Séminaire Medieval to Renaissance

We are glad to announce our next Medieval to Renaissance hybrid seminar, which will focus on Scottish literature.

It will take place at the University of Strasbourg (Salle de la Table Ronde, MISHA) on Monday 3 Febuary 2025, 3pm Paris time. 

It is supported by the SEARCH research team.

Our two guests will be:

• Eva von Contzen (Albert Ludwigs Universität Freiburg) -  “Me neidis nocht reheirs”: Retelling and/in Medieval Scottish Literature
• Laurie Atkinson (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen) - Love Poetry in a Cold Climate: Playing with Convention in Late Medieval Scotland

Please feel free to contact us (f.moghaddassi@unistra.fr, vuillem@unistra.fr) if you wish to follow the seminar online

The hybrid seminar series Medieval to Renaissance, which was created in 2022-23 by Fanny Moghaddassi and Rémi Vuillemin (Université de Strasbourg, SEARCH UR2325), aims to favour dialogue between medieval and Renaissance/early modern studies.

While the ‘medieval’ and ‘Renaissance’ labels have largely been criticised and other labels have been used, the separation between the two periods remains, and still shapes academic disciplines and scientific fields of enquiry. Although commonly recognised by medievalists, the arbitrary nature of chronological definitions of the 'Middle Ages' still profoundly structures academic thinking today, with many histories of literature beginning in the 16th century. The notion of ‘early modern’, besides, has not really succeeded in cancelling out the divide implicit in the notion of Renaissance, and has even sometimes had the effect of strengthening teleological readings of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Though it was coined to question an earlier historical model, it has not allowed researchers to do away with the implications of narratives established in the 19^th century by the likes of Burckhardt and Michelet. In English studies, the century and half upon which the periodisation hinges (i.e. the 15^th century and the first half of the 16^th century) has been somewhat neglected, caught as it is between two major figures: Chaucer and Shakespeare. Finally, the institutional construction of scientific fields and the structural evolutions of work in academia has further strengthened divisions. It seems far more common today to work on the continuities from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment than from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance

Focused on the British Isles and on Literary Studies, but aiming to go beyond those limitations, this seminar series aims to address those challenges by establishing a common virtual space, discussing historiographical questions of periodisation, upholding the current renewed interest in previously neglected ‘transitional’ times . It will encourage crossed perspectives on relevant issues related to the period running from the 13th to the 16th centuries, and prompt exchanges on the continuities and transformations across existing temporal divides.

This seminar series is addressed to scholars at all career levels. It is supported by the SEARCH research unit.