WORKSHOPS
Workshop 1: Genre and Form in Early Modern Political Thought
Newcastle University, 7-8 September 2022
Workshop 2: The Materiality of Early Modern Political Texts
University of York, 24 February 2023
Workshop 3: Experiencing Early Modern Political Texts in the Digital Age
Newcastle University, 11-12 September 2023
ABOUT
In order to be effective political texts must not simply inform their readers and convince them of the validity of the arguments being presented, but must prompt their readers’ engagement with those arguments and even incite them to action. The authors of political texts published between 1500 and 1800 were particularly conscious of this requirement, deliberately designing their texts to be ‘experienced’ rather than just ‘read’. To achieve this they wrote in a range of genres; made use of an array of literary strategies; exploited the physical form of the works they produced; and paid attention to the interaction between the written word, images and artefacts, and to how these objects circulated in the world. Exploring these methods and considering how effective they were in achieving their ends has implications for the reading of those texts today, for the ways in which they are presented to modern audiences, and for the articulation of political arguments in the twenty-first century.
The Experiencing Political Texts network draws together humanities scholars and library professionals with complementary skills enabling in-depth analysis of the strategies deployed by early modern political writers to engage their readers. Attention is paid to the ways in which the genre and physical form of a text contributed to and reinforced its substantive argument and to the interaction between written texts and the wider material and political culture.
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Experiencing Political Texts 