Pentecost. Case MS 185, f. 10
The Center for Renaissance Studies works with an international consortium of universities in North America and Europe. It offers a wide range of scholarly programs and digital and print publications based in the Newberry collections, and provides a locus for a community of scholars who come from all over the world to use the library’s early manuscripts, printed books, and other materials.
Faculty and graduate students from consortium institutions may be eligible to apply for Newberry Renaissance Consortium Grants to travel to the Newberry to attend programs or do research. Through our reciprocal arrangement with the Folger Institute in Washington, D.C., which also works with a consortium of universities, Institute seminar fees are waived for faculty and graduate students at Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies schools upon acceptance of application.
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Upcoming Programs
Friday, October 5, 2018 – Friday, April 26, 2019
Renaissance Graduate Programs
This seminar will examine the material text in Europe, from the later Middle Ages through the early modern period (1300–1700). We will consider the production and circulation of manuscripts and early printed books, with a broad focus: we will range across descriptive bibliography (i.e.
Saturday, January 12, 2019
Center for Renaissance Studies Programs
Shakespeare Project of Chicago
Free and open to the public; registration recommended.
“O, why should nature build so foul a den, Unless the gods delight in tragedies?”
Thursday, January 24, 2019 – Saturday, January 26, 2019
Renaissance Graduate Programs
The Center for Renaissance Studies’ annual graduate student conference, organized and run by advanced doctoral students, has become a premier opportunity for emerging scholars to present papers, participate in discussions, and develop collaborations across the field of medieval, Renaissance, and early modern studies in Europe, the Americas, and the Mediterranean world.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Center for Renaissance Studies Programs
Shakespeare Project of Chicago
This performance will be held at Fourth Presbyterian Church
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath love’s mind of any judgement taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.
And therefore is love said to be a child
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
Friday, February 22, 2019
Premodern Studies Seminar
Once upon a time were we ever premodern?
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Milton Seminar
Acoustics, Magic, and Milton’s A Masque
Saturday, March 9, 2019
Eighteenth-Century Seminar
A Defense of Leisure Reading
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
In our age, Leonardo da Vinci is regarded as an outstanding genius, the lonely forerunner of modern science and technology, able to read directly in the great Book of Nature without the mediation of culture or literacy.
Friday, April 5, 2019
In connection with a Newberry exhibition devoted to its renowned dance collection, the Center will host a symposium focused on early modern dance and music in the book. The event will include lectures, a session with rare books, a demonstration of Baroque dance, and a performance by the Newberry Consort.
Friday, April 12, 2019
Chicago’s 18th Annual Cervantes Symposium provides scholar through the United States a forum to share and discuss emerging research in the field of Cervantes studies. The event will include a keynote lecture, eight scholarly talks and a Newberry Collection presentation.
Saturday, April 13, 2019
Renaissance Graduate Programs
Research Methods Workshop for Early-Career Graduate Students
This workshop will be open to first-year graduate students in literature and any of the humanities areas. The focus will be on approaches to Don Quixote and implications for the study of narrative in general.
Friday, April 26, 2019
Premodern Studies Seminar
European Christianity in the Age of Paper
Saturday, April 27, 2019
Renaissance Graduate Programs
Research Methods Workshop for Graduate Students and Junior Faculty
The goal of the workshop is to introduce graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and junior faculty to research methodologies involved in studying the codicology of European manuscripts - the material aspects of books made by hand between 1200 and 1500.
Thursday, May 2, 2019 – Friday, May 3, 2019
What was new in the renaissance? What were some of the catalysts for change? How did globalization affect technology in the early modern period?
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Center for Renaissance Studies Programs
Shakespeare Project of Chicago
Free and open to the public; registration recommended.
That disease
Of which all old men sicken,—avarice.
A theatrical reading by professional actors from The Shakespeare Project of Chicago, directed by Peter Garino.
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Milton Seminar
Unlearning Value: Praise, Risk, and Repetition in Paradise Lost
Monday, July 8, 2019 – Friday, July 26, 2019
Mellon Summer Institutes in Vernacular Paleography
At the Newberry Library
This three-week institute will offer intensive training in the accurate reading and transcription of handwritten Italian vernacular texts from the late medieval though the early modern periods. The instruction is intended to enable scholars in various fields of specialization to acquire the skills to work with primary sources.