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Programme

2024-2025

Thurs-Sat., 26-28 September.
“Communities of Print: Authors, Readers, and Printers in the Early Modern World.” A Conference in Memory of Natalie Zemon Davis and James K. McConica on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Colloquium.
Organized in partnership withthe Istituto Italiano di Cultura (Toronto), McMaster University, the University of St Michael’s College, and the University of Toronto.
Location: St Michael’s College and Loretto College, 70 and 81 St Mary’s Street.

2023–2024

Thurs., 16 November 2023, 4:00 p.m.
Giulia Gaimari (University of Toronto)
“He who loved you so” (Inf. II, 104): Friendship, Empathy, and Interreligious Dialogue in Dante
Co-sponsored with the Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies
Location: Carr Hall 406 & YouTube (Italian Dept)
Poster

Thurs., 18 January 2024, 4:00 p.m.
Sarah Rolfe Prodan (Stanford University)
“Representing and Engaging Divine Wisdom in Early Modern Italy”
Co-sponsor: Department for the Study of Religion
Location: Jackman Humanities Bldg, Room 318 and on Zoom
Poster

Friday, 16 February 2024, 4:00 p.m.
Colin Mitchell (Dalhousie University)
“The ‘Weeping King’ and the Flying Magician: The Prophet-Kings David and Solomon in the Historical Imagination of Safavid Iran (15th–17th Century)”
Co-sponsor: Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies
Location: Victoria University Senior Common Room (91 Charles St West)
Poster

Thursday, 29 February 2024, 4:00 p.m.
“Women, History and Prophecy in Early Modern Religion: A Workshop”
Chair Nicholas Terpstra (U of Toronto)
Poster

Presenters:
Eleonora Cappuccilli (U of Oslo & U of Toronto) “Mystic and Prophetic Voices in Dialogue. Lucia da Narni and Maria de Santo Domingo in the Early Modern Reformations”
Lorena Sodano (U of Toronto) “Rewriting History through Female Religious Eyes: The Historiography of Fiammetta Frescobaldi (d. 1586)”
Location:: Sidney Smith Hall (100 St George St.), Room 2098 “Natalie Zemon Davis Conference Room” and on Zoom

Tues., 12 March 2024, 4:30 p.m.
Alan Verskin (U of Toronto)
“Diplomacy in an Age of Armageddon: A Look at David Reubeni’s Rhetorical Strategy”
Co-sponsor: Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies
Location: Sidney Smith Hall (100 St George St.), Room 2098 “Natalie Zemon Davis Conference Room” and on Zoom
Poster

22 March 2024, TRRC sessions at RSA in Chicago
Panel 1 – Women and Political Theology I. Models of political, religious and interior reform
Organizer: Eleonora Cappuccilli (U of Oslo & U of Toronto)
Chair: Nicholas Terpstra (University of Toronto)
Presenters:
1. Eleonora Cappuccilli (U of Oslo & U of Toronto) “Political Theology Transnational. Lucia da Narni, Maria de Santo Domingo and the Prophetic Connections in Sixteenth-Century Europe”
2. Lorena Sodano (University of Toronto) “Politics and Reform in the Cloister: The Case of Fiammetta Frescobaldi (d. 1586)”
3. Tanya Kundu (University of Cambridge) “The Prophetic Memory of Katherine Sutton: an Interrupted Theological Autobiography”

Panel 2 – Women and Political Theology II. Power in the cloister, marriage and society
Organizer and Chair: Eleonora Cappuccilli (U of Oslo & U of Toronto)
Presenters:
1. Unn Falkeid (University of Oslo) “The Tearjerker from North. Dorothe Engelbretsdatter’s Ingenious Game with Theologians and Kings”
2. Eleonora Carinci (University of Seville) “Sister Maria Candida’s Letters to the Pope: Micro-history and Political Strategies of a 17th-Century Nun”
3. Yacoov Bronstein (Rutgers University), “‘Cannot Women Hate?’: Divorce, Law, and Supersessionism in The Tragedy of Mariam”

Panel 3 – Women and Political Theology III. Authority and authorship reconsidered
Organizer: Eleonora Cappuccilli (U of Oslo & U of Toronto)
Chair: Unn Falkeid (U of Oslo)
Presenters:
1. Fernanda Alfieri (University of Bologna) “Serenissima’s Got Talent. Maria Elena Lusignani and her Public Theological Disputes in Late 17th-Century Genoa”
2. Claudia Marsulli (University of Rome La Sapienza) “From Parrhesia to Exousia: The Diary of Brigida Morello of Jesus (1610-1679)”
3. Elia Zaru (University of Bologna) “The “Cromwell’s Witch”: Consent, Power and Authority in Elizabeth Poole’s Prophecies”

