The 2004-2005 year will be a very special one for the Centre for Reformation
and Renaissance Studies, as we mark our 40th anniversary. To honour the occasion,
our 40th Erasmus Speaker, Professor Jeffrey Chipps Smith, will give his lecture
as the Plenary Lecture of the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference on 28 October
2004 at the Marriott Eaton Centre. Conference registration is not required
for attendance at this lecture, and a reception for the CRRS community will
follow.
His lecture will be titled: "Jesuit Confraternities and the Art of Catholic Formation in Early Modern Germany".
Jeffrey Chipps Smith is one of the leading specialists in the art of Northern
Europe, responsible for ground-breaking work on the artistic response to the
religious turmoil in German lands of the 16th century. His research has led
to a re-evaluation of art in this period, the recognition of its vitality
and diversity in changing times, and its place in a more informed and balanced
view of art history.
The study of modern sport has gradually moved from the margins of scholarship toward the centre.
For the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, however, this movement has been less pronounced than for
later centuries. One of the goals of this conference is to accelerate the recognition of athletics
as an integral component of social and individual life in the early modern period. Beyond the
obvious connection with popular culture and aristocratic entertainment, early modern sports had
strong ties to contemporary medicine, pedagogical theory, and the arts of war. They offered
individuals -usually men-opportunities to display their personal prowess, and spectators the chance
to display their civic identity and social cohesion. Because they seemed frivolous and violent, their
weak moral content made them vulnerable to religious and philosophical strictures. But because they
focussed on graceful physical movement, they were associated with the thrust towards decorum and
refinement of demeanour. Since sports increasingly sought to define themselves as regulated activities,
they reflected some of the intellectual concerns and the language of the mathematicians, the grammarians,
and the music theorists. Sports became the object of literary descriptions and the subject of books
that prescribed strategies and tactics for playing the game and winning.
Sponsorship for this conference has been provided by SSHRCC, Departments of French, Italian, English, History, Faculties of Physical Education & Health and Medicine, Centres for Medieval Studies and Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Italian Cultural Insititute, Consulat-General de France, IHPST, TRRC, University College Principal's Office, the Provost's Office, Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies, and Foreign Affairs Canada.
In June 1999, to honour the contributions of retiring Professor Germaine Warkentin, the CRRS began a fund for the assistance of graduate students who needed to travel for research or to give conference papers. For almost three years, it gathered money and generated interest, and in 2002-3 it began to award small bursaries. The demand, however, was overwhelming. Far more applications were received than could be funded, and given the drop in interest rates, the fund soon dropped into dangerously low levels. We have not been able to provide bursaries this year.
Travel is a necessity for many graduate students: whether to check early editions at other libraries, perform research in foreign archives for a few months, or simply to give a paper at a large conference, travel is a required component in the struggle for academic achievement. For most graduate students, already well below the poverty line, it is an impossible burden and the lack of travel can become a handicap in the fiercely competitive job market.
We are appealing to your sense of responsibility to our next generation of scholars. Please give generously to the Warkentin Fund so that we can provide this very-much-needed form of assistance to our graduate students. All donations received before 1 March 2004 will be treated as charitable donations made in the year 2003 for tax purposes. Cheques should be made payable to "Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies" with a memo indicating that they are for the Warkentin Fund. Credit card donations may be faxed to (416) 585-4430. Our mailing address is CRRS, 73 Queen's Park Cr. E., Toronto ON, M5S 1K7
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Professor F. David Hoeniger has been honoured with the title Distinguished Senior Fellow. A formal
announcement will be made at the 2 June 2004 meeting of the Victoria University Senate, when the CRRS
will submit its 40th Annual Report.
Professor Hoeniger served as the first Director of the Centre (1964-69 and 1974-79), spearheading the
development of its collections and acquisitions policies, and developing many of our now-familiar
programs, such as the annual Erasmus Lecture. He also played a key role in the establishment of the
Victoria College Renaissance Studies Program, and the CRRS Publications series. On the occasion of
our 40th anniversary year, we are pleased to have this opportunity to honour Professor Hoeniger's work.
This cross-disciplinary symposium will explore the interaction of orality and literacy in early modern culture. Scholars will be invited to consider how orally-based processes of artistic creation and communication continued to function alongside, and in conjunction with, literate forms of expression, even after the development of printing. The symposium will take place on Saturday 26 February 2005. A call for papers will be forthcoming. Queries are welcome, and may be addressed to Maureen Epp (maureen.epp@utoronto.ca) or Stephanie Treloar (s.treloar@utoronto.ca).
.pdf Call for Papers in English and French
We are pleased to announce two notable "new" rare books recently added to our collection
To search rare book holdings in the CRRS collection, use the University of Toronto Library Catalogue. In the Library drop-down menu, limit your search to "Victoria University CRRS".
The CRRS is pleased to annnounce that two of the journals hosted by the CRRS Publications Program will be available in online full-text format thorugh Iter:Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Subscribers to Iter will receive access to Early Theatre and Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance and Réforme through the Iter>website. For additional information, please contact Ms. Kelli Carr at the CRRS Publications Desk, at (416)-585-4468.
We are pleased to announce the arrival of three new Fellows for the summer. Rachel Warburton (English, Lakehead University) is researching gender and oral traditions in Early Modern texts, and will be with us until the end of July; William Calin (French, University of Florida) is studying the French tradition in the literature of medieval and Renaissance Scotland, and will be here for the full year, until the end of August 2005; and James Thomas (Philosophy, Dominican College) will be with us for the summer, to study the Meditations of René Descartes and the ontology of St. Thomas Aquinas.
