Recent research, forthcoming events, blog posts, videos, podcasts & tidbits.

For the last three months or so, I have been rebuilding the Discourses of Suffering website from the bottom up. The aim is to put together primary and secondary open-access resources relating to the early modern period, with a particular (but not exclusive) focus on the religious controversies of post-Reformation England.

So far, I've mostly been working on structuring the site in such a way that the content (at present fairly rudimentary) can grow exponentially while at the same time remaining easily accessible. There are still one or two features I want to add, but it's a start!

Followers of the Discourses of Suffering blog will have noticed that it is now on another platform. The content should all be intact, but please let me know if there are any broken links or other problems.

Until recently, with few exceptions (Marvell's "The Picture of Little T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers" would be one), early modern children rarely came under my radar. Nicholas Orme's Tudor Children (2023) helped to put them on the map and now, looking around, they seem to have captured the limelight, featuring in blog posts, videos, exhibitions and an upcoming conference...

The Letters of a Dutiful Son Blog post/Interview

Alice Sage interviews Adriana Benzaquén about "the practical aspects of researching young lives in the seventeenth century".

Playtime in Tudor England: Toys, Games, and Childhood Video/Blog post

Julia Martins talks about the games children played, the puritans who tried to stop them, and the cruelty and violence that often went hand-in-hand with them.

Moving targets: Finding Young People in the Early Modern World Video

In this National Library of Australia video, Nicholas Terpstra "discusses where we can find youths in the histories of the early modern world and how they might reshape our understanding of the early modern period".

Orphans, Petitions and the British Civil Wars Blog post/interview

Brodie Waddell talks to Imogen Peck about her chapter in Waddell and Peacey, eds., The Power of Petitioning in Early Modern Britain, an open-access UCL publication (May, 2024).

Winged. Putti in Renaissance Art Exhibition

An exhibition of Renaissance "angel children" in Kraków.

Children, Dependency, and Emotions in the Early Modern World, 1500-1800 Forthcoming conference

The conference, which will take place in Bonn on September 12-14, 2024, "aims to foreground children’s representations, articulations, and their experiences in archival and visual narratives as modes of overcoming their assumed absences in the historical record".

Interest in early modern medicine continues to grow apace, as evidenced by two publications earlier in the year - Olivia Weisser, ed., Early Modern Medicine: An Introduction to Source Analysis (March 2024), and Mark C. Chambers, Performing Disability in Medieval and Early Modern Britain (April 2024)... 

Modern surgery began with saws and iron hands... Feature article

"...how amputation transformed the body in the Renaissance." Heidi Hausse focuses particularly on the development of the mechanical iron hand.

Monstrosity, Bodies, and Knowledge in Early Modern England Monograph (June, 2024)

This publication by Whitney Dirks, following as it does on the heels of Mark Chambers's monograph (see above), highlights the current interest in early modern perceptions of medical "curiosities". While Chambers discusses the broader concept of how disability was performed and understood in society, Dirks's subtitle - "Curiosity to See and Behold" - indicates an emphasis on the spectacle and commodification of unusual bodies.

Green Sickness: A Historical Look at the "Disease of Virgins" Blog post/Video

Julia Martins takes us, via (among others) a letter by a Silesian doctor to a worried father, Falstaff's mockery of effeminate boys in Henry IV, Part 2, and a popular ballad, on a guided tour of "green sickness", illustrating the way in which "medicine can and has been used to legitimise cultural norms and strict gender roles".

As I wrote in a recent blog post, not a single woman writer of the early modern period received a mention during my student years at Cambridge in the early 1970s. Thankfully, that has changed, as this selection of recent publications, blog posts, exhibitions, etc., evinces...

Negotiating Feminism and Faith in the Lives and Works of Late Medieval and Early Modern Women Edited volume

Essays on "how late medieval and early modern Western women critically and creatively negotiated their faith and feminism, taking into account intersecting factors such as class, culture, confessional stance, institutional affiliation, ethnicity, dis/ability, geography, and historical circumstance". Edited by Holly Faith Nelson and Adrea Johnson (June 6, 2024).

Cursed Blessings: Sex and Religious Radical Dissent in Early Modern Europe Edited volume

An exploration of "the relationship between sexual nonconformity and religious radical dissent in the early modern Western European world...devoted to understanding the meaning of unconventional sexual behaviors from the perspective of the dissenters. Edited by Umberto Grassi (June 21, 2024)

The Whole Duty of Man Laid down in a Plain and Familiar Way (1712) with Private Devotions for Several Occasions, Ordinary and Extraordinary [1712] Blog post

These two works, bound together, bear the ownership signatures of two early 18th-century fwomen. Martine van Elk explores the insights offered into how women engaged with religious texts during this period.

