The Materiality of Early Modern Political Texts
This workshop explored the materiality of early modern political texts, the material objects associated with them, and the connections between these and the practical culture of political clubs. Owing to UCU strikes, part 1 of the workshop was held at the University of York and incorporated a practical session with the Thin Ice Press, to provide participants with a sense of the practicalities involved in printing early modern texts. You can read an account of part 1 of the workshop here. The second part of the workshop took place in Newcastle – it is summarised here.
Friday 24th February – Humanities Research Centre, University of York
09:00-09:15 – Tea/Coffee and Welcome
09:15-10:20 Panel 1: Experiencing Texts
– Rachel Foxley – Experiencing Leveller Texts, Experiencing Republican Texts.
– Sophie Smith – Text as theatre and tool in early modern political philosophy
Chair: Tim Somers
10:20-10:25 Brief Comfort Break
10:25-11:30 Panel 2: Paratexts
– Marcus Nevitt – Restoration play dedications as political texts?
– Charlotte McCallum – Nicholas Machiavel’s Letter to Zanobius Bundelmontius in
Vindication of himself and His Writings (1675): texts, paratexts, and context.
Chair: Ruth Connolly
11:30-11:45 Tea/Coffee
11:45-12:40: Panel 3: The Physicality of Texts
– Katherine Hunt – Sensory experience, community, and the material text in English
bell inscriptions.
– Edward Jones Corredera – The unseen history of international law: The De iure belli
ac pacis census.
Chair: Emily Price
13:30-15:00 Panel 4: Readers and Texts
12:40-13:30 Lunch
– Marie-Louise Coolahan – Early modern engagements with women’s political
ideas.
– Elizabeth Scott-Baumann – Politics, sex, style: seventeenth-century women and the
poetry of state.
– Jason McElligott – Readers and Binding Strategies
Chair: Anette Hagen
15:00-16:15: Print Workshop with the Thin Ice Press
Images from the workshop with Thin Ice Press by Tiago Sousa Garcia and Rachel Hammersley.
Tuesday 28th March 2023
Armstrong Building Room 3.38
Zoom: https://newcastleuniversity.zoom.us/j/89097797438
14:00-15:05 Panel 1: Paratexts
– Katie East – The design and presentation of editions of ancient political texts.
– Joe Hone – Imprints and political meaning.
15:15-16:20 Panel 2: Punctuation and Marginalia
– Ruth Connolly – Early modern punctuation: The rhetoric of pointing in Ben
Jonson’s letters to his patrons.
– Leanne Smith – John Spittlehouse’s marginal notes.
16:20-16:45 Tea/Coffee
16:45-17:50 Panel 3: Libraries
– Alex Plane – The library of James VI and I.
– Harriet Gray – Newcastle’s Literary & Philosophical Society.
18:30 Dinner
Experiencing Political Texts 