Seminar Programmes for the Current Academic Year

Trinity Term 2025

Early Modern English Literature Seminar

Convenors: Lorna Hutson, Joe Moshenska, Bart Van Es

Dates: Tuesdays, weeks 1, 4, 5 & 7

Time: 5.15-7.00pm

Venue: Merton College, TS Eliot Lecture Theatre

Week 1, 29 April, 17.15.

Speaker: Prof Lukas Erne (Université de Genève)

‘Editing Shakespeare’s Lyric Poetry’

Week 4, 20 May, 17.15.

Speaker: Prof Ania Loomba (University of Pennsylvania)  

‘Racial Capitalism in Early Modern England’

Week 5, 27 May, 17.15.

Speaker: Prof Rachel Eisendrath (Barnard College)

‘ “That Follows Not”: The Non Sequitur in Hamlet’

Week 7, 10 June, 17.15.

Speaker: Prof Kirsten McFarlane (University of Chicago)

in conversation with Prof Adam Smyth and Prof Lloyd Pratt on Lay Learning and the Bible in the Seventeenth Century Atlantic World (Oxford, 2025)

All welcome; refreshments provided.

Time & Venue: Weeks 2, 4, 6, 5:30-7pm; Mansfield College, Seminar Room East

Convenors: Ros Ballaster, Christine Gerrard, Nicole Pohl, Tess Somervell, David Taylor, Carly Watson, Abigail Williams

Week 2: May 6, 5.30pm. 

‘Prolific Ground: Landscape and British Women’s Writing, 1690-1790’

Speaker: Nicolle Jordan (University of Southern Mississippi)

Week 4: May 20, 5.30pm.

‘Thomas Moore and Anacreon: a Reconsideration’

Speaker: Jane Moore (University of Cardiff)

Week 6: June 3, 5.30pm.

‘Phillis Wheatley’s Meditations in the Seasons’

Speaker: Tom Jones (University of St. Andrews)

Time: 16.15, Weeks 1, 3, 5, 7 (Tea and Coffee available from 16.00)

Venue: Lincoln College, Lower Lecture Room. 

Convenors: Perry Gauci (Lincoln), Elisabeth Grass (St Peter’s), Cameron Bowman (Keble), Estella Chen (Queen’s)

For those who cannot make it to Lincoln, these sessions will be available on Teams, and contact perry.gauci@lincoln.ox.ac.uk for the online links. All research students working in this period are encouraged to attend; anyone else interested is very welcome.

Week 1: 29th April, 16.15. 

Literary and Philosophical Societies as knowledge-making Communities in early nineteenth-century England

Speaker: Martha Vandrei, Exeter University

Week 3: 13th May, 16.15.

British espionage in 18th-century Italy: the case of Philipp von Stosch (1691-1757)

Speaker: Riccardo Neri, Mansfield College.

Week 5: 27th May, 16.15.

English Criminal Law and Practice, 12th–19th centuries

Speaker: Deborah Oxley, All Souls College

Week 7: 10th June, 16.15

Sensibility and Visual Culture in Scientific Illustrations of the Human Body, France and England, c.1770-1850

Speaker: Charlotte Dewarumez, Université Toulouse-II-Jean-Jaurès:

For information about the seminar, and news of forthcoming events, visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Oxford-seminar-in-mainly-British-History-... We would be happy to post notices of interest to our group – contact perry.gauci@lincoln.ox.ac.uk

* Termcard to be posted soon *

Time: 16.00, Weeks 2, 4, 6, 7, 8.

Venue: History Faculty, Gerry Martin Room (except Week 7)

Convenors: Louisa Bergold (Oriel), Aaron Larsen (St. Hilda’s), and Niklas Groschinski (Merton)

Week 2: May 6, 2025

“Was Serfdom Good for the Economy? Peasants, Lords, and Markets in Early Modern Bohemia”

Speaker: Sheilagh Ogilvie (All Souls College, University of Oxford)

Week 4: Wednesday, May 21, 2025.

“Flooding and drought in early modern central Europe - Health, Bodies, Emotion”

Speaker:  Anna Parker (Institute for Historical Research, University of London)

Week 6: June 3, 2025.

“Beyond a Lutheran Plague: Exploring Motivation and Intent in Early Modern Suicide by Proxy”

Speaker: Andreas Berger-Gehringer (Universität Bern)

Week 7: Monday, June 9, 2025.

