Authority, Gender and Social Relations
Durham (RU, 23-26 juillet 2018), avant le 31 octobre 2017

Durham Early Modern Studies Conference

Durham University

For some years, Durham University has hosted a regular Seventeenth-Century Studies Conference. With the establishment of an Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS) at Durham, we are re-launching this conference with a more ambitious timeframe, taking the ‘early modern’ to cover the period 1450 to 1800. For the 2018 conference, we are focusing on the authority, gender and social relations. We conceive of these concepts in their broadest sense and take them to include (but not necessarily be restricted to) the following:

  • Gender and class: useful categories of analysis?
  • Patriarchy and the household
  • Power in the landscape
  • Resistance and rebellion
  • Clientage, subordination, reciprocity and affinities
  • Communities and neighbourhoods
  • Archaeologies of authority
  • Archaeologies of community and place
  • Gender, belief and the body
  • Elites and society
  • Architecture, art and power
  • Landscapes and social topographies
  • Literary and dramatic representations of authority and resistance
  • Occupation and social structure
  • Labour discipline
  • Slavery, serfdom and unfree labour
  • Ethnicity and national identity
  • Religious radicalisms
  • Belief and hierarchy
  • Dress, demeanour and authority
  • Experiences of inequality: clothing, housing, food and diet

Interdisciplinary approaches are welcome. We are keen to deal with transnational histories and with the history of the New World and with European relations with the rest of the globe.

We welcome proposals both for individual 20-minute papers and for panels comprising three 20-minute papers. Please send proposals for papers (300 words) or panels (3 x 300 words, with a rationale for the panel) including title and abstract(s) to: early.modern@durham.ac.uk by 31 October 2017.

The first day of the conference will be given over to papers by postgraduate students, with the support of the Durham Medieval and Early Modern Students Association (MEMSA).

Replies to all submissions will be sent no later than early 2018.