Lots on religion:
The University of Pittsburgh’s Program in Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Pittsburgh Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies present:
JONATHAN SAWDAY
(Chair of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow)
“Calculating Engines: Minds, Bodies, Sex and Machines on the Eve of the Enlightenment”
Thursday, September 27th at 4:30 in the Adamson Wing of Baker Hall at Carnegie Mellon University
The lecture explores the fascination with the idea of creating artificial life and 'thinking machines' in the pre-enlightenment period. It concentrates on the pertinent ideas of Descartes, Hobbes, Pascal, and Leibniz, but ends by exploring the 'anti-machine' of the late seventeenth century, i.e., the malfunctioning sex machines of the notorious John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.
Sponsored by the Humanities Center at Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (for more information, see www.medren.org)
***
RUTH EVANS
(Head of Department of English Studies at the University of Stirling, Scotland)
Title TBA
Friday, September 28th 4:00 in the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning, Room 501
Professor Evans has published on Chaucer, medieval virginity, Margery Kempe, medieval origin myths, Middle English religious drama, Derrida, romance, translation theory, translation in the Middle Ages, the representation of Jews in medieval texts, and fifteenth-century courtly literature, among others.
Jointly sponsored by the Pittsburgh Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and The Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh
***
DAVID ROTHENBERG
(Department of Music, Case Western Reserve University)
"A Maiden, a Shepherdess, and a Queen: The Parisian Assumption Vespers Services and Two Thirteenth-Century Motets"
Thursday October 18th at 4:00 in room 132 of the Music Building at the University of Pittsburgh
David J. Rothenberg, Assistant Professor of Music at Case Western, is a music historian with research interests in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. His articles on topics ranging from Ars antiqua motets to compositions by Heinrich Isaac, Josquin des Prez, and Orlando di Lasso appear in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Journal of Musicology, and Musik in Bayern. Current projects include a study of Isaac's liturgical music for Emperor Maximilian I and a book about the confluence of Marian devotion and secular song in music of the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries.
***
RAMIE TARGOFF
(Department of English, Brandeis University)
"Love in the Renaissance"
Wednesday, November 14th at 4:00
The University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning, Room 501
Ramie Targoff is Associate Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies at Brandeis University. Her first book, _Common Prayer: Models of Public Devotion in Early Modern England_ (Chicago, 2001) won the prize for Best Book of the Year from the Conference on Christianity and Literature. Her second book, _John Donne, Body and Soul_, will be published by Chicago University Press in 2008. She is currently at work on a book-length study of love in the Renaissance.
Sponsored by the Pittsburgh Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
***
DEANNA SHEMEK
(Italian and Comparative Literature, UC Santa Cruz) Title TBA
Friday, November 30th at 4:00
The University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning, Room 501
Deanna Shemek is Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature and Cowell College Provost at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has authored, edited, and translated numerous books and essays, including _Ladies Errant: Wayward Women and Social Order in Early Modern Italy_ (Duke, 1998). She is currently at work on a translation of the letters of Isabella d'Este for the University of Chicago Press and a book manuscript titled "'In Continuous Expectation': Isabella d'Este's Epistolary Dominion."
Questions? Suggestions? Please contact MRST Director Jen Waldron (jwaldron@pitt.edu)
