This announcement from the Newberry may be of interest to REED-ers in
the Chicago area.
Abigail
=============================================================
CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN FESTIVE CULTURE
Seminar 1, Friday, January 23, 2004, 2:00-5:00 p.m.
Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois
The Politics of Festival: Renaissance Florence and Elizabethan England
Graduate Students, Faculty, and the General Public are Cordially Invited
to Attend
At the first session of the spring 2004 Research Seminar in Festive
Culture the following two papers will be discussed. The papers are
available by email to correspondents of the Center.
Martin Walsh, Professor of Drama, University of Michigan, discusses an
incident in the war of Lucca against Florence in the 1320s. Castruccio
Castracani, the brutal military leader of Lucca (cf. Machiavelli's Life
of Castracani), having captured in battle a number of prominent and less
prominent Florentines, offered them a Martinmas banquet at the expense
of his city, and then paraded them through the streets to his dungeons.
What was the politico-cultural strategy behind this ritual humiliation?
What were the particular dramatic modes and metaphors that it used,
insofar as we can deduce them? What antecedents and parallels to the
staging can be suggested? These are the questions and issues explored
in this paper.
Paulette Marty, Adjunct Professor of English, Millikan University,
Decatur, Illinois, probes the meaning of an event occurring during Queen
Elizabeth I's visit to the Earl of Leicester at Kenilworth Castle in
1575. Her host provided many entertainments, including a "brideale," a
traditional celebration which honored newlyweds. An eyewitness account
suggests that the event was a representation for the form rather than
the genuine marriage celebration. Professor Marty concludes that
Leicester staged the brideale to suit his ambitions, political and
personal. In that case, how did the representation appear to its
spectators, including the queen-as a cruel satire? A festive play? A
touristic novelty?
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The seminar will devote 90-minute round-table discussions to each of
these papers, with a brief coffee break between them. The papers will
be briefly introduced, not read, by Professors Walsh and Marty.
Please send your request for a copy of the papers to Erin Lucido,
secretary of the seminar, at the Newberry Library
([log in to unmask]). Requested papers will be sent to your email
address. If you do not have an email address, send your mailing address
to Erin Lucido, Newberry Library, 60 West Walton Street, Chicago, IL
60610-7324, or to me: Samuel Kinser, History Department, Northern
Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115 ([log in to unmask]). Please call
Lorraine Scurti, Secretary, History Department, Northern Illinois
University, for further information (815-753-6820).
--
Abigail Ann Young (Dr), Associate Editor/ Records of Early English
Drama/
Victoria College/ 150 Charles Street W/ Toronto Ontario Canada
Phone (416) 585-4504/ FAX (416) 813-4093/ [log in to unmask]
List-owner of REED-L <http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed-l.html>
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed.html => REED's home page
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/stage.html => our theatre resource
page
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~young => my home page
