Conference: Law and Poetics in Early Modern England and Beyond, July 2-4, 2018, University of Cambridge @CRASSHlive @Rachel_E_Holmes

From the emailbox:


Law and Poetics in Early Modern England and Beyond, 2–4 July 2018, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

Law and Literature has come of age, evolving from the vexations of the early 1990s into a thriving field across periods, with the English Renaissance still a major locus. With the authority and intellectual security this progress gives us, however, come new responsibilities. What can we now see about this interdiscipline, and its historically specific interrelations, that we could not have had clarity about at the movement’s inception? What are the disciplinary anxieties it is time to shake off? Have new ones emerged which we need to examine? And what does work on interactions between the legal and literary imagination in other periods or cultures put in perspective for anglophone early modernists? Our 3-day conference on Law and Poetics will address the trends and urgencies in the field now, with a view to teasing out their implications for the methods and motives of knowing, and considerations of knowability. It will, in the process, raise new questions about the remit of legal, poetic or artistic knowledge.

Our speakers are: Kevin Curran (University of Lausanne), Maksymilian Del Mar (Queen Mary, University of London), Kathy H. Eden (Columbia University), Alex Feldman (Haifa University), Peter Goodrich (Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law), Rachel E. Holmes (University of Cambridge), Lorna Hutson (Merton College, University of Oxford), Torrance Kirby (McGill University), Doyeeta Majumder (Jadavpur University), Charles McNamara (Columbia University), Bernadette Meyler (Stanford University), Subha Mukherji (University of Cambridge), George Oppitz-Trotman (University of Cambridge), Jan-Melissa Schramm (University of Cambridge), Richard K. Sherwin (New York Law School), Regina Schwartz (Northwestern University), Sebastian Sobecki (University of Groningen), Christopher N. Warren (Carnegie Mellon University), Gary Watt (University of Warwick), Carey Young (Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London), and Andrew Zurcher (Queen's College, University of Cambridge).

This conference also features Law and the Arts: Staging Law, Performing Trials, an integrated three-part public event. This event, involving actors, visual artists and legal professionals comprises:

• a professional performance event directed by Adele Thomas and Caroline Williams, whose previous credits include: Shakespeare's Globe/Sam Wanamaker Theatre, The Oresteia (2015) and The Knight of the Burning Pestle (2014).
• a talk and screening by visual artist Carey Young (The Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London; creator of law-based artistic works including Before the Law, Legal Fictions, and Palais du Justice)
• a widely interdisciplinary, inter-professional Round Table on Law and the Arts featuring: Subha Mukherji (University of Cambridge), Nicola Padfield, QC (Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge), Richard K. Sherwin (New York Law School), Adele Thomas (Freelance Director), Caroline Williams (Freelance Director), and others t.b.a.

More details about the conference including a provisional schedule and speakers' abstracts can all be found here: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27722.

Registration is required and accessible here: https://webservices.admin.cam.ac.uk/cbk/vmwy/index.cgi. Fees are £40 (full price) or £25 (student/unwaged). Fees include lunches and refreshments. Those registering for this conference will automatically be registered for the integrated public event, Law and the Arts: Staging Law, Performing Trials on the 3rd of July. Registration will close on Monday 25th June. 

This conference is part of the research project Crossroads of Knowledge in Early Modern England: the Place of Literature, a five-year project funded by the European Research Council, based at the Faculty of English and CRASSH, University of Cambridge.  

Via @Rachel_E_Holmes

This conference looks absolutely wonderful!

Reading and the Law @CRASSHlive

Today at the University of Cambridge, a free event, sponsored by CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) (yes, no Oxford comma):

Reading and the Law, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Jan-Melissa Schramm (University of Cambridge)
Rachel Holmes (University of Cambridge)
In Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell reflects that ‘[w]hen you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.’ Yet Cromwell must have been aware of the precise practices involved in legal reading to make such a statement. This seminar will consider the ways in which legal documents such as witness statements and constitutions are read, today and in the past, in order to consider what it means to read in a legal setting.

Papers are pre-circulated and should be read in advance.Please contact Dr Ruth Jackson (rej34@cam.ac.uk) to sign up and receive the readings by email.

Open to all.  No registration required
Part of Theologies of Reading Research Group Seminar Series
Administrative assistance: gradfac@crassh.cam.ac.uk

Staging Law, Performing Trials: An Event at Cambridge @seanamulcahy @CRASSHlive

Via @Sean Mulcahy, news of an interesting law and humanities event taking place on July 3, 2018 st St. John's College: Staging Law, Performing Trials. 

More about this event below (description taken from the website:

Registration for this event is now open. The event is free to attend but registration is required. Those registering for the associated conference Law and Poetics in Early Modern England and Beyond will automatically be registered for this event. Registration will close on Monday 25th June.A three-part public event embedded in the conference, Law and Poetics in Early Modern England and Beyond (2-4 July, 2018). This event, involving actors, visual artists and legal professionals comprises:

• a professional performance event directed by Adele Thomas. Her previous credits include: Shakespeare's Globe/Sam Wanamaker Theatre, The Oresteia (2015) and The Knight of the Burning Pestle (2014).

• a talk and screening by visual artist Carey Young (The Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London; creator of law-based artistic works including Before the Law, Legal Fictions, and Palais du Justice)

• a widely interdisciplinary, inter-professional Round Table on Law and the Arts featuring: Farah Karim-Cooper (Shakespeare's Globe), Subha Mukherji (University of Cambridge), Nicola Padfield, QC (Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge), Richard K. Sherwin (New York Law School), Adele Thomas (Freelance Director)

This event is part of the research project Crossroads of Knowledge in Early Modern England: the Place of Literature, a five-year project funded by the European Research Council, based at the Faculty of English and CRASSH, University of Cambridge.
For enquiries regarding this event, please contact the project administrator, Rachael Taylor here.