Workshop for the Early Modern Period (WEMP)

The Workshop for the Early Modern Period (WEMP) provides a forum for graduate students to present research on any aspect of early modern history in a friendly and sociable environment. These workshops are an excellent platform to trial potential avenues of research, receive feedback on your work, and gain experience presenting to a group and responding to ideas and questions.

TERM CARD  |  LENT 2024

The Lent 2024 program will operate in hybrid format. Zoom links will be distributed to the WEMP mailing list in advance of each workshop (see below to join).

29 January | MICROHISTORIES OF EARLY MODERN DIPLOMACY (History Faculty Board Room)

Elvira Tamus (Cambridge) – Antonio Rincón, Hieronymus Łaski, and European Great Power Politics, c. 1522-1542
Marissa Smit-Bose (Harvard) – Equines and Espionage: Stories from a Decade of Mantuan-Ottoman Diplomacy

12 February | MICROHISTORIES OF ITALIAN SOCIAL LIFE

Emma Lovell (Warwick) – Jewels and the Plague: Venetian Sumptuary Law in a Time of Epidemic
Elisa Puppi (Ca’ Foscari, Venice) – Between Exchange and Memory: The Material Culture and Identity Definition of the Venetian Zen Family

4 March | MEDICAL MICROHISTORIES (History Faculty Board Room)

Anita Hoffmann (York) – Medical Boom-Town – A local London Community Enabling Global Policies, 1630-1670
Francesca Richards (Kent) – Mediterranean Red Coral and the Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Lives of English Women in the Early Modern Period

11 March | FASHIONING MICROHISTORIES

Marlo Avidon (Cambridge) – Sartorial Biographies: A Micro-Historical Approach to Early Modern Dress
Louisa-Dorothea Gehrke (Leipzig) – Identity, Performance, and Dress – Naturalists in the Field and in the Painting

18 March | MICROHISTORIES OF RACIAL IDENTITY

Alice Whitehead (Cambridge) – A life in fragments: Anthony Hamilton and the enslaved prisoners on George Anson’s ‘Voyage Round the World’ (1740-1744).
Shanti Giovannetti-Singh (Cambridge) – ‘Conceal Me What I Am’ Invasive Clothes and Racial Passing in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

WORKSHOP INFORMATION

Format of Meetings

The format consists of two or three twenty-minute papers followed by discussion, questions, and feedback. Workshops are well attended by students from a range of disciplines.

Contact and Information

The 2023-24 convenors for WEMP are Lavinia Gambini, Jennifer McFarland and Christian Owen. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email us at camwemp2023@gmail.com. 

Follow us on Twitter @EMGSCam.

Mailing List

Subscribe to our mailing list here. Venues and links to join virtually will be circulated to the workshop mailing list. 

This workshop thanks the Faculty of History for its financial support.