Moments of Becoming: Transitions and Transformations in Early Modern Europe
University of Limerick, Ireland, 20-21 November 2015.
The aim of this interdisciplinary conference is to explore the theme of ‘becoming’ in early modern European and Irish culture. The early modern period itself is often understood as a time of transition, but how did the people of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries experience periods of transformation/transition in their own lives and work, and how were these processes accomplished and accommodated? Conference papers will explore changes to personal, professional, religious or political identity and identifications, as well as understandings of transformations of state, status and nature more broadly.
Plenary Speakers: Professor Daniel Carey (NUI Galway), Professor Raymond Gillespie (Maynooth University), Professor Alison Rowlands (University of Essex).
We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on themes that might include:
Transition in religion and politics
- Religious conversion
- Alterations to political sympathies
- Migration and naturalisation
- Becoming a soldier, priest, rebel, martyr, hero or villain
Personal transformations
- Acquiring competencies, skills or professional training
- Social mobility, upwards or downwards
- Becoming a parent
- Rites of passage
Transition and the supernatural
- Death and movement to the next world
- Magical and miraculous transformations
Textual and performative transformations
- Responses to societal transitions in poetry and prose
- Transforming texts via translation, printing or performance
- The use of space and material culture in ceremonial/ritual contexts
Please submit an abstract of about 250 words to Richard Kirwan ([email protected]) or Clodagh Tait ([email protected]) before 10th July 2015.
This conference will occur under the auspices of the Limerick Early Modern Forum of the University of Limerick and Mary Immaculate College. The conference is funded by the Irish Research Council New Foundations Scheme. The organisers plan to publish a volume of essays drawn from the conference papers.
For further information see https://emslimerick.wordpress.com