry is testament to their importance in early modern life. Yet despite this, literary criticism has been slow to embrace such texts as more than merely contextual sources for canonical texts by poets and dramatists such as Shakespeare and Spenser. Critics continue to frame Tusser’s work as an agricultural manual or almanack rather than a book of poetry, for example, while literary scholars tend to note his significance in the same breath as they denigrate the quality of his verse: an ‘agrarian book of jingles’ or ‘collection of doggerel’. Other practical texts such as receipt books and surveying texts have been interrogated primarily as a means of understanding early modern culture and society. Less common are studies of practical texts as works of literature, studies that centre the practical text rather than positioning it as context for the work of more canonical writers. This symposium seeks to address this gap, and invites contributors to consider how studying non-traditionally canonical texts can help scholars to reassess established positions. It is designed to lead to an edited collection, provisionally aimed at Routledge’s Studies in Renaissance and Early Modern Worlds of Knowledge series, so speakers are encouraged to propose papers suitable for extension into a 6000-8000 word chapter. Recent scholarship by Katarzyna Lecky, Jessica Rosenberg, and Kyla Tompkins has begun to demonstrate

CFP: Reading the Practical in #EarlyModern Literature

University of Sheffield, 16-17 April 2026
Deadline for submissions: 24 November 2025
All info: www.rensoc.org.uk/event/readin...
#SkyStorians #EarlyModernEvents @sheffieldcems.bsky.social