Luther in Italy
Rome
23–25 February, 2017

Conference Website

The printing industry developed in mutual exchange with the Reformation. Luther’s ideas and actions deeply affected the book world. Theologians boosted the market with polemical works against or in favour of the former monk from Eisleben. This overwhelming book production inspired a call for an unprecedented, strict control over the printing press. To mark the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the year in which, according to tradition, Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Palace Church in Wittenberg, a conference in Rome will address the topic of the impact of the Reformation on the Italian book market.

Papers are invited on any aspects of the relationship between the Reformation and the book in Italy. They may include, but are not limited to:

• The rise of censorship in Counter-Reformation Italy
• The adjustments of the book trade
• Printing mobility as a contingency strategy
• Dissidence and nicodemism in print and visual arts
• The loss of works of banned authors
• Contemporary perceptions of Luther and his representation as a historical figure
• The development of modern propaganda
• The phenomenon of damnatio memoriae

Those interested in giving a paper should offer a title and a brief synopsis (300–500 words) of their proposed contribution. Proposals should be sent to Flavia Bruni at the address fb323@st-andrews.ac.uk by 31 May, 2016. To promote a genuinely international exchange between participants, proposals and papers must be in English. Italian and German abstracts will be provided at the conference. Travel costs will be reimbursed.

Organising Committee:
Andreea Badea, Deutsches Historisches Institut Rome; Flavia Bruni, Sapienza University of Rome – University of St Andrews; Margherita Palumbo, formerly Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome

Organised with the Biblioteca Casanatense, Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo.

Shakespeare and Fear
2017 Conference of the French Shakespeare Society
Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe, Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris
12–14 January, 2017

Conference Website

In an era fraught with economic violence, environmental anxiety, forced migrations, war and terrorism, it seems particularly relevant to examine the ways in which the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage made use of fear and to consider how these fears continue to reverberate in the present. Such connections are clearly envisaged by Robert Appelbaum, who applies the word “terrorism” to the violence that shook Early Modern Europe, including the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and countless plots and popular uprisings. The re-appropriation of Shakespeare’s plays in the context of the crises we are experiencing is a case in point. How has Shakespeare been used to fend off fear, or deconstruct the workings of terror, dictatorship or armed intimidation — from Ernst Lubitsch’s To be or not to be to Shakespeare productions recently performed in Syria?

Fear is present in one form or another in almost all of the dramatic works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. From the ridiculous apprehension of being made a cuckold to the dread felt by Macbeth when confronted to Banquo’s ghost, from the mechanicals’ worry that the “lion” might frighten the ladies to the terror on which Richard III’s tyranny relies, all degrees of fear are to be found in Shakespeare, as well as in Marlowe, Middleton or Webster. Be it in tragedies attempting to instil sacred terror or in comedies making fun of the staging of terrifying events, in historical plays critiquing the Machiavellian uses of political terror or in the new-fangled Jacobean taste for spectacular stage shows, fear is pervasive on the Shakespearean stage, reflecting individual emotions such as “the dread of something after death” mentioned by Hamlet, as much as the ever-present social apprehension of the plague or foreign invasions. Shakespeare, for one, distinguishes fear (which occurs over 800 occurrences in the canon) from dread (50 occurrences) or fright, which is often to be found in ironic contexts, with an underlying suggestion that the events in question are not really worth the fretting they cause.

The notion of fear in connection with Shakespeare goes well beyond the modalities specific to the Early Modern English stage: the fact that the Bard’s works have been canonised and become compulsory reading at school and university has generated a fear of Shakespeare, while the arrival of his plays on the continental stages in the 18th century spawned trepidation among audiences and authors alike: there is certainly a form of fear in Voltaire’s loathing of, as much as in the Romantic playwrights’ desire to emulate, the master. This lasting dread is epitomized today under the alliterative heading of “no fear Shakespeare” and in the various attempts to domesticate the intricacies of Elizabethan writing with the help of reading companions, modernized editions, etc. The fear of Shakespeare can also become a fear for Shakespeare, in view of the endless probes and conspiracy plots around his identity that has arisen since the end of the 19th century.

We look forward to bringing together historians, literary scholars and theatre practitioners, as well as specialists in drama, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, sociology and anthropology to offer contributions on topics including (but not limited to):

• Theories of/about fear in Early Modern England
• The different degrees of fear in Early Modern England
• Symptoms of fear on the Early Modern stage (body language, vocal language, masks, costumes, makeup, etc.) / a phenomenology of fear
• What and who is feared on the Shakespearean stage? (terrifying portents, threats, exemplary sentences, horrible and horrifying shows, mutilations and murders, ghosts, supernatural interventions, etc)
• How and why is fear elicited in audience members? (staging tricks, noises, smoke, visions, etc.)
• The fear of Shakespeare / “No fear Shakespeare”
• Fear for Shakespeare
• Updating Shakespeare in the context of war, terror or terrorism
• Invoking Shakespeare to allay fear

Please send an abstract (maximum 500 words) and a short biography (maximum 200 words) by 25 May, 2016 to contact@societefrancaiseshakespeare.org.