Panel 4 – Communities in Motion in the Early Modern World
Organizer: Megan Armstrong (McMaster U)
Chair: Konrad Eisenbichler (U of Toronto)
Presenters:
1) Brian Sandberg (Northern Illinois University) “‘Trafficking in Barbary’: Communities, Commerce, and Informal Empire in the Francophone Mediterranean”
2) Megan C. Armstrong (McMaster University) “Mobility and Community Creation: The Franciscan Alms Collectors of the Holy Land
3) Junko Takeda (Syracuse U) “Maria Yamada Guyomar’s Lawsuit: The Voice of a Japanese Indo-Portuguese Widow in Siam 1688-1700”

Panel 5 – Cortés Women: Between Infamy and Honor
Organizer: Rachel Ball (U of Alaska Anchorage)
Chair: David Whitford (Baylor U)
Presenters:
1) Vanessa de Cruz Medina (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha) “Imprisoned Ladies-in-Waiting Seeking Husband: Magdalena de Guzmán, María de Dietrichstein, and Martín Cortés”
2) Sergio Ramiro Ramírez (Spanish Superior Research Council) “Surrounded by Silver: Juana Cortés Ramírez de Arellano, Memory and the Scenography of Luxury”
3) Rachel Ball (U of Alaska Anchorage) “Infamous Power and Powerful Infamy: The Case of Catalina Enríquez de Ribera”

Previous Years

2022-2023

Monday, 12 December 2022
Prof. Joanne Allen (American University)
Title: “Transforming the Church Interior in Renaissance Florence
Location: Zoom, by registration
Poster

Thursday, 2 February 2023
Prof. Heidi Bohaker (University of Toronto)
Title: “Recentring the Renaissance: Early Modern Scholarship and the Decolonization of History”
Location: Zoom, by registration
Poster

Thursday, 30 March 2023
Prof. Mairi Cowan (University of Toronto Mississauga)
“Relief, Deliverance, or Exorcism? Casting Out a Demon in Seventeenth-Century New France
Location: Zoom, by registration
Poster

Thur. 9 – Fri. 10 March 2023
TRRC sessions at the 2023 RSA Annual Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico

2021-2022

Thurs., 14 October 2021, 4:00 pm 
Sara Beam (University of Victoria) and Colin Rose (Brock University)  
“Homicide between Family and State in Early Modern Europe”
Location: Zoom, by registration. See poster for details.
Poster

Thurs., 11 November 2021
David Goldstein (York University) and Marco Piana (Smith College)
Book presentation: Early Modern Hospitality
Location: Zoom, by registration

Thurs., 25 November 2021
Dr. Filiz Çakır Phillip (Curator, Aga Khan Museum)
Title: Hidden Stories: Books along the Silk Roads 
Location: Zoom, by registration

Wed., 19 January 2022
Prof. Nicholas Rashad Jones (University of California, Davis)
Title: “Staging Habla de Negros: A Book Presentation & Workshop”
Presenter & Moderator: Paul Cohen
Location: Zoom, by registration
Poster

Fri., 4 March 2022, 2:00 pm
Prof. Daniel Jütte (New York University)
Title: “Pillar-Biters: Columnar Devotion as a Trope and Reality in Early Modern Europe”
Location: Zoom, by registration
Poster

Thurs., 21 April 2022, 4:00 pm
Title: “Persians, Turks and the French in the Early Modern Mediterranean”: A conversation with Junko Thérèse Takeda (Syracuse University) and Gillian Weiss (Case Western Reserve University)
Moderated by Megan Armstrong (McMaster University)
Location: Zoom, by registration
Poster

2020-2021

Thurs., 1 October 2020, 3:30 pm
Damiano Acciarino (U Ca’ Foscari di Venezia) with the assistance of Giovanni Grandi (U di Parma)
“Itineraries of Thought in Renaissance Antiquarianism:
The Atlas of Renaissance Antiquarianism (ATRA)”
Co-sponsored with the Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies
Zoom lecture
Poster

Thurs., 29 October 2020, 1:00 pm
Katherine R. Larson (U of Toronto Scarborough)
“Early Modern Songscapes”
Zoom lecture
Poster

Thurs. 12 – Sat. 14 November 2020
“Masculinities in the Premodern World: Continuities, Change, and Contradictions” 
An international and interdisciplinary conference.
Organized by Konrad Eisenbichler and Jacqueline Murray
79 speakers from Canada, USA, Europe, New Zealand
Zoom conference
Conference details

Thurs., 14 January 2021, 3:00 pm
Megan Armstrong (McMaster University) and Tamara Walker (University of Toronto)
“Pirates, Pilgrims and Other Global Itinerants: Doing Early Modern Global History”
Zoom lecture/conversation
Poster

