(Very) Old is New at Medieval and Renaissance Conference in Sarasota
More than 150 U.S. and European scholars of medieval and Renaissance Europe will converge on Sarasota this month to share their latest research, sometimes with a dash of humor. Some of the topics at the 17th New College Conference on Medieval & Renaissance Studies include “Leering in Lear,” “Dressing for the Block: The Significance of Clothing Worn at Royal and Noble Executions in 16th-Century England,” and “The Naked, the Nude and the Downright Unfeminine: Figures of Eve in Renaissance Italy.”
The March 11-13 conference will primarily attract college faculty and students, but also is open to anyone with a keen interest in European and Mediterranean history, literature, art, and religion from the 5th through 17th centuries.
“We have been interested in trying to get more people from the Sarasota community to come because there are … people whose interest in this didn’t end when they graduated from college,” said New College of Florida literature professor Nova Myhill.
New College has held the conference every other year for more than 30 years. Myhill and New College history professor Carrie Beneš organized this year’s program after reviewing a wide range of proposals on the latest research topics spanning 13 centuries of history and culture.
Duke University art history professor Caroline Bruzelius, who lists among her interests “death and burial in the Middle Ages,” will discuss “The Battle for Bodies: Preaching, Burying and Building in the Medieval Italian City” as one of two keynote speakers.
The other keynote speaker, Claremont (Calif.) Graduate University English and history professor Lori Anne Ferrell, will discuss Shakespeare’s King Lear, Protestant theology, and the social history of suicide and death in early modern England.
Other topics during the three-day conference include “Protestants, Demons, and the Virgin: An Exorcist’s Defense of Marian Images,” “Marital Relationships and Household Dynamics in Renaissance Florence,” “Beowulf and Thor: Additional Analogues,” and “Jews as the Other ‘Race’ in 5th-Century Northern Italy.”
To view the complete conference program or to register, go to http://faculty.ncf.edu/medievalstudies/
For more information, contact the Office of Public Affairs at (941) 487-4153 or email [email protected].