Early Modern Scholarship and Religion
The Seminar in Early Modern Scholarship and Religion was founded in 2017 by Theodor Dunkelgrün, Kirsten Macfarlane and Tim Twining to provide a forum for new work in what has become one of the most creative and exciting subfields of Early Modern History. We have been keen to look at European and non-European contexts, separately and in their interaction, and we have run joint seminars with the Early Modern World seminar and the History of Material Texts Seminar. The seminar has taken various formats, from individual papers to thematic roundtables.
From the start, the seminar has welcomed historians at all stages of their careers. Speakers to the seminar have included: Andreas Ammann, Paul Babinski, Paul Botley, Abigail Brundin, Richard Calis, Marcello Cattaneo, Eloise Davies, Katherine East, Hannah Gentili, Stefan Hanß, Nicholas Hardy, Mack Holt, Henk Jan de Jonge, Andrew Laird, Dmitri Levitin, Christa Lundberg, Kirsten Macfarlane, Sir Noel Malcolm, Scott Mandelbrote, Madeline McMahon, Dirk van Miert, Simon Mills, Nil Palabıyık, Helen Pfeifer, Eyal Poleg, John Robertson, Felix Schlichter, David Sclar, Richard Serjeantson, Freya Sierhuis, Joanna Weinberg and Hannah Yip.
Our schedule for Lent 2025 is as follows:
Friday 7 February, 16.00 – 17.30
St Catharine’s College, the Ramsden Room
‘The problem of unbelief in the sixteenth and twentieth centuries’
Jonathan Nathan (Pharos foundation, Oxford)
Friday 21 February, 16.00 – 17.30
St Catharine’s College, The Sydney Smith Room
'Political reasons for John Selden's Hebraic turn, 1629-1654.'
Felix Liber (University of Cambridge)
Friday 7 March, 16.00 – 17.30
St Catharine’s College, The Sydney Smith Room
Title TBC
Kelly McCay (Harvard University)
Friday 21 March, 16.00 – 17.30
Emmanuel College, Harrods Room, Queen's Building (NB different location)
‘Religious Culture and the Ownership and Reading of Music Books in Sixteenth-Century England’
Katie McKeogh (KCL)
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Banner image: Chained Library, Wells Cathedral - photo by Matt Hartley