"Court Factions and Crown Authority: Contesting the Status of Burgundy within the Holy Roman Empire at the Court of Emperor Friedrich III of Habsburg" (Co-convened with the Oxford Court Studies Seminar) 

Speaker: Richard Schlag (Jesus College, University of Oxford)

                Please note: This talk will be held at Jesus College, Memorial Room, at 4:30pm

Week 8: June 17, 2025. 

“Cows and Commons: An Environmental Approach to Witchcraft Belief in Switzerland”

Speakers: Aaron Larsen (St. Hilda’s College) with Noé Vonlanthen (Lincoln College)

Time & Venue: Weeks 1-2, 4-7; 2.15pm—4pm, All Souls College, Old Library (Except Week 6).

Convenor: Dr. Nuno Castel-Branco (All Souls)

Week 1: 30 April, 2.15pm–4pm, Old Library, All Souls College

'Galileo’s Letters: Seeing Presence, Absence, and Shadows in a Scientific Legacy'

Speaker: Professor Hannah Marcus, Harvard University

Week 2: 7 May, 2.15pm–4pm, Old Library, All Souls College

'Anatomical practice and the rise of post-mortems in the 16th- and early 17th-centuries'

Speaker: Professor Michael Stolberg, Universität Würzburg

Week 4: 21 May, 2.15pm–4pm, Old Library, All Souls College

'‘An astrologus praedicere possit futura contingentia? Nego’: Astrology in Student Disputations at Oxford and Cambridge'.

Speaker: Dr. Michelle Aroney, Magdalen College, Oxford University

Week 5: 28 May, 2.15pm–4pm, Old Library, All Souls College

'Relations of Religious Experience and Scientific Practices in Albert the Great'

Speaker: Professor Katja Krause, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Week 6: 4 June, 2.15pm–4pm, Wharton Room, All Souls College

'Agricultural Knowledge, the Pursuit of Public Utility, and Collaborative Epistemology in the Early Royal Society'

Speaker: Dr. Niall Dilucia, CNRS, Maison Française d'Oxford/IHRIM

Week 7: 11 June, 2.15pm–4pm, Old Library, All Souls College

'Traces of Maghribī Astronomy in Sources from Latin Europe (13th-14th Centuries)'

Speaker: Dr. Philipp Nothaft, All Souls College, Oxford University

All will take place at Jesus College, Memorial Room, at 4:30pm (except * 9 May)

Convenor: Hanna Sinclair (hanna.sinclair@history.ox.ac.uk)

Week 1: 28 April, 16.30.

‘The Court of Tunis: Negotiating Kingship in the Sixteenth-Century Maghreb’

Speaker: Rubén González Cuerva (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) 

Week 2: FRIDAY 9 May *Ship Street Centre, Jesus, 16.30.

‘Troubled Life Stories: Complaint Culture, Life Writing, and Urban Experiences in Eighteenth-Century Copenhagen’

Speaker: Ulrik Langen (University of Copenhagen)  

(Co-convened with the Oxford Scandinavian Studies Network)

Week 3: 12 May, 16.15

‘The Queen’s Court: Materiality and Colour at Early Modern Scandinavian Courts’

Speaker: Dustin Neighbors (University of Helsinki)  

Week 5: 26 May, 16.15

‘The Royal Court and the Sejm in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Seventeenth Century’

Speaker:  Katarzyna Kosior (Northumbria University)  

Week 7: 9 June, 16.15

‘Court Factions and Crown Authority: Contesting the Status of Burgundy within the Holy Roman Empire at the Court of Emperor Friedrich III of Habsburg’  

Speaker: Richard Schlag (Jesus College)  

(Co-convened with the Oxford Early Modern Central European Seminar Series)

Early Modern Diplomacy Seminar, Trinity Term

Convenors: Dr Tracey Sowerby and Antonio Pattori

Place and Time: Merze Tate Room, History Faculty, and online. 16.15, Weeks 2, 4, 6.

Tea and coffee will be served before the seminar from c. 16.05.

Please contact Tracey Sowerby (@history.ox.ac.uk) if you are not on the mailing list and would like to attend online.