Thurs., 4 March 2021, 2:00 pm
“Neither Poor nor Rich: Shopping, Investing, and Retiring in Renaissance Europe.” 
A workshop featuring:
Aina Palarea (European University Institute, Florence). “Shopping for Italian Silk in Fifteenth-Century Catalonia”
Éric Pecile (University of Toronto). “Getting by Comfortably in Early Modern Europe”
Johannes Ludwig Maria Pelzl (European University Institute, Florence). “Purchasing a Spot in an Early Modern Retirement Home in Southern Germany”
Zoom lecture/workshop
Poster

Thurs., 18 March 2021, 3:00 pm
Marco Faini (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia / University of Toronto)
“Doubt as a Form of Sociability in Renaissance Italy”
Zoom lecture
Poster

2019-2020

Tuesday, 8 October 2019, 4:00 p.m.
Charles Zika (University of Melbourne)
“Exorcism and Emotions at the Shrine of Mariazell”
Victoria University Senior Common Room (rear of 93 Charles St West)
Poster

Friday, 1 – Sunday, 3 November 2019, all day
“Making Stories in the Early Modern World”
An international and interdisciplinary conference honouring the work of Elizabeth and Thomas Cohen
Co-sponsored by the TRRC
Website: https://crrs.ca/making-stories/

Thursday, 28 November 2019, 4:00 p.m.
Eloisa Morra (University of Toronto)
“Building the Canon: The Italian Renaissance and the Creation of a Literary Tradition”
Co-sponsored with the Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies
Carr Hall 403, St Michael’s College, 100 St Joseph St
Poster

Wednesday, 29 January 2020, 4:00 p.m.
Robert Tittler (Concordia University, Montreal)
“Paintings off the Peg: the Retail Sale of Painting in Tudor and Early Stuart England”
Victoria University Senior Common Room, 91 Charles St West
Poster

Wednesday, 26 February 2020, 4:00 p.m.
Emiro Martinez-Osorio (York University)
“Renaissance Chieftains: Mural Painting, Literacy and Indigenous Elites in the Andes”
Victoria University Senior Common Room, 91 Charles St West
Poster

Tuesday, 31 March 2020, 4:00 p.m. CANCELLED 
Damiano Acciarino (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice)
“Antiquarian Readings of the Last Supper between Renaissance and Reformation”
Victoria University Senior Common Room, 91 Charles St West
Poster

April, TBA CANCELLED 
Digital Humanities Workshop

2018-2019

Thursday, 27 September 2018, 4 p.m.    
Cathleen Hoeniger (Queen’s University) 
“Italian Renaissance Frescoes as Casualties of World War Two”
Victoria University Senior Common Room, 91 Charles Street West 
Poster

Friday–Saturday, 26-27 October 2018
“Early Modern Cultures of Hospitality” 
An international and interdisciplinary conference. Victoria College, University of Toronto
Conference details

Thursday, 17 January 2019, 4 p.m.
Marco Piana (University of Toronto) 
“Savonarola, Blood, and Prophecy”
Carr Hall 405, St Michael’s College, 100 St Joseph Street
In partnership with the Department of Italian Studies, University of Toronto
Poster

Wednesday, 13 February 2019, 4 p.m.
Rebecca Kingston (University of Toronto)
“Plutarch’s Prism. Vernacular Translations of Plutarch and Political Thought in Renaissance France and England”
Victoria University Senior Common Room, 91 Charles Street West 
Poster

Tuesday, 5 March 2019, 4 p.m. 
Igor Djordjevic (Glendon College, York University)
“Jacobean Drama’s Walking Dead: Reconsidering the English ‘History Play’.”
Victoria University Senior Common Room, 91 Charles Street West 
Poster

Sunday-Tuesday, 17-19 March 2019 
Annual conference of the Renaissance Society of America
Sheraton Centre, Toronto

The TRRC is sponsoring three sessions  at the RSA:  
1. Issues in Digital Publications (session organized by William Bowen)
2. Creating and Using Digital Editions (session organized by William Bowen)
3. “Gender on the (Transnational) Early Modern Stage, Then and Now: A Performance as Research Approach” (roundtable organized by Melinda Gough)
See: RSA.org

2017-2018

Wednesday, Saturday, 27–30 September 2017
“Global Reformations: Transforming Early Modern Religions, Societies, and Cultures”
An international and interdisciplinary conference organized by Nicholas Terpstra under the aegis of the CRRS, with co-sponsorship by the TRRC

Monday, 6 November 2017, 4:00 p.m.     
Tom Bishop (University of Auckland) “Discontented Harmonies: Words Against Words in Pomfret Castle”
Victoria University Senior Common Room, 91 Charles Street West
Poster

Tuesday, 13 November 2017, 5:00 p.m.
Surekha Davies (Western Connecticut State) “New Worlds, Indigenous Technologies, and European Cabinets of Curiosities”
Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse, 79 St. George Street, University of Toronto
In partnership with The Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Toronto
Poster

