The Renaissance Society of America Meeting in 2019, which will take place in Toronto, 17-19 March, is launching new seminar sessions.  Seminars will be a discussion of 3-6 pre-circulated papers (approx. 4000 words) dealing with the period 1300-1700 from any discipline.  Seminars are open to attendees although the assumption is that everyone will read the papers in advance. 

Please see below for the seminar description that Janine Peterson (History) and Patricia Ferrer-Medina (Spanish) are convening on “Sex, Gender, and Race in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Worlds: A Comparative View”. For further information, please contact  Janine.Peterson@marist.edu

This seminar will explore how Europeans constructed the identities of non-European and non-Christian peoples in the early modern Atlantic and Mediterranean worlds.  We invite papers that examine how Europeans racialized, sexualized, or in any way “othered” Jews and Muslims in Southern Europe, the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and the peoples of North/West Africa that they encountered in Africa in addition to those encountered as slaves when traveling to the Caribbean and Central America.  Renaissance and early modern European views of different peoples was closely connected to, and constructed by, prevailing ideas about gender and sexuality as well as notions of civilization and nature.  This panel aims to explore these conceptions comparatively by fusing European Renaissance studies to date with new Atlantic world and transatlantic scholarship.  We welcome papers that bridge the geographical and disciplinary divisions inherent in much of the literature to date of the period from 1300-1700.

Any RSA member may submit an abstract for consideration for a seminar through the standard submissions website (opening 1 July 2018). These abstracts will count as the one allotted paper submission per member for the annual conference cycle, and will be vetted by the seminar organizers. Any abstract not selected for a seminar will then be rolled over for consideration by the conference program committee, during its review of regular submissions.  The deadline for submission is 15 August.  You will be notified about acceptance by 31 August.  If not accepted, your submission will be sent to general submission pool with notification about possible inclusion on another panel in September.