2014 Centre for the Study of the Renaissance Director's Report
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Director’s Report for the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance April 2014 . The Beauchamp Chapel, St Mary's Church, Warwick Photo by kind permission of Roger Rosewell © TABLE OF CONTENTS TEACHING and POSTGRADUATE TRAINING ACTIVITIES Centre-based postgraduate teaching.............................................................................................................. 1 SKILLS SESSIONS OPEN TO STUDENTS BASED ELSEWHERE IN THE FACULTY Palaeography ..................................................................................................................................................... 2 National and international training................................................................................................................ 2 Warwick-Newberry Programme .................................................................................................................... 2 Warwick-Monash Consortium ....................................................................................................................... 2 CURRENT PROJECT-RELATED RESEARCH The Correspondence of Isaac Casaubon. .................................................................................................... 3 Forms of Conversion: Religion, Culture, and Cognitive Ecologies in Early Modern Europe and its World. .......................................................................................................................................................... 4 Neo-Latin Poetry in Renaissance France...................................................................................................... 4 Renaissance Conflict and Rivalries: Cultural Polemics in Europe, C. 1300–C. 1650. .......................... 5 OUP Complete Works of James Shirley. ................................................................................................... 7 COMPLETED RESEARCH PROJECTS Vernacular Aristotelianism in the Italian Renaissance, c. 1400–1650. ................................................... 8 The Warwick-Newberry Collaborative Programme. ................................................................................. 9 The John Nichols Project. ............................................................................................................................. 11 OTHER CSR NEWS STVDIO seminar programme ....................................................................................................................... 12 CSR-Supported Conferences and Workshops ............................................................................................ 13 DVD Library and Cinéforum......................................................................................................................... 14 Newberry Conference Student Report: Rocco Di Dio.............................................................................. 14 Newberry Workshop Student Report: Rebecca Pilliere............................................................................. 16 FISIER .............................................................................................................................................................. 17 RSA .................................................................................................................................................................... 18 CSR staff changes ............................................................................................................................................ 18 INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH...................................................................................................................... 19 1 TEACHING AND POSTGRADUATE TRAINING ACTIVITIES CENTRE-BASED POSTGRADUATE TEACHING Our warmest thanks to Dr DARIO TESSICINI (Italian, University of Durham) who is our new External Examiner. The period under review has seen the successful completion and graduation of two excellent MA Students – Sara Jennings and Alexander Winkler. We currently have seven research students: OVANES AKOPYAN, PESALA BANDARA, STEFANIA CROWTHER, ROCCO DI DIO, SARA MIGLIETTI, GREG WELLS and LEILA ZAMMAR (upgraded to PhD candidate in January 2014). Our current taught MA cohort includes three full-time students, IZABELA BLADZINSKA, SUSANNAH CROFT AND WILLUM WESTENHOLZ plus one Erasmus exchange student, FRANCESCA MASIERO. We wish all our students well for the final leg of their studies. The MA in Culture of the European Renaissance, which now includes one term in Venice, has been launched successfully. Feedback from staff and students alike has been very positive and we are pleased to report that recruitment has greatly improved. The Venice component truly makes this programme competitive and unique. The previous programme received a glowing report from our new external examiner, Dr DARIO TESSICINI (Italian, University of Durham), who commented on the excellent quality of the teaching and of our students. Warm thanks must go to the CSR Director of Graduate Studies, Dr PAUL BOTLEY (English) and to the Venice staff, Dr JONATHAN DAVIES (History), Dr ROSA SALZBERG (History) and Dr LORENZO PERICOLO (Art History), for all their hard work. The Centre currently has three postdocs: two Global IAS Fellows, Dr FEMKE MOLEKAMP (former AHRC fellow) and Dr JACOMIEN PRINS; and one Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, Dr ALEXANDER RUSSELL (from 1 May 2013). One candidate has passed to the second round of the Wellcome Trust Fellowship competition. Thanks to a generous philanthropic donation from the University the CSR has been able to sponsor and support various international workshops and conferences, the setting up of a new DVD Library and a Renaissance Cinéforum (see pages 13-14). Suggestions from the Board as to how we might further consolidate our PGT/PGR operations would be most welcome. 1 SKILLS SESSIONS OPEN TO OTHER STUDENTS IN THE FACULTY PALAEOGRAPHY As in previous years our PG skills courses have been open to all Warwick students with relevant interests. We are very grateful to Dr FEMKE MOLEKAMP (CSR/IAS Global Research Fellow) for teaching the English palaeography sessions, and to Dr ANNA PEGORETTI (Italian/AHRC Postdoctoral Fellow) for teaching the Italian palaeography module. Latin for Research in the Humanities was taught this year by GIACOMO COMIATI (Italian) and received glowing feedback from students. Further information at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/postgradstudy/manuscripttoprint/ NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL TRAINING WARWICK–WARBURG PROGRAMME Co-directed this year by Dr JONATHAN DAVIES (History) and Professor PETER MACK (Warburg Institute), and open to doctoral students from universities across the UK and overseas, this postgraduate training programme, on ‘Resources and Techniques for the Study of Renaissance and Early Modern Culture’ has been running successfully for twelve years. The next session will be taught at the Warburg Institute from 12 to 15 May 2014. Full details can be found on the website: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/postgradstudy/warburgwarwick/ WARWICK-NEWBERRY PROGRAMME As in previous years, it is worth noting that the CSR’s collaborative programme with the Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies, continues to include significant elements of professionalising skills training for advanced doctoral students and early career researchers. Above all, as a by-product, we have seen heightened awareness among doctoral students in the faculty of our links with the Newberry Library and of the opportunities to make short research visits to the Newberry, with the support of our Newberry Travel Fund. A direct outcome of this programme has been the applications to the Wellcome Trust, Fulbright, and Newton (pending) and the organisation at the Renaissance Society of America of several CSR-sponsored sessions by former Fellows (for further details, see below pp. 18). WARWICK-MONASH CONSORTIUM As part of the new agreement between Monash University and Warwick, the CSR is actively involved in events organised in the Monash University Prato Centre, Italy. One of them was a postgraduate conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies. On the 10th of December 2013, postgraduate students from across the Prato Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies converged on the Monash University Prato Centre, in the Palazzo Vaj, in order to present on aspects of their research. Two of our PhD candidates took part: LEILA ZAMMAR, who offered a paper on how the staging of operas in Early Modern Rome assisted in the transmission to the populace of the theological and moral agenda of a ‘counter-reformation’ Catholic Church; and ROCCO DI DIO, who presented on the anthological and philological concerns of the great Renaissance humanist and translator of Plato, Marsilio Ficino. Further information at http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/medieval-renaissance-centre/postgraduate-workshop- report-from-prato/ 2 CURRENT PROJECT RELATED RESEARCH THE CORRESPONDENCE OF ISAAC CASAUBON (Leverhulme) PI: Dr Paul Botley In December 2013, Dr PAUL BOTLEY was awarded a project grant of £184,000 by the Leverhulme Trust to prepare a critical edition of a portion of the letters of Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614). This project will publish Casaubon’s correspondence during his last years in England, from his arrival in 1610 until his death in 1614. When Casaubon landed in Dover in 1610, he was at the height of his powers and his international fame; by the time of his death he was widely regarded as the most learned man in Europe. However, the