Cornucopia

In early modern Britain the idea of the state was radically contested. Reformation, dynastic crisis, civil war, and policies of state-formation all challenged established models of the state.

Recent decades in literary studies have seen an engagement with politics reflected not just in pamphlets and polemics, but spreading through almost every sphere of early-modern literature. At the same time, though, the status of imaginative literature in the history of political thought remains a matter of debate.

This major two-day conference aims to explore how political writing, broadly conceived, interacts with early-modern theories of state. How did writers participate in the state: by imagining it, articulating it, or even performing some of its functions? What conceptual models and scholarly methods are currently being used to understand the state, and how might they inform each other? What important insights can literary studies bring to intellectual and political histories?

Plenary Speakers:

• Nicholas McDowell, Professor of Early Modern Literature and Thought, University of Exeter
• Mark Goldie, Professor of Intellectual History, University of Cambridge

 

Sessional Speakers

• Nadine Akkerman, Leiden University
• Niall Allsop, University of Exeter
• Paddy Bullard, University of Reading
• Lucy Clarke, University of Oxford
• Stephanie Coster, University of Leicester
• Joanna Craigwood, University of Cambridge
• Karen Edwards, University of Exeter
• Edward Holberton, University of Bristol
• Joseph Hone, University of Cambridge
• Ann Hughes, Keele University
• Lorna Hutson, University of Oxford
• Paulina Kewes, University of Oxford
• Mark Knights, University of Warwick
• Vanessa Lim, Queen Mary University of London
• Tom Lockwood, University of Birmingham
• John McTague, University of Bristol
• Marcus Nevitt, University of Sheffield
• Edward Paleit, University of Exeter
• Jason Peacey, University College London
• Sophie Smith, University of Oxford
• David Francis Taylor, University of Oxford
• John West, University of Warwick
• Rachel Willie, Liverpool John Moores University
• Susan Wiseman, Birkbeck University of London