Calendar Reform and Religious Reformation
January 24-25, 2003
During the sixteenth century, the Christian calendar experienced two major jolts: 1) the calendar reform of 1582, promulgated by Pope Gregory XIII, which eliminated ten days from that year, and 2) the Protestant Reformers' abolition of the saints with its attendant changes to the church calendar. These calendrical changes are usually considered individually, but this conference will examine them as parallel and as intersecting phenomena. In the process of exploring the interplay among the religious, scientific, and social factors implicated in these monumental changes, a deeper understanding of the different ways in which the nature of time itself was understood in sixteenth-century Europe will be gained. Expected participants include CMRS Visiting Professors Alain Boureau (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris) and Peter Burke (Emmanuel College, Cambridge), Professor David Cressy (Ohio State University), Professor Anthony Grafton (Princeton University), Professor Susan Karant-Nunn (University of Arizona), Professor Anne Lake Prescott (Barnard College), Professor Michele Salzman (UC Riverside), as well as a host of UCLA faculty.
CMRS Faculty Roundtable
January 29, 2003 Prof. David Kunzle (Art History). "An Early Modern War Crimes Tribunal: How the Dutch Used Art to Denounce Military Crimes Against Civilians in their War of Liberation Against Spain." Wednesday, January 29, 2003. Based on the book by Prof. Kunzle, "From Criminal to Courtier: The Soldier in Netherlandish Art 1550 - 1672" (Brill, Leiden). CMRS faculty, associates, graduate students, and friends are invited to attend. Bring your lunch! The Center will provide refreshments.
CMRS Faculty Winter Quarter Concert: "Fiat Lux"
February 4, 2003 (By invitation only!)
The Center invites its faculty, associates, and friends to "Fiat Lux," a concert of Medieval and Renasissance music presented by the UCLA Sounds Early Music Ensemble. The event is sponsored by the CMRS Council.
CMRS Faculty Roundtable
February 12, 2003
Dr. Sharon King (CMRS Associate) discusses "City Tragedy." European art
and drama in the early modern period showed a fascination with the downfall
of cities. Using texts such as Calderon's El Sitio de Breda, Lope de Vega's El Brasil Restituido, J. Puget de la Serre's Le Sac de Carthage, and Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Dr. King will discuss her concept of the subgenre of "city tragedy" in Western Europe, tracing how the city is evoked as principle character of a tragedy, examining its "fatal flaw," and
analyzing a few of the sociological themes raised in the dramas--the frequent
depiction of a city as a victimized woman, and the use as propaganda of
divine wrath in a city's fate. She will present some of the rhetorical patterns that characterize the city's tragic fall (the beauty of battle, a fallen city's transformation, its death and rebirth), many of which have recurred in recent productions on September 11. CMRS faculty, associates, graduate students, and friends are invited to attend. Bring your lunch! The Center will provide soft drinks and coffee.
Sport in the Service of the Res Publica: Imperial Rome and Renaissance Europe
February, 18, 2003
A lecture by John McClelland, Professor Emeritus of French and
Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto, where he continues to teach sports history on the Faculty of Physical Education and Health. Professor McClelland is the author and co-editor of the book "Die Anfaenge des modernen Sports in der Renaissance, which had its origin in a
conference, "The Athlete and the Emergence of Modern Spirit," hosted by CMRS in 1980. He is currently completing a book, tentatively titled "Body and Mind: Athletics from the Age of Rome to the Age of Reason."
California Medieval History Seminar, Winter 2003
February 22, 2003
The California Medieval History Seminar meets at the Huntington Library to discuss four, pre-distributed research papers (two by faculty members, two by graduate students or recent Ph.D. recipients). Presenters and paper titles are announced by e-mail approximately 6-8 weeks before the meeting. Participants are expected to have read the papers in advance and come prepared to discuss them. To promote an active discussion, attendance is limited. In 2001-2002, the California Medieval History Seminar was supported by: the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies; the California Institute of Technology; the University of Southern California, Department of History; the UCLA, Department of History; the UC Davis Medieval Research Consortium; the UCLA Dean of Social Sciences; the Huntington Library; and the Huntington-Caltech Committee for the Humanities. The program has received a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the next three years, beginning Fall 2002.
