Spring 2027
March 5 | Location TBD
The Annual REMS Conference
Fall 2026
September 10 | 5pm | 219 Dwinelle
Christian Rivoletti (Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg) in dialogue with James Porter (UC Berkeley), on Auerbach, war, and exile.
September 11 | Noon | 330 Wheeler
REMS Sodality Presentation by Jeroen Dewulf. Title: "Flying Back to Africa or Flying to Heaven? Competing Visions of Afterlife in the South Carolina Lowcountry."
This lecture presents a new theory on the origin and meaning of the African-American folktale about Africans who escaped slavery by flying back home, including the legend that only those who refrained from eating salt could still fly; a tale that acquired nation-wide fame thanks to Toni Morisson's novel "Song of Solomon" (1977). This lecture traces the tale back to early-modern Portuguese influences in Central Africa and argues that it should be understood in the context of discussions among enslaved Africans about the consequences of a Christian baptism for one’s spiritual afterlife.
September 25 (Maude Fife Room, UC Berkeley) and September 26 (CMEMS, Stanford University): Microhistory@50, a Symposium on The Cheese and the Worms
A Symposium co-hosted by Stanford’s Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS) & UC Berkeley’s Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies (REMS) with keynote speakers John-Paul Ghobrial (Oxford) and Amy Stanley (Northwestern).
October 21 | 5pm | Location TBD
Joanna Stalnaker (Columbia), "The Body of the Philosopher," with a response from Tom Laqueur (UC Berkeley)
October 23 | Noon | Library of French Thought
Joanna Stalnaker (Columbia) discusses her book, The Rest is Silence
November 12 | 5pm | 219 Dwinelle
Valentina Serio (Stanford)
November 14 | Townsend Center
Inaugural Workshop of the Pacific Renaissance and Early Modern Consortium
Fall 2025
2025 REMS Graduate Conference: Power and the Art of Writing
Keynote Speaker: Ada Palmer (University of Chicago). Full program here.
Spring 2025
March 6 | 5 pm | Wheeler Hall, Room 300
Milton and the Majesty of Darkness, Ethan Guagliardo (University of British Columbia)
March 14 | 5:00-6:30 pm | 370 Dwinelle
March 15 | 9:30-12:30 and 2-5 pm | Social Sciences Building, Room 749
Guicciardini's Dialogue at 500: a Workshop on Renaissance Political Thought: Natasha Piano (UCLA) and Mark Jurdjevic (York University, Toronto).
March 18 | 4-6 pm | Howison Library (Philosophy Hall 305)
Why read Spinoza's Ethics? A conversation with John Carriero (UC Berkeley), Josefine Klingspor (Stanford), Russ Leo (Princeton), and Samuel Newlands (Notre Dame)
April 15 | 4 pm | Wheeler 330
Alison Peterman (University of Rochester): Title TBA
April 22-24 | Toll Room, Alumni House
Annabel Brett (Cambridge), Tanner Lectures: The Times of Possibility
For more information, please see: Annabel Brett, 2025 Tanner Lectures, The Time of Possibility.
May 3
Graduate Conference organized by the REMS Graduate Working Group Human Nature, the Passions, and Early Modern Politics.
Fall 2024
October 30 | 5 pm | Dwinelle 6331
Roundtable with Jonas Roelens (University of Ghent) and Thomas W. Laqueur (UC Berkeley), around Jonas Roelens, Citizens and Sodomites: Persecution and Perception of Sodomy in the Southern Low Countries (1400-1700)
November 7 | 5 pm | Wheeler 300
"The Principal Ruffian," a talk by Professor Rachel Eisendrath (Barnard). "The Principal Ruffian" is a story about a con man in New York City who is made to confront his own underlying nihilism. The story is also about a country cut adrift from awareness of its own historical content--and about my experiments, as a scholar of ancient and early modern literature, to depict the subjective experience of this national psychic self-ignorance. Homer and Shakespeare figure prominently.
Sponsored by the Katharine Bixby Hotchkis Chair in English.
November 13 | 5 pm | Dwinelle 6331
Arielle Saiber (Jonhs Hopkins), A Psychedelic Renaissance: Contemporary Psychopharmacology Meets Premodernity
November 15-16 | Berkeley-Stanford Symposium
Braudel’s La Méditerranée (1949): Paradigms and Possibilities after 75 Years. See Full Program here.
(2 day conference: Friday 15 at Stanford CMEMS and Saturday 16 the Townsend Center)
November 20 | 5:00 - 6:30 pm | Institute of South Asian Studies (10 Stephens Hall)
Tamara Sears (Rutgers University), Wilderness Urbanisms: On Politics, Nature, and Travel in the Peripheries of Premodern India