This year our Annual Colloquium will be on Early Modern War Narratives. Join us on 6th June for a day of papers and a keynote from Prof. Andrew Hopper and Dr. Ismini Pells.
Tickets: https://buytickets.at/centreforearlymodernstudies/1692017
The colloquium has been organised by Dr. Emily Rowe (Lecturer in Early Modern Literature and Culture, KCL) and generously supported by the Society for Renaissance Studies.
Reflecting on photographs emerging from Gaza in 2023, one New York Times war reporter wrote, “One of the hardest parts of journalism is witnessing horror and then trying, in words, sound and image, to convey that pain to the wider world. Many people may want to look away, to see the world as they prefer to see it. But what should we see when we see war? What should war demand all of us to see and understand?”. These questions, faced by both war reporters and readers, troubled early modern writers as much as they trouble us now. After witnessing the bloody attack on Antwerp by the Spanish in 1576, the soldier poet George Gascoigne wrote that war reports might “fetche brinysh teares out of the most craggy rocke” as we “lament and bewayle the burning houses of so neare neighbours”, yet the reporter must resist sensationalism and only “set downe a plaine truthe”. Questions of truth, bias, emotion, memory, and the affective power of the written word plague war narratives then and now. This colloquium brings together scholars interested in early modern war narratives (historical, literary, and visual) and addresses how these narratives navigated the difficulties of depicting war, physical and emotional trauma, and violence, as well as the emotional, political, moral, and religious responses they attempted to evoke from their audiences. Some questions we hope to address include:
● How do war narratives balance the need for truthfulness with the risk of sensationalism?
● What ethical responsibilities do war reporters or writers bear when depicting violence and trauma?
● How did early modern writers use literary devices to evoke empathy or action from their audiences?
● In what ways can the study of early modern war narratives inform contemporary debates on conflict reporting, empathy, and accountability?
Colloquium Program
9.00 — Welcome
9.30-10.45 — Panel 1: Textual Innovation
Dr. Charlotte Gauthier, ‘‘Scutum inde gero’: Truth, Memory, and Self-Promotion in an Early Modern War Poem’
Dr. Emily Rowe, ‘‘Doubtfull reportes’ and ‘profitable example’: The Ethics of Early War Journalism’
María Mercedes Jáuregui Cruz, ‘The Comentarii: The Genre That Changed the Way of Writing About War’
10.45-11.00 — Break
11.00-12.15 — Panel 2: Recasting Defeat
Dr. Tristan Griffin, ‘Defeat, ghosts and famine in Isaac Tullie’s Narrative of the Siege of Carlisle,1644–5’
Basil Bowdler, ‘Communicating Defeat: News management and public diplomacy after the Battle of Beachy Head (1690)’
Cen Li, ‘Losing Wars, Winning Hearts: Power Dynamics in Romano-British and Saxon-Danish History Plays’
12.15-1.00 — Lunch
1.00-2.15 — Panel 3: Visual and Ephemeral
Dr. Borja Franco Llopis, ‘Confronting Islam: Images of Warfare in the Hispanic public celebrations. New contributions, new visions and questions’
Dr. Tamsin Pritchard, ‘Mapping Mars: Reconstructing the Emotive in Early Modern Siege Maps’
Dr. Jordan Sly, ‘“For the Better Satisfaction of the Christian and Curious Reader”: Visual Tropes and the Rhetoric of Atrocity Representing the 1655 Massacre of the Piedmont Protestants’
2.15-2.30 — Break
2.30-3.45 — Panel 4: Innocence and Assault
Rachel East, ‘Where Violence Lingers: Rape, Memory and Trauma’
Dr. Amy Blakeway, ‘The Anglo-Scottish wars of the 1540s: from ‘Rough Wooings’ to rape’
Dr. Jonathan Field, Garrison, Sweet Garrison: The Militarized Landscapes of New England Puritanism’
3.45-4.00 — Break
4.00-4.50 — Panel 5: Non-elite Experiences
Jade Jesty, ‘‘Galloping to plunder’: Royalist experiences of siege in Newark-on-Trent, 1643-1646’
Georgina Watson, ‘War Narratives: Captives, Criminals, and Volunteers’
4.50-5.20 — Break
5.20-6.20 — Keynote by Prof. Andrew Hopper and Dr. Ismini Pells
6.20-6.30 — Wrap up