More Renaissance Conference: reviews

Here is the schedule

Attended "The Shakespearean Stage" though I was tempted to attend "Art History, North and South" but ended up in Shakespear and stayed put. The most interesting paper was "Antitheatrical Tracts" because these issues, and as it turns out, these arguments are still with us today.

Attended "Classical and Humanist Influences in the Late Renaissance." Interesting, but all three papers were heavy on text analysis, such as comparisons of versions of Daphnis and Chloe, assumed qualities (in Bembo and followers) of particular word choices and patters, and so on.

The Museum Demonstration was nice. I've been there many times before, but the presentation was pleasing and informative. Its always interesting to have art de-coded.

Dinner was excellent.

The Plenary talk, "The Facetious Renaissance" was on humor, and focused mostly on how humor operated in the Renaissance with specific attention to how some things they found funny are not commonly funny now, and the reverse. The speaker's personality was strong in the choices made, but given the subject, that's inevitable.

I would have attended "Belief and Ethics in English Thought" but I visited friends the night before, and slept in.

I started Saturday off with "Art History, Images and Patrons." As a graduate student, I had given a gallery talk on the patronage of Marie de Medici of Reubens, and as far as art history goes, patronage and thertefore the political content of art, is the only place I am strong. The Sistine paper reader wasn't there, so we heard about sculpture pieces of St George and John the Baptist above doors, and related objects in Genoa. The speaker, Madeline Rislow of KU argued that Genoa's artistic heritage is undervalued, indeed almost dimissed, but this has more to do with the kinds of art created than the quality of Genoese art production. The second speaker gave a longish (45-50 min) illustrated biography of Alphonso V, Isabella and Ferdinand. It should have found a focus and stuck with that, but it was otherwise interesting. I am reasonably well versed in these figures and had some differences with the speaker, but otherwise enjoyed the paper.

"Faith and Last Things" was the end of the day, and was a very interesting session. The first paper was on a minor author's apocalyptic writings. The second was on the Roman Inquisition, in which the speaker, Jane Wickersham, argued that the Inquisition intended both the recovery of souls and the supervision of the wayward. The last paper was on Mary Magdalene and her use by early modern Protestants (mostly English) as a redeemded sinner. An interesting observation was that where Catholic works theology saw the Virgin Mary as the ideal model, Protestant grace theology saw Mary Magdalene as the ideal model.