Week 2: 6 May, 16.15

Early Modern Ciphers Roundtable

Speakers: Dr Ioanna Iordanou (Oxford Brookes), Giovanni M. Pala, Antonio Pattori, and Dr Tracey Sowerby, chaired by Professor Fillipo De Vivo

Week 4: 20 May, 16.15               

‘How Do You Solve a (Diplomatic) Problem like Poland? Polish-Lithuanian Political Culture and Diplomacy in the late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’

Speaker: Dr Anna Kalinowska (Polish Academy of Sciences)

Chair:Dr Tracey Sowerby

Week 6: 3 June, 16.15                     

Italian Renaissance Cryptography

Speaker: Professor Marcello Simonetta (Medici Archive Project / NYU Florence) (presenting online)

Chair: Antonio Pattori

Week 8: 17 June, 16.15 (online only)

'Reconstructing the Paper Trail of Habsburg First Councillor Nicholas Perrenot de Granvelle'

Speaker: Dr. Maxim Hoffmann (Ghent University)

Time: Thursdays, Weeks 1-8, 5pm

Venue: Keble College, Pusey Room, and online (please email sarah.apetrei@campion.ox.ac.uk). 

Convenors: Sophie Aldred, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Judith Maltby, Grant Tapsell

Week 1: 1 May, 17.00.

‘The two swords: spiritual and temporal jurisdiction in Henrician England’

Speaker: Paull Cavill (Cambridge)

Week 2: 8 May, 17.00.

‘In times of ferment and flourishing: the livelihoods of Chapel Royal musicians, 1640s-80s’

Speaker: Sam Teague (Oxford)

Week 3: 15 May, 17.00

‘John Bale and Polydore Vergil: an encounter in Church history’

Speaker: Tim Wade (Warwick)

Week 4: 22 May, 17.00

‘A Caroline Catholic conversion: Francis Slingsby (1611-42)’ 

Speaker: Brian Mac Cuarta (Campion Hall, Oxford)

Week 5: 29 May, 17.00

‘Framing the Word: presenting religious texts as “comely” ornament in post-Reformation England’

Speaker: Tara Hamling (Birmingham)

Week 6: 5 June, 17.00

‘English Reformers in German print, 1547, 1603’

Speaker: Kate Shore (Lincoln, Oxford)

Week 7: 12 June, 17.00

‘Peterhouse Chapel and the Laudian Style’

Speaker: David Scott (History of Parliament)

Week 8: 19 June, 17.00

‘London public sermons and early modern emotional communities’

Speaker: Mary Morrisey (Reading)

Time: Tuesdays, Weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, 16.30. 

Venue: St. Edmund Hall (see events for weekly venues)

Convenors: Filippo de Vivo (St Edmund Hall); Leah Clark (Kellogg); Jane Crawshaw Stevens (Brookes); Zoe Farrell (St Edmund Hall); Federica Gigante (History of Science Museum); Giuseppe Marcocci (Exeter); Emanuela Vai (Worcester).

Week 1: 29 April, 16.30, St. Edmund Hall, Old Dining Hall. 

‘Was it Possible to Die of Old Age in Early Modern Italy?’

Speaker: Hannah Marcus (Harvard)

Week 3: 13 May, 16.30, St. Edmund Hall, Doctorow Room. 

‘Ordering Customs: Ethnographic Thought in Early Modern Venice’

Speaker: Kathryn Taylor (Tennessee) 

Week 5: 27 May, 16.30, St. Edmund Hall, Doctorow Room. 

‘The daily prophet: the Letter of the Grand Master of the Hospitallers and its audiences (1319-1793)’ 

Speaker: Lucio Biasori (Padua)

Week 7: 10 June, 16.30, St. Edmund Hall, Old Dining Hall. 

Title and abstract TBA. 

Speaker: Emily Michelson (St. Andrews)

Time: Thursdays, Weeks 1, 3, 5, 7. See individual events for times

Venue: See individual events for venues. 

Convenor: Jessica Goodman (St. Catz)

Week 1: 1st May, 12:30-14:00: Maison française d'Oxford, auditorium.

‘Hierarchy, Hybridity, and Couleur Rabelaisienne: the afterlives of François Rabelais on the late nineteenth-century Parisian lyric stage (1855-1895)’

Speaker: Zac Eastop, University of Durham

Week 3: 15th May, 12:15-13:45: St John's College. *PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF TIME*

‘Translation and Transnational Narratives of Revolution: The Transfer of Revolutionary Culture in France, Britain, Italy (1789-1815)’

Speaker: Sanja Perovic, KCL.

Week 5: 29th May, 12.30-14.00: Maison française d'Oxford, salon.

'Surviving the Renaissances'

Speaker: Emma Claussen, Trinity College, Cambridge.

Week 7: 12th of June, 12:00-14:00: Taylor Institution, Room 2. *PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF TIME - JOINT SESSION WITH ITALIAN*

‘Writing Bilingually, 1465-1700: Self-translated books in Italy and France’

Speakers: Sara Miglietti and Marco Spreafico, Warburg Institute.