Postgraduate Conferences

Keynote Speaker: Dr Rebecca Emmett (Plymouth)
Thursday 13 June
Digital Humanities Lab, Streatham Campus

The Centre for Early Modern Studies 2019 Postgraduate Sympsoium took place in June. This one-day symposium explored all aspects of ‘Points of Connection’ as experienced between 1500 and 1800. The full programme can be downloaded via this link (PDF) Points of Connection: Programme. Papers covered a wide range of research areas relating to the following themes:

• Connections and differences
• Social networks and belonging
• Intersectionality and interconnectedness
• Reading and textual communities
• Printing and materiality
• Physical boundaries and networks
• Encounters and exchanges
• Power balances and struggles
• Divergence and convergence
• Dominant, counter and alternative narratives

Organisers: Anna-Lujz Gilbert; Erica Askew-Jones, Tessa Crossley, Tom Vozar.

This event was generously supported by the University of Exeter Humanities PGR Activities Award and the Department of History.

Keynote Speakers: Professor Vanessa Harding (Birkbeck); Professor Philip Schwyzer (Exeter), 23 & 24 May

The third annual postgraduate conference was a two-day conference that explored all aspects of spaces, places and the interfaces between them as they were experienced and represented between 1500 and 1800. Speakers were drawn from postgraduate students across a range of humanities disciplines and incorporated a wide range of research areas. As usual the conference was a lively occasion with a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and we were blessed with excellent weather that showed allowed delegates to make the most of our beautiful campus.

Paper topics covered:

• Ideas of the local, national and international
• Belonging and alienation
• Travel and migration
• Places of remembrance and reflection
• Theatrical spaces
• Spaces within and around visual representation
• Places of work and industry
• Interfaces between different physical and cultural spaces
• The interface between earth and heaven
• Places of consultation

Conference Committee 2018: Erica Askew-Jones, Barbara Dunn, Anna-Lujz Gilbert, Sarah-Jayne Ainsworth.

The conference was generously supported by the British Shakespeare Association, the Society for Renaissance Studies, the University of Exeter Annual Fund, Exeter History Department, Exeter College of Humanities and Exeter Doctoral College.

Keynote Speakers: Dr Lucy Munro (KCL); Dr Amy Erickson (Cambridge), 15 & 16 June

The second annual postgraduate conference was a two-day conference that explored the varied aspects of life and death and their representations in art, literature, and culture between 1500 and 1800. Students from a variety of humanities disciplines gave papers during the event, which was a great success. You can read Josh Rhodes conference report here, or see a Storify of the event here. The conference twitter hashtag was #EMLifeDeath.

Paper topics included:

• Ideas of a good life in the early modern period
• The economic lives of early modern families
• Concepts of happiness, satisfaction, or enjoyment
• Advice on how to ensure a good life or death
• Class and society
• Celebrations and memorials (in society, art, music, and drama)
• Medical, scientific, and other advances which contributed to the quality of life
• Work and labour
• Valued relationships, beliefs, or objects
• Gendered virtue, sociability, or affection
• Stage representations of living, the life cycle, death, and dying

Conference Committee 2017: Sarah-Jayne Ainsworth, Harry McCarthy, Josh Rhodes.

Keynote speakers: Professor Steven Gunn (Oxford); Professor Tiffany Stern (Oxford)‌

The first CEMS Postgraduate conference in May 2016 brought together undergraduate, masters and Ph.D students from a number of different discplines, including but not limited to history, English, drama, history of art, music, law and languages. The conference took place in Reed Hall, a stunning Italianate mansion in the grounds of the university, with a conference dinner in the historic city centre.

The broad theme was ‘Fate, chance and happenstance in the early modern period’. Paper topics included:

• The role played by chance in historical events in the early modern period
• The role played by chance in the creation of early modern literature, drama and music
• The themes of fate and chance in early modern literature, drama and music
• Fate and chance relating to Shakespeare and/or his works
• Fate and chance in early modern performance
• Contemporary views on fate, chance and superstition
• Chance meetings and their consequences, both for individuals and on a wider level

Conference Committee 2016: Sarah-Jayne Ainsworth, Imogene Dudley, Michelle Webb.