Thursday, 30 November 2017, 4:00 p.m.
Gianni Cicali (Georgetown University) “The Medici, the Cross, and the Jews”
Carr Hall 406, 100 St. Joseph Street, St Michael’s College, University of Toronto
In partnership with the Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies 
Poster

Tuesday, 16 January 2018, 4:00 p.m.
Ryan Whibbs (George Brown College) “Renaissance Repasts on the Road: Feeding Nobles During Journeys”
Victoria University Senior Common Room, 91 Charles Street West
Poster

Tuesday, 13 February 2018, 4:00 p.m.
VK Preston (Drama Centre, University of Toronto) “Punishing Remains: Performing Witch Archives, Decriminalizing Witchcraft”
Munk School of Global Affairs, 1 Devonshire Place, Room 208 North
In partnership with the Centre for the Study of France and the Francophone World, Munk School of Global Affairs.
Poster

Monday, 12 March 2018, 4:00 p.m.
Randall Martin, University of New Brunswick, “Shakespeare and Ecology: English Early Modern Environmental History in the Anthropocene”
Victoria University Senior Common Room, 91 Charles Street West
Poster

Thursday–Saturday, 22–24 March 2018, Renaissance Society of America, New Orleans, USA
Two sessions organized by David Goldstein on behalf of the TRRC:

Session 1: Beholding and Enacting the English Renaissance
Chair: David B. Goldstein, York University
1) Elizabeth  Pentland (York University)
     “‘The Queen of England specially’: Figuring English Protestantism in The Massacre at Paris
2) James A. Knapp (Loyola University Chicago)
     “Looking at and through Pictures in Early Modern Poetry”
3) Tom Bishop (University of Auckland)
     “Pageantry and Politics in Early Modern England: The Anxiety of Arrival”

Session 2: Eating, Drinking, and Weaving in Shakespeare and Hardwick
Chair: Deanne  Williams, York University
1) Susan C Frye (University of Wyoming)
     “Bess of Hardwick’s Elizabeth I and Mohamet in Material Context” 
2) David B. Goldstein (York University)
     “Macbeth, the Drinking Tragedy”
3) Stephen Orgel (Stanford University)
     “Digesting Poetry”

Tuesday, 3 April 2018, 4:00 p.m.
Jacqueline Murray (U of Guelph) “Studying Masculinity and Male Sexuality: Where Are We After 20 Years?”
Victoria University Senior Common Room, 91 Charles Street West
Poster

2016-2017

For 2016-17, the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium has organized a splendid series of talks and a very exciting international conference, as follows:

Tuesday, 27 September 2016, 4:00 p.m.
Madeline Bassnett (English, Western U)
“In Translation: Foreign Recipes in Englishwomen’s Seventeenth-Century Manuscript Recipe Books”
Poster

Friday-Saturday, 21-22 October 2016, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
“On the Peripheries of the Reformation”
An international and interdisciplinary conference with 38 speakers (including 2 plenaries) from Canada, Ireland, Italy, Poland, UK, and USA
Registration: $60 (students, $30)
Conference Details

Tuesday, 22 November 2016, 4:00 p.m.
Thabit Abdullah Sam (History, York U)
“Slavery in Sixteenth-Century Aleppo”
Poster

Thursday 19 January 2017, 4:00 p.m.
Francesco Guardiani (Italian, U of Toronto) “Apostles of Modernity: Italian Jesuits As Agents of the Gutenberg Revolution”|
Co-sponsored with the Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies
Poster

Tuesday, 14 February 2017, 4:00 p.m.
Natalie Oltjen (CRRS)
“Crypto-Jewish practices of a conversa in fifteenth-century Majorca: the proceso and prayers of Esclaramuna Pardo”
Co-sponsored with the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies

All talks take place in the Senior Common Room, Victoria College (rear of 91 Charles Street West). Doors open at 4:00 p.m. for tea and cookies. The talks start at 4:15 p.m.

The conference, on the other hand, starts at 9:00 a.m. in the Old Vic building.

Alongside these events in Toronto, the TRRC is sponsoring three full sessions at the Renaissance Society of America meetings in Chicago on Friday, 31 March 2017 on “Translation Theory and Practice during the Renaissance: A Medium, a Genre, a Risk?” The sessions have been organized for the Colloquium by Johnny L. Bertolio (Italian, University of Toronto), and will be held at the The Palmer House Hilton Hotel.