Reading the Female Body in the Early Modern Low Countries PhD Position

A University of Groningen research project addressing the issues of how women's bodies were "viewed, defined and represented" and how "representations of sex and gender [were] changed and shaped by the specific historical conditions and developments in the Low Countries between 1500-1800". September 30 deadline.

Controversy, control and cosmetics in early modern Italy Feature article

Claire Litt on makeup as "a domestic contender to the public realm of artistic and alchemical virtuosity displayed by male practitioners".

Early Modern Women and their Books Exhibition

Free exhibition at Lambeth Palace Library. Closes November 21. 2024.

Women and Power in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Southeast and Central Europe Forthcoming publication

The exercise and negotiation of power by women in late medieval and early modern times.

Aphra Behn was not even a name during my student years at Cambridge in the early 1970s. I only became acquainted with her work much later. I thoroughly enjoyed introducing her work to my students, and she is the topic of my latest YouTube video. And, it seems, this is the year she "finally gets her due", as Elizabeth Djinnis puts it...

Aphra Behn, the First Englishwoman to Earn a Living With Her Writing Feature article

Djinis writes about the year-long celebration of Aphra Behn's life and works organised by Canterbury Christ Church University and Loughborough University, which kicked off in September.

This month's highlight was the first performance of Behn's play The Amorous Prince, or, The Curious Husband since 1671, performed by the Canterbury Players on July 2-4.

Canterbury’s Aphra Behn (1640-1689): Literature’s best-kept secret Exhibition

The exhibition, which runs until August 18, 2024, includes Loans from The National Archives, The National Portrait Gallery, The National Trust, The Amelia Tunbridge Wells, Kent Libraries, Registration & Archives and the Dean and Chapter, Canterbury Cathedral. It also promises "Family friendly activities inspired by Aphra Behn’s work as a playwright and spy!" What's not to like?

Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic Monograph

Tabitha Stanmore on the "practitioners of 'service magic'".

Magic, Science, and Religion in Early Modern Europe Review article

Frank Klaassen reviews Mark A. Waddell's 2021 monograph.

I must eat my creame Book review

Clare Bucknell reviews Peter K. Andersson's Fool: In Search of Henry VIII's Closest Man.

"If we offend, it is with our good will" Article

David Livingstone on "matapropisms, mispronunciation and garbling of language in Shakespeare's plays".

Historicizing the Embodied Imagination in Early Modern English Literature Edited volume

Mark Kaethler and Grant Williams have assembled a collection of essays that attempt to get behind the "romantic and modernist inflections that impede our understanding of...the pre-Cartesian imagination".

The Puritan Literary Tradition Edited volume

A collection of essays, edited by Johanna Harris and Alison Searle.

Early Modern Christianity: Religion and Rebellion Conference, CFP

14th annual REFORC conference, Vienna, May 22-24, 2025.

Catholicism in transit Zoom workshop, CFP

"Exploring Mobility and Exchange in the Early Modern World", September 20, 2024, convened by Mattia Corso and Giulia Zanon. Deadline for proposals: July 31.

Religious Turmoil in Medieval and Early Modern England Video

An introduction for students.

Shakespeare on the Ecological Surface Book review

Todd Borlik reviews Liz Oakley-Brown's recent addition to the Routledge Spotlight on Shakespeare series.

Nature and Environment in Early Modern Worlds Postgraduate Conference

Keynote speaker: Peter Mancall. June 24, 2024, at the University of Birmingham. Registration free.

London maps in books Blog post

Maps of London from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

Shakespeare, Ecology and Adaptation Forthcoming publication

This work, by Paul Prescott and Alys Daroy, won't hit the shelves until January 2025, but now at least you know about it!

Publishers, Censors and Collectors in the European Book Trade, 1650–1750, edited by Ann-Marie Hansen and Arthur der Weduwen, came out in May, 2024, adding to our understanding of the early modern book, and there are a couple of upcoming conferences on the topic...

Newspapers and Periodicals Conference

June 19-21, 2025, at the University of St. Andrews. Deadline for proposals: December 15, 2024.

Footprints of the Early Modern Book Trade Conference

November 25-27, 2024, at the National Library of Riga, Latvia. Deadline for proposals, July 1, 2024.

OK, that last one isn't actually early modern, but it brought a wry smile to my lips, so it gets a bit of wiggle room.

If there's something you'd like to see included in next month's roundup of early modern news, let me know, and I'll include it if I can!