Sponsored by the University of Minnesota, Purdue University, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the Newberry Library Renaissance Epic Seminar is organized by Charles Ross, Purdue University; Jane Tylus, University of Wisconsin–Madison; and John Watkins, University of Minnesota. The Seminar was founded in 1998. Past presenters and topics have included:
"The Importance of the Franco-Italian Romance Epic"
Leslie Zarker Morgan
Loyola College in Maryland
Saturday, March 22, 2008 ~ 1:30 pm
"Drinking from Your Father's Skull: The Medieval Prehistory of Renaissance Dynastic Marriage"
John Watkins
University of Minnesota
Saturday, October 20, 2007 ~ 11:00 am
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
"'Perhaps': Narrator and Narratee in Paradise Lost"
William Flesch
Brandeis University
Saturday, September 30, 2006 ~ 1:00 pm
"Did Shakespeare Write Epic?"
Patrick Cheney
Pennsylvania State University
October 29, 2005
"Thought and Thinking in 'The Faerie Queene'"
Gordon Teskey
Harvard University
September 18, 2004
"Of Women and War: Moderata Fonte's 'Thirteen Cantos of Floridoro' and the Seduction of Chivalric Romances"
Valeria Finucci
Duke University
April 16, 2005
"The 1590 'Faerie Queene' in the History of Sexuality"
Jonathan Goldberg
Johns Hopkins University
April 17, 2004
"An Aethiopian Sodomite in Paris: Love and License in the Orlando furioso"
Heather James
University of Southern California
September 20, 2003
“The Specter of Romance in Sixteenth-Century Epic Theory”
Daniel Javitch
New York University
April 12, 2003
“Romance Images of the Indian Ocean before the Portuguese Discovery: ‘Huon of Bordeaux’ and Others”
Michael Murrin
University of Chicago
April 6, 2002
“Ovid and Spenser's Faerie Queene”
Paul Alpers
University of California - Berkeley
October 20, 2001
“Classical Epic and Early Modern Political Thought in Shakespeare's First Tetralogy”
Mihoko Suzuki
University of Miami
April 6, 2001
“Spenser, Consideration, and the Law of Fraudulent Conveyance in 'The Faerie Queen' and the 'View of Ireland'”
Charles Ross
Purdue University
October 28, 2000
“Fear of Falling: A Lucretian Epic Motif from Virgil to Tasso and Milton”
David Quint
Yale University
April 29, 2000
“Disposition”
Elizabeth Fowler
Yale University
October 23, 1999
“The Romance of Empire: A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
Patricia Parker
Stanford University
April 24, 1999
“Gates of Horn, Gates of Ivory”
Allen Mandelbaum
Wake Forest University and Turin University
October 24, 1998
“Revisiting Cissie and Flossie-And Other Choice Bits of Gynephobia in Spenser’s Faerie Queene”
Harry Berger
University of California, Santa Cruz
April 18, 1998