2015-2016

Thursday, 1 October 2015, 4:00 p.m.
Wymilwood Lounge, Victoria College (150 Charles Street West)
Christopher Warley (English, U of Toronto): “The Weary Prince, or, Auerbach’s Renaissance”
Poster

Thursday, 22 October 2015, 1:30 p.m.
Sixteenth Century Society and Conference annual meetings in the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel, Vancouver, B.C.
A panel (3 speakers) on “Disordered Eating Communities”:
1) Elizabeth Cohen (York U) “Artichoke Tales: An Everyday Theatre of Food and Sociability in Early Modern Rome”
2) Timothy Tomasik (Valparaiso U) “Two-Faced Tarts and Traitors: Treacherous Hospitality in La Condamnation de Banquet
3) David Goldstein (York U) “Ingredience and the Poisoned Communities of Macbeth

Wednesday, 28 October 2015, 4:00 p.m.
Senior Common Room, Victoria College (rear of 91 Charles Street West)
Elizabeth Pentland (English, York U): “Two Protestant Revengers” (a talk by on Marlowe’s Massacre at Paris and Shakespeare’s Hamlet)
Poster

Wednesday, 20 January 2016, 4:00 p.m.
Senior Common Room, Victoria College (rear of 91 Charles Street West)
Elisa Brilli (Italian, U of Toronto): “Translating and Illuminating the City of God. France-Italy, 14th–15th  Century”
Poster

Thursday, 3 March 2016, 4:00 p.m.
Senior Common Room, Victoria College (rear of 91 Charles Street West)
Christian Berco (History, Bishop’s University): “Spanish Inquisitors, Visual Perception, and Public Ritual: A Neurohistory”
Poster

Wednesday, 23 March 2016, 4:00 p.m.
Senior Common Room, Victoria College (rear of 91 Charles Street West)
Heather Coffey (Ontario College of Art and Design University): “A Floating Tomb and Perfidious Vision in Noël de Fribois’ Mirouer historial abregié de France

31 March – 2 April 2016
Renaissance Society of America annual meetings in the Park Plaza Hotel and Hynes Convention Center, Boston, Massachusetts
|Three panels (11 speakers) on “Renaissance Commemorations”:

Panel 1: Renaissance Commemoration (1) Word and Thing
1) Charlotte Nichols, Associate Professor (Seton Hall University): “Vigeant tumuli: Giovanni Pontano’s Funerary Chapel in Naples, Commemoration, and the Word”

2) Tamara Marie Smithers, Assistant Professor (Austin Peay State University): “The Artistic Apotheosis of Raphael”

3) Douglas Clark, PhD Candidate (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow): “The Commemorative Poetics of Early Modern Testamentary Verse”

4) Zoe H. Gibbons, PhD Candidate (Princeton University): “To Extend Our Memory: Thomas Browne’s Ambivalent Antiquarianism”

Panel 2: Renaissance Commemoration (2) Depicting Rulers

1) Alexander J. Noelle (Courtauld Institute of Art) PhD Candidate “Two Sides of the Same Coin: Bertoldo di Giovanni’s Medal Commemorating the Death of Giuliano and Survival of Lorenzo de’ Medici”

2) Konrad Eisenbichler (University of Toronto) Professor “Commemoration and Propaganda: Nicolaus Hogenberg’s Engravings of the Post-Coronation Cavalcade of Emperor Charles V in Bologna (1530).”

3) Sara Trevisan (Brunel University London) Lecturer “‘Mirth in Mourning’: Genealogical Continuity and Royal Commemoration.”

Panel 3: Renaissance Commemoration (3) Spaces of Memory

1) Samantha Hughes-Johnson, PhD Candidate (Birmingham City University, UK): “A Final and Lasting Tribute to an Honourable Life: Obsequies and the Poveri Vergognosi in Quattrocento Florence.”

2) Rebecca M. Howard, PhD Candidate (Ohio State University): “Traversing the Memory House: Commemorating Through Space in Early Modern Italian Portraits”

3) Madeline Bassnett, Assistant Professor (Western University): “Commemorating Lady Anne Clifford’s Hospitality: Bishop Rainbowe’s 1676 Funeral Sermon”

4) Dana Lawrence, Assistant Professor (University of South Carolina Lancaster): “Verona’s Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Tourism, and Commemoration” 

2014-2015

10 March 2015
Alison Mackay (Tafelmusik)
“Paris Confidential: Presenting Early Music for Private Homes in a Digital Age”
Presented in partnership with the Department of Arts, Culture and Media, University of Toronto Scarborough

2 February 2015
Prof. Mary Watt (University of Florida)
“Shipwrecks, Islands, Magic, and Marvel: Renaissance Responses to the New World Project”
Presented in partnership with the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Victoria College

8 November 2014
Fiftieth Anniversary International Conference: “Rethinking Early Modern Collegialities”

Plenary address: Paula Findlen (Stanford U), “Galileo’s Friends: Crisis and Community in Seventeenth-Century Italy”
Round-table: “Building Communities for Renaissance Studies: Models and Strategies for Using New Technologies”
Round-table: “From Renaissance to Early Modern to ?: Fifty Years Past, and Future”
and 4 panels of papers