CMRS Film Lecture: Pier Paolo Pasolini's Decameron
February 24, 2003
Professor Thomas J. Harrison (Italian, UCLA), an author-ity on Italian cinema will discuss Pier Paolo Pasolini's Decameron, the 1970 film based on selected tales from Boccaccio. His talk will be illustrated with clips from the film.
CMRS Faculty Roundtable
February 26, 2003
CMRS announces its next Faculty Roundtable. Prof. Murray Roston will
discuss "Jonson's Volpone: Mordant Satire or Comeday?" The delight evoked by stage performances of this play contrasts markedly with the somber evaluation of it by critics, the latter viewing it as a mordant satire on the
bestiality, corruption, and greed of contemporary society. Although Bakhtin
restricted to the genre of the novel his theory of the existence of a dialogue in literary works - of "centripetal" and "centrifugal" elements affirming
and subverting traditional concepts - the principle may be applied with
equal effectiveness to drama, in this instance suggesting a reason for the
above discrepancy. CMRS faculty, associates, graduate students, and friends
are invited to attend. Bring your lunch! The Center will provide
refreshments.
The Long March of the Welsh Language: From the Surexit Memorandum to the 2001 Census
February 27, 2003
A seminar by CMRS Visiting Professor Geraint Jenkins (Director, Centre
for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales). Professor
Jenkins is the author of numerous works on early modern Welsh history and
culture, and the General Editor of the multi-volume "Social History of the Welsh Language," published by the University of Wales Press.
The Annual Symposium on Women and Gender: "Women's Works and Networks in the Middle Ages"
February 28, 2003
In keeping with recent trends in scholarship, the Center's annual symposium on women and gender will this year be devoted to an in-depth examination of medieval women's interactions with each other in all-female communities and in other kinds of formal and informal affiliations. Professor Christopher Baswell (English, UCLA) and Deborah Kennel (CMRS, UCLA) are co-organizing the event. Plenary speakers will be Professor Maryanne Kowaleski (History, Fordham University) and Professor Joan Ferrante (Comparative Literature, Columbia University). Other speakers include Professor Michelle Hamilton (Spanish, UC Irvine), Professor Bruce Holsinger (English and Music, University of Colorado), Professor Lezlie Knox (History, Marquette University), Mary Rouse (CMRS Associate, UCLA), and Professor Jocelyn Wogen-Browne (English, Fordham). The symposium will conclude with a concert of music written or disseminated by medieval women.
Wales and the Welsh: A Celebration of St. David's Day
March 1, 2003
A one-day symposium on Welsh literature, history, and culture in conjunction with Saint David's Day (March 1st). The program will include a lecture by CMRS Visiting Professor Geraint Jenkins (Director, Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth) describing the work and legacy of Edward Williams-better known by his bardic name, Iolo Morganwg-one of the most erudite, inventive, and mesmerizing scholars of his day whose views on ancient Britain and medieval Wales had a profound effect on the development and perception of early modern Wales. Co-sponsored by CMRS, the Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies, and the Department of English, and the UCLA Celtic Colloquium.
CMRS Faculty Roundtable
March 12, 2003
Prof. Barisa
Krekic will discuss "Trials and Tribulations in Women's Daily Life in
Renaissance Dubrovnik." The rich historical archives in Dubrovnik (Ragusa) contain an enormous number of documents dealing with day-to-day life, covering the years 1278 to 1808. They also give a unique insight into the vast network of international relations that the city-republic maintained at the same time with Balkan countries and other regions of Western and Eastern Europe. This talk, based mostly on unpublished judiciary documents, will try to shed some light on the varied situations and problems faced by women, the rich and powerful as well as the poor, including nuns and prostitutes. CMRS faculty, associates, graduate students, and friends are invited to attend. Bring your lunch! The Center will provide refreshments.
