Held at the University of Warwick, Coventry, England. The theme for this year’s series of workshops is “Belief and Unbelief in the Early Modern Period.”

This workshop opened the debate on the relation of belief to the unknown, the unexpected, or the exotic, and explored the differences and similarities between Christian versus non-Christian outlooks. Papers and discussions therefore touched on “utopias and belief,” “belief and the New World,” and on clashes, convergences, and crossovers between various belief systems.

Welcome and Introduction

Ingrid De Smet, Director, Centre for the Study of the Renaissance

Session 1. Old vs. New, or Constructing the Pagan

Christianity and Philosophy in the Renaissance: The Sixteenth-Century Turn
David Lines, University of Warwick

Aztec and Roman Gods: Evangelists, Ethnographers and Polytheism in Early Colonial Mexico
Andrew Laird, University of Warwick

Session 2. Alterity and Identity: Constructing Belief, Constructing the Believer

Christians and Jews in Contention over the Virgin Mary
Miri Rubin, Queen Mary, University of London

Christianity and Christians through Arab-Muslim Eyes, 1578-1727
Nabil Matar, University of Minnesota

Jew and Muslim in Marlowe’s Plays
Jonathan Bate, University of Warwick

Plenary Discussion

This is one of a series of collaborative programs between the University of Warwick Centre for the Study of the Renaissance and the Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies, funded by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

See the University of Warwick’s web page about this series of programs. Learn more about the Center for Renaissance Studies’ Warwick-Newberry Collaborative Programs.