With support from: The President’s Office, Victoria U; Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at Victoria C.;  Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies, UoT; Iter. Gateway to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; Dept of Arts, Culture, and Media, UTSC;  Dept of History, York U; Dept of Art, UoT;  Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Development, York U; Bata Shoe Museum

7 October 2014
Dr. Sarah Rolfe Prodan (Fellow, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies) “Michelangelo: Quest for Freedom”
Presented in partnership with The Department of Art, University of Toronto

Also, co-sponsored

23 February 2015
Workshop: “Women in Early Modern Medical Science:  Professional Practice and Social Boundaries”
Workshop with 3 presenters from Canada, USA, and Israel.
Presented in partnership with the Department of History, University of Toronto

2013-2014

Friday, 14 March 2014
Giancarla Periti (University of Toronto)
“Ravenna’s Monumental Heritage and the Italian Renaissance”
Victoria College, Senior Common Room (back of 91 Charles St. W.), 4-6 p.m.
Sponsored by the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium in partnership with the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies

Friday, 7 February 2014
Rosalind Kerr(University of Alberta)
“The Rise of the Diva on the Sixteenth-Century Commedia dell’ Arte Stage”
Charbonnel Lounge, 81 St Mary’s Street, St Michael’s College, 4-6 p.m.
Sponsored by the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium in partnership with the Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies
A look at the arrival of female performers from their earliest appearance in the marketplace to their central position as early divas worshipped for their great talents on the professional stage.
Poster

Friday, 8 November 2013
Scott Schofield (Trent University)
“Copy Specific: The Idiosyncrasies of Early Modern Books”
Victoria College, Senior Common Room (back of 91 Charles St. W.), 4-6 p.m.
Sponsored by the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium in partnership with the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies
Working exclusively with primary materials from the Centre of Reformation and Renaissance Studies and the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, this talk will examine the importance of customization in sixteenth and seventeenth-century books and its implications for our understanding of early modern reading, note-taking, editing and collecting.
Poster

Friday, 27 Sept 2013
Janice Liedl (Laurentian University)
“Power is a curious thing”: Game of Thrones as a Machiavellian Mirror for Princes.”
Emmanuel College 119 (75 Queen’s Park Cres. East), 4-6 p.m.
Sponsored by the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium in partnership with the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies
Learn how Game of Thrones borrows its brutal politics from the advice books and intrigues of early modern Europe!
Poster

2012-2013

Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Neil Harris (Bibliography, Università di Udine): “The Elephant in the Room, or the Survival of Renaissance Books”
Alumni Hall Room 206, St. Michael’s College
121 St. Joseph’s Street
4:00 p.m.
In partnership with St. Michael’s College and the Program in Book History and Print Culture.

Friday, 22 March 2013
Margaret Jane Kidnie(English, University of Western Ontario): “Crafting Theatrical (and Editorial) Effect in Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness.”
Jackman Humanities Building, 100A
4:00 p.m.
In partnership with the Department of English

Thursday, 14 March 2013
Selma Zecevic (Humanities, York University): “Should a Muslim Drink Coffee and Smoke? Law and Poetry in Early Modern Ottoman Bosnia.”
Victoria College, Senior Common Room, Burwash Hall
4:00 p.m.
In partnership with the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies

Tuesday, 27 November 2012
R. Malcolm Smuts (History, University of Massachusetts, Boston): “Pirates, Merchants and Urban Intellectuals: Towards a Cultural History of the Early Modern Atlantic Frontier”
Emmanuel College 119
4:00 p.m.
In partnership with the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies

Saturday, 29 September 2012
Genocidal Massacre in Early Modern Europe, Asia and the Americas
A day-long workshop sponsored by the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, the Department of History, and the TRRC

Friday, 28 September 2012
Katherine O. Acheson (English, University of Waterloo): “‘Speculatory ingenuity’: Writing, Drawing, and Marvell’s ‘Last Instructions'”
Victoria College, Senior Common Room, Burwash Hall
4:00 p.m.
In partnership with the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies

Also, co-sponsored

Thursday-Friday, 26-27 June 2014
“Rethinking Early Modernity: Methodological and Critical Innovation since the Ritual Turn”
A conference in honour of Professor Ed Muir (Northwestern University, Chicago) organized by Prof. Mark Jurdjevic (Glendon College, York University) and co-sponsored by the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium

2002-2012

2011-2012

17 April 2012
Stephen Clucas (English, Birkbeck College, University of London)
“The Calculations of Hobbes’s Natural Philosophy”

8 March 2012
Robert Tittler (History, Concordia University)
“Portraiture and Memory amongst the Middling Elites in Post-Reformation England”

13 February 2012
Renée-Claude Breitenstein (French, Brock University)
“Conflict in the Age of Print: The Construction of Publics in Collections in Praise of Women in the French Renaissance”

