Activities & Events

Members of this research group are currently involved with major international research projects focusing on Gender and the European Town, and ‘Making Publics: media, markets & association in early modern Europe’ at the University of McGill, and, through membership of its executive committee, the work of the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions and its journal, Parliaments, Estates and Representation. We are developing bilateral research links with the University of Lleida, Spain. A recent article by Andrea Knox on ‘The Convent as Cultural Conduit: Irish Matronage in early modern Spain’ has been awarded the Delno C. West Senior Scholar Prize.

A number of major book projects are currently underway, including early modern Irish women migrants in Spain and Portugal, gossip and oral communication in early modern Italian urban society, changing philosophies and practices of sleep in Britain between 1660 and 1800, Conceived as Immaculate: The Vita Christi of Isabel de Villena, and the Cancionero de Herberay and the literary court of Juan II of Navarre.

From Speech to Text

The Medieval and early Modern research group at Northumbria University is holding a one-day conference on the theme of ‘From speech to text 1400-1700’ on Saturday 20th February from 10 am. The speakers include Professor Dorothea Nolde (University of Bremen), Emeritus Professor Nicholas Round (University of Sheffield), Dr Carlos Conde Solares and Dr Alexander Cowan (University of Northumbria). The conference will take place in the CPD room, on the ground floor of the University’s Squires Building. Full details will be available from Alex Cowan and Lesley Twomey (a.cowan@northumbria.ac.uk and lesley.twomey@northumbria.ac.uk).

Lunch and refreshments will be provided. There will be a fee of £20 for participants from outside the University of Northumbria. To book, please contact Gilly Gosling at g.gosling@northumbria.ac.uk.

’Gossip, gospel, and governance: Orality in Europe 1400-1700' conference

The group is planning a major interdisiciplinary conference on ’Gossip, gospel, and governance: Orality in Europe 1400-1700', to be held in London on 14-16 July 2011. Calls for papers are currently in circulation. Individual themes to be discussed include:

Street life (orality in any European urban context 1400-1700)
Reading aloud (using the lectern for dissemination of written text in convents and monasteries, public proclamation of misdemeanour and laws, 1400-1700)
Teaching and learning in University schools 1400-1700
Declamation and discourse in Parliament Incantation and magic
Performance (theatre, court poetry, poetry competitions)
Preaching (history of the preaching orders, biographies of preachers
Parley and discourse of war
Women’s speech

To download the full cfp, please click on the related link above.

Proposals should be sent to either a.cowan@northumbria.ac.uk or lesley.twomey@northumbria.ac.uk no later than 4 January 2010. A preliminary one-day conference on orality to prepare for the London conference will be held at Northumbria University on Saturday 20 February 2010.

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