To order any CRRS publication, download our PDF order form.
For more information on our book series, click here.
In the midst of so much historical material and so many highly-trained historians, it is sometimes easy to bypass our own history. As a part of our 40th anniversary celebrations, a history of the CRRS written by Professor James Estes will be published. In addition, materials belonging to the CRRS will be sorted and formally archived by Natalie Tréboute. We are grateful to both of these scholars for helping us to preserve our past.
Renaissance Studies is one of several prestigious academic programs administered by Victoria College. I have been enrolled there for the past two years, and by this point I have learned how to respond to the question: "And what exactly are you going to do with that?" Fortunately, the program's interdisciplinary nature provides ready answers. It enriches interests in literature, history, languages, fine arts, and even the sciences. As a result of the focus on forging links across disciplinary boundaries, our capacity for analytical reasoning and critical thought is honed, as we are forced to make connections that may not be obvious. These skills are indispensable not only to scholars, but also to museum curators, lawyers, and politicians (to name just a few of the possibilities).
The genesis of the program was more of an evolution than a big bang. At the heart of the program are the core VIC Renaissance Studies courses, which provide a rich context for the various optional courses. It all began in the mid-1970s as VIC240Y, a course in Renaissance Culture which is still the backbone of the Renaissance Studies program. It was originally the vision of English professor Ruth Harvey and the late French professor H.R. Secor, who both developed and taught the course for a number of years before passing the baton to Professors Konrad Eisenbichler and Kenneth Bartlett. Recognizing the popularity of VIC240Y, in the early 1980s Profs. Eisenbichler and Bartlett developed VIC440Y, a fourth-year seminar that builds on the foundations laid in VIC240Y. From this point forward the program began to take on a more defined shape as various half courses were offered, and by the mid-1980s Major and Minor programs were introduced.
The program has become increasingly interdisciplinary over the years, as evidenced most recently by Professor Eisenbichler's creation of a third-year course in Sex and Gender in the Renaissance (VIC343Y) in the late 1990s. This effectively opened up research in a new direction. The course regularly attracts students from disciplines outside of the humanities, such as biology, medicine, gender studies, and anthropology. Enrollment in the core VIC Renaissance Studies courses is currently at an all-time high, and the program continues to evolve and expand today.
One of the most significant highlights in 2003 2004 for Renaissance Studies students is Convivium, a four-part workshop series designed by graduate students at the CRRS for Renaissance Studies students. Its aim is to provide an opportunity for students in the program to get to know each other, as well as to supply them with useful information about pursuing Renaissance Studies at the graduate level. Another important event is the Early Modern Senior Undergraduate Seminar entitled "The Bible in the Renaissance and Reformation", a one-day intensive workshop which brings together students from various universities in southern Ontario.
The potential of Renaissance Studies may not be immediately clear when I meet people, but from inside the program, the possibilities are infinite.
Professor Alexander Nagel has been awarded a Canada Research Chair, one of the 98 held at the University of Toronto. Professor's Nagel's book, Michelangelo and the Reform of Art (Cambridge University Press), won the 2002 Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Prize for the Best Book in Renaissance Studies, awarded by the Renaissance Society of America. Professor Nagel has been named Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) in Washington, DC. One of the two most senior scholars at the Center, the Mellon Professor is appointed for a two-year term and is free to pursue independent research. Professor Nagel will begin his appointment in September 2004, and will retain his position and his graduate advising duties at University of Toronto during his term as Mellon Professor.
Robson Research Assistant Jamie Smith is off to Genoa again this term for a second round of research in the archives, where she is tracking down fleeing fathers and hiding husbands.
Dr. Davide Panagia, currently a Fellow of the CRRS, has received a Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at Trent University. He will assume that position in July 2004. Before coming to the CRRS, Dr. Panagia held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Before that, he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. Dr Panagia is the recipient of several awards and fellowships in the areas of teaching, political science, social theory, and historical inquiry from Johns Hopkins University, Cornell University, the University of Manitoba, and The Charles S. Singleton Center in Italy. His research explores political participation through cultural forms of democratic expression. One of his current research projects is entitled "Festivals of Freedom: Renaissance Republicanism and Popular Festive Forms" and examines how Renaissance festivals played a role in the development of republican ideals of freedom.
Our congratulations to Professor Joseph Black, sometime Curator of the CRRS, for having been granted tenure in the Department of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In his usual laid-back way, Joe informs me that "I hadn't been particularly worried -- I kept forgetting about the meeting, in fact -- and it wasn't so much that I knew I had done enough, but that we have a really good process here at Tennessee: we have annual reviews and retention votes, sort of pain along the way, but it means that if there was any possibility tenure might be a problem I would have known about the problem two years ago." Self-effacing, as always, Joe adds "I've had various minor honors and publications, but nothing else major enough to be worth mentioning." Joe will be in Toronto in the first part of the year, so we eagerly look forward to seeing him again.
News items for future issues should go to Konrad Eisenbichler.
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tel: (416) 585-4484 / fax: (416) 585-4430
email: crrs.vic@utoronto.ca / hours:
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about the CRRS, contact our Assistant to the Director, Dr.
Stephanie Treloar.
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