26 January 2012
Amy Graves (Modern Languages and Literatures, SUNY Buffalo)
“The Pamphlet as Event: Polemical Strategies and Print Culture during the French Wars of Religion”

24 November 2011
Megan Armstrong (History, McMaster University)
“The Holy land, the Franciscans and Bourbon Imperialism, 1604-1700”

27 October 2011
Mark Jurdjevic (History, York University)
“Political Thought in Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories”

2010-2011

17 March 2011
Marjorie Rubright (English, University of Toronto)
“Dutch Impressions: Black Letter and the Narcissism of Minor Difference in English Playbooks and Dictionaries of the European Renaissance”

2 February 2011
Alan Galey (Faculty of Information, University of Toronto)
“Upgrading the Renaissance Computer: Knowledge Technologies between the Archive and the Book”

13 January 2011
Paul Yachnin (English, McGill University)
“Thomas Middleton, Theatre, and the Publicity of Space”

7 December 2010
Anthony D’Elia (History, Queen’s University, ON)
“Renaissance Paganism and the Soul of Sigismondo Malatesta”

25 November 2010
Jill Caskey (Dept of Art, University of Toronto)
“Lost and Found in the Kingdom of Sicily”

7 October 2010
Jean-Luc Nardonne (Dép. des Langues Étrangères Université de Toulouse–Le Mirail)
“La représentation de Jérusalem et de la Terre Sainte dans les récits de pèlerins européens au XVIe siècle”

2009-2010

26 March 2010
Daniele Maira (French, Yale University)
“La dixième muse: pétrarquisme éditorial et transferts culturels”

10 March 2010
Katie Larson (English, University of Toronto)
“‘Can thes fond pleasures move?’: Mary Wroth and the Rhetoric of Song”

10 February 2010
Susan Rosa (History, Northeastern Illinois University)
“The Conversion of Queen Christina of Sweden (1654) and the Rhetoric of Catholic Universalism”

29 January 2010
Antonio Ricci (Italian, York University)
“Making a Classic: Printers and Editors of Orlando Furioso in Renaissance Venice”

19 November 2009
David Fallis (Artistic Director, Toronto Consort)
“Presenting Renaissance Music on the Modern Concert Stage”

30 October 2009
Holger Schott Syme (English, University of Toronto)
“Shakespeare in the 1590s: Inconvenient Untruths”

2008-2009

24 March 2009
Franco Pierno (Italian, University of Toronto)
“Les ‘bibles’ italiennes au XVIe siècle: au croisement de la langue et de la théologie”

26 February 2009
Jean-Claude Margolin (French, Université François Rabelais de Tours)
“Le sage et la sagesse dans les lettres de Charles de Bovelles”

28 January 2009
Alan Durston (History, York University)
“Luis Jerónimo de Oré, OFM, and the Politics of Translation in Early Colonial Peru”

28 November 2008
Mary Watt (Italian, University of Florida)
“Cosmopoiesis: A Dantean Foundation for Columbus’s New World”

28 October 2008
Germaine Warkentin (English, University of Toronto)
“Aristotle in New France: Louis Nicolas, Jesuit Science, and the Making of the Codex Canadensis”

1 October 2008
Hervé Drévillon (History, Université de Poitiers)
“How to be a Hero in Seventeenth Century France”

2007-2008

26 March 2008
Christy Anderson (Art, University of Toronto)
“Material and Matter: The Stuff of Renaissance Architecture”

27 February 2008
Ian Sloan (Fellow, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies)
“Cheerfully Writing Off Protestantism: The Reverend Northrop Frye and the Reformation”

7 February 2008
Kenneth Stow (History, University of Haifa)
“Toward Emancipation: Early Modern Ius Commune and the Jews”

16 January 2008
Gerard Dunnhaupt (German, Queen’s University, ON)
“Stultiferis Navis (1494): The World’s First Bestseller”

6 December 2007
Ellen Anderson (Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, York University)
“Compassion and Comedy in Cervantes”

10 October 2007
Steven Bednarski (History, University of Waterloo)
“Sweet Old Poison: Tales from the 14th Century Criminal Archives of Provence”

4 April 2007
Natalie Rothman (History, University of Toronto)
“Levantines: Genealogies of an Early Modern Category of Otherness”

2006-2007

15 March 2007
Megan Armstrong (History, McMaster University)
“A Material World: The Holy Land in Franciscan and Jesuit Correspondence, 1600-1700?

