We are delighted to announce that registration is now open for our annual conference on Early Modern Sensory Experiences (EMSE 2022) to be held at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, 9-10 June 2022.
Please register here before 30 May 2022.
Online registration is free; in person registration covers catering costs.
EMSE 2022 – Programme
9 June 2022
9:00-9:45 Registration and coffee
9:45-10:00 Welcome (Leah Clark and Helen Coffey)
10:00-11.30 Sensory Agents I: Materials
Chair: Helen Coffey
Bettina Varwig, University of Cambridge: ‘Early Modern Synaesthesia and the Sweetness of Song’
Cheng He, University of Warwick: ‘Multisensory Experience of Understanding Lacquer in Early Modern England’
Amrita Chattopadhyay, Jawaharlal Nehru University: ‘Illumination in Early Modern India: Material Practices and Sensory Experiences’
11:30-12:00 Coffee
12:00-13:00 Sensory Agents II: Objects
Chair: Helen Coffey
Margit Thøfner, The Open University: ‘Framing Music: an integrative meditation on the organ and the organ case in Kristkirken in Tondern/Tønder (present-day southern Denmark)’
Nathalie Jeter, University of Oxford: ‘Twelve Years a (Galley) Slave: a sensory and material reading of Jean Marteilhe’s Mémoires d’un Galérien’
13:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:30 Spirituality and the Senses
Chair: Leah R. Clark
Katherine Powers, California State University, Fullerton: ‘Sensory Experience in Devotions: Serafino Razzi’s Laude for Nuns in Contemplation.’
Laura Jayne Wright, University of Oxford: ‘‘I speak this with reverence’: sounds of dissent in Anna Trapnel’s visionary prose.’
Hayley Bowman, University of Michigan: ‘Sensing Sor María de Jesús: Women’s Authority in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World’
15:30-16:00 Coffee
16:00-17:30 Senses of Place
Chair: Leah R. Clark
Deborah Howard, University of Cambridge: ‘The foundation ceremonies of the votive churches of the Redentore (1577) and Santa Maria della Salute (1631) in Venice: sensory impact and ritual purification’
Helena Guzik, University of Oxford: ‘Sensory Experiences in Elite Premodern Pilgrimage Networks: Luchino dal Campo's Viaggio a Gerusalemme’
Neha Vermani, University of Sheffield: ‘The Mughal Gentlemen’s House: Sensory Explorations of the Material World in Early Modern South Asia (16th to 17th century)’
18:00 Drinks followed by conference dinner (additional registration required)
10 June 2022
9:30-11:00 Recapturing Sensorial Experiences
Chair: Leah R. Clark
Mary Katherine Newman, University of Oxford: ‘Methodological considerations when reconstructing the early modern Reche-Mapuche sensory experience’
Anuradha Gobin, University of Calgary: ‘Sorrows for Sweetness: Tactility, Aurality and the Afterlife of Material Culture from Dutch Brazil’
María Lumbreras, University of California, Santa Barbara: ‘Sensorial Forensics: Antiquarianism in Granada c. 1595’
11:00-11:30 Coffee
11:30-13:00 Nature and the Body
Chair: Leah R. Clark
Tassanie Alleau, University of Tours, CESR: ‘Splendour and misery of a plant: cassava and its sensory qualities across the ocean in early modern times’
Andrew Kettler, Kenyon College: ‘The Miasmic Theft of Modernity: Sulfuric Aromata and Early Modern Empires’
Giacomo Savani, University of St Andrews: ‘Sensing the Spa: Medicine, Bathing, and the Female Body in Renaissance Italy'
13:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:30 Experiences of Performance
Chair: Helen Coffey
Peter K. Andersson, Orebro University: ‘Nips of New School: The Chastisement of Domestic Fools in the Early Modern Period’
Elizabeth Dieterich, Carnegie Mellon University: ‘Touching Feeling in the Playhouse: Senses and Affect in Early Modern Drama’
Simon Smith, University of Birmingham: ‘Music and the senses at the early modern Inns of Court’
15:30-16:00 Coffee
16:00-17:30 Feasting
Chair: Helen Coffey
David Rolf Strom-Olsen, IE University, Madrid: ‘A Feast for the Senses: sensory aesthetic as political power at the Voeu du Faisan (1454)’
Meike Wiedemann, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich and Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Baden-Württemberg: ‘With all the senses – dining at the 16th century Jagiellonian court’
Amy Orrock and Clara Baudet, Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park/University of Oxford: ‘Tasting Naples: Wine, figs, and feasting at the Cuccagna’
17:30 Closing remarks followed by drinks