The 2004 Graduate Student Conference

Friday and Saturday, June 11 - 12, 2004

This conference is made possible through the funding of the members of the Consortium Universities of the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies; and is organized by Marshall Billings, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Cherrie Gottsleben, University of Illinois at Chicago; Frances Mitilineos, Loyola University Chicago; and Paul Patterson, University of Notre Dame.

Organized and run by graduate students, the conference is interdisciplinary in scope; papers are invited in any area of medieval or Renaissance studies. It provides participants the opportunity to present their work in a collegial scholarly forum, to meet students from other institutions and disciplines who will be their future colleagues, and to become familiar with the Newberry Library and its resources.

Program

Friday, June 11

Session I
9:00 am - 10:00 am | Voices from the Courtroom: Interpreting the Early Modern Witchcraft Trial
Chair: Frances Mitilineos, Loyola University Chicago

• "I truly believe that she was bewitched": Determining the Nature of the Supernatural in the Witchcraft Trials of Early Modern Venice
  Jonathan Seitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  
  
• Gender and the Law in English Witchcraft Trials
  Joann M. Ross, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  
  

10:00 am | Break for coffee

Session II
10:30 am - 12:30 pm | Rhetoric, Patronage, and Portraiture: Re-interpreting the Ideal
Chair: Cherrie Gottsleben, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Untitled Beauty: The Idea behind Titian's "La Bella" (1536)
  Michelle Rosshandler, McGill University
  
  
• Repositories of Rhetoric: Re-interpreting the Byzantine 'Vita' Icons
  Paroma Chatterjee, University of Chicago
  
  
• Anne de Montmorency as 'Seigneur' and 'Mécene': the Rhetoric of Patronage at Ecouen
  Nicole S. Bensoussan, Yale University
  
  
• 16th Century Venetian Courtesan Paintings as an Artistic Paradiastole
  Alexandra Jackson, University of Aberdeen
  
  

12:30 pm | Lunch break

Session III
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm | Old Stories in New Worlds: Narratives of Empire and Resistance
Chair: Marshall Billings, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Colonial Appropriations: New World History and Renaissance Humanism
  Amber E Brian, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  
  
• Performing Power in the Contact Zone: Gaspar Perez de Villagra's Historia de Nueva Mexico
  Maria O'Malley, University of Colorado-Boulder
  
  
• Desire, Conquest & Christianity in 'The Island Princess'
  Silver Damsen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

3:30 pm | Reception

Saturday, June 12

Session IV
9:00 am - 10:30 am | Ideas in Print: Advice, Mysticism, and Politics in Early Modern Books
Chair: Paul Patterson, University of Notre Dame

• German Mysticism in 17th Century Holland: Translation, Dissemination, and Reception by Van Beyerland
  Maaike van der Heijden, Illinois State University
  
  
• 'the fittest closet for all goodnesse': Out of the Dark and Into the Light: An Investigation of Mother's Advice Literature in the Early Modern Period
  Nicholas N. Behm, Marquette University
  
  
• Political Courtesies: Caxton's Conduct Books during the Reign of Richard III
  Kathleen Tonry, University of Notre Dame

10:30 am | Break for coffee

Session V
11:00 am | Homeland Insecurity: Inter-national Exchanges in Early Modern Drama
Chair: Jeremy Kiene, University of Notre Dame

• The Influence of Italy's Literary Tradition on Shakespeare's Work
  Heidi Spear, Washington University - St. Louis
  
  
• From Page to Stage: Literary Tropes and Reader Response Theory in Calderón de la Marca's 'La cisma de Inglaterra' (The Schism of England)
  Kerry Wilks, University of Chicago

Funds are available for Center for Renaissance Studies Consortium graduate students to defray the costs of travel and lodging while participating in the conference. If you have questions, please call the Center at 312.255.3514, or send an e-mail to renaissance@newberry.org.