8 February 2007
Matt Kavaler (Dept of Art, University of Toronto)
“Renaissance Gothic: The Distinctive Architecture of Northern Europe ca. 1500”

30 November 2006
Deanne Williams (English, York University)
“Girls Own Shakespeare”

4 November 2006
TRRC Mini-Conference: “Ritual in Renaissance Rome”

  • Nerida Newbigin (Italian, University of Sydney)
    “Lorenzo’s Fat and Other Relics: Giuliano Dati and the Stations of Rome”
  • Jennifer Mara De Silva (History, University of Toronto)
    “The Papal Master of Ceremonies Paris de’ Grassi and the Transformative Power of the Red-hat”
  • Barbara Wisch (Art, SUNY-Cortland): “Something Borrowed, Something Blue: Staging Marriage in Renaissance Rome”
  • Elizabeth Cohen and Tom Cohen (History, York University)
    “In/visibility: Masquerade Off-stage in Early Modern Rome”

16 October 2006
Yves-Marie Bercé (History, Université Paris IV-Sorbonne)
“Did Henri IV Believe in Ghosts?”

19 October 2006
Christopher Warley (English, University of Toronto)
“Specters of Horatio”

30 November 2006
Deanne Williams (English, York University)
“Girls Own Shakespeare”

2005-2006

16 March 2006
Alan Shepard (English, University of Guelph)
“For the Stuarts, the Grave Risk of Fresh Fruit”

23 February 2006
Sanda Munjic (Spanish, University of Toronto)
“Mystical Love: Fray Juan de los Ángelos and his Spiritual and Amorous Struggle with God”

26 January 2006
François Paré (French, University of Guelph)
“Linguistic Plurality in Sixteenth-Century France”

24 November 2005
Robert Tittler (History, Concordia University)
“The Face of the City: Civic Portraits and Civic Identity in Post-Reformation England”

13 October 2005
Paul Stevens (English, University of Toronto)
“Shakespeare on Globalization: The Merchant of Venice and the work of literary criticism”

2004-2005

16 March 2005
Bernard Klein (English, University of Kent)
“L’arte è cosa mentale: The Rational Order of the City within the Natural Order of the Landscape in Early Modern Europe”

23 February 2005
Ken Mills (History, University of Toronto)
“Drawing on America: The Words and Pictures of Diego de Ocaña O.S.H. 1599-1608”

20 January 2005
Myra Rosenfeld (Emeritus, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal)
“Witness to History: The Hôtel de Cluny, and Abbot’s Palace in Renaissance Paris”

1 December 2004
Brenda Hosington (Université de Montréal, Linguistique et traduction)
“William Bercher’s Englishing of Lodovico Domenichi’s La Nobilità delle donne: Translation at the service of Ambition”

5 November 2004
Lynn Magnusson (English, University of Toronto)
“Donne’s Language: The Conditions of Communication”

14 October 2004
Davide Panagia (Centre for the Study of Theory, Culture and Politics, Trent University)
“Typographical Biases, or The Noise of the Utterance”

2003-2004

15 April 2004
Elizabeth Sauer (English, Brock University)
“Tried by Print: Strafford and Laud in England’s ‘Sad Theater'”

17 March 2004
Olga Zorzi Pugliese (Italian, University of Toronto)
Castiglione’s ‘Il libro del Cortegiano’: A Classic in the Making”

5 February 2004
Joan Gibson (School of Arts & Letters, York University)
“Doña Latina: Latinate Women in Early Modern Iberia”

21 January 2004
Benoît Bolduc (French, University of Toronto)
“La pastorale ou le plaisir du jeu”

27 November 2003
Elizabeth Harvey (English, University of Toronto)
“John Donne’s Elements”

6 November 2003
Simon Ditchfield (History, University of York, UK)
“Time here becomes space”: Reading Rome as a sacred landscape ca. 1575-1635

5 November 2003
Lawrin Armstrong (Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto)
“Life and Debt in Renaissance Florence”

16 October 2003
Jacqueline Murray (History, University of Guelph)
“Misogyny, Masculinity and Mutilation”

2002-2003

3 April 2003
Gabrielle Langdon (Art, University of Western Ontario)
“Damnatio Memoriae: Literary and Art Historical Traces of Isabella de’ Medici Orsini (1542-1576)”

27 March 2003
Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (Directrice d’études, École des hautes études en sciences socialesm Paris)
“Non-material Transferral in the Renaissance: Talents, Names, Kinship”

26 March 2003
Jean Céard (French, Université Paris X-Nanterre)
“L’émergence de la notion de culture a la Renaissance”

20 March 2003
Helen Ostovich (English, McMaster University)
“Mathematics and Games-Playing in Jonson’s Comedies”

27 February 2003
Marie-Christine Pioffet (French, York University)
“Marc Lescarbot et la littérature géographique de la Renaissance”

28 January 2003
Thomas Cohen (History, York University)
“‘You have cut off the nose of casa Savelli’: Wife-murder as elegant choreography”

21 November 2002
Mary Nyquist (English, University of Toronto)
“The Tyrant’s Stroke: Symbolic Violence in Early Modern Republicanism”

1 November 2002
Manuela Scarci (Italian, University of Toronto)
“Bandello’s Women”