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Showing posts from December, 2023

Conference on sermons in manuscript 1530-1750: call for papers (pasted from GEMMS)

  Call for papers: Preachers, Hearers, Readers, and Scribes: New Approaches to Early Modern Sermons in Manuscript The collaborators on  GEMMS: Gateway to Early Modern Manuscript Sermons  invite proposals for papers on sermons in manuscript from 1530 to 1715 for a conference to be held 3-5 October 2024 at Harvard Divinity School and the Congregational Library, Cambridge and Boston, MA. Featured keynote speakers are Dr. Frank Bremer (Millersville University), Dr. David Hall (Harvard University), and Professor Ann Hughes (Keele University). We are particularly interested in presentations that make use of the GEMMS database ( https://gemmsorig.usask.ca/ ) or the types of manuscripts included in GEMMS, which focuses on sermons, sermon notes, and reports of sermons and preaching. We would welcome proposals on a wide range of topics, including (but not limited to): comparisons of preaching practices across the Atlantic world the contents or contexts of individual sermons, sets of sermon notes

Losing early modern history files

It is embarrassing to admit it but a couple of weeks ago I found that I could no longer access my most recently acquired external hard drive. Nothing I have tried to regain access has worked, including uttering sharp words to it. Losing terabytes of material - documents, drafts, photographs - is a disagreeable experience. Fortunately, I have kept DVDs, CD-Roms, memory sticks and a few external hard drives stretching back to the late-1980s. I even have a TIme portable laptop that still works from 2001. The latter has yeilded up a substantial number of files since this morning that I am going to copy to other electronic archives. But it is a tedious business repeating this process. Still it has to be done before I can go on to work on the Virginia Company of London's fall and dissolution and deal with the extraodinarily log-lasting hagiography surrounding the activities of Sir Edwin Sandys and his allies. (Fair warning has been given here.)

Today's notes on history

One or two more e-mails came today on the review of Peter Lake's new book followed by a picture posted on the Foxearth and District Local History Society Facebook page. It concerns a village I knew very well for many years. In recent times I have been involved in studying and contacting local history societies in the county of Essex. There are a very large number of these but the one at Foxearth covering a very small community and three neighbouring parishes is spectacularly successful with several thousand members. I suspect this is due to very shrewd posting and the inclusion of a wide range of photographs covering Essex and the counties of East Anglia to the north. Its appeal and vitality shows what can be done in a local setting. Unfortunately, academic departments of history have come under threat of extinction in some U.K. universities - e.g. at Northampton, the South Bank and, most recently, at Oxford Brookes. Why accountants and administrators think "history" is

Early Modern History today

An interesting day of e-mail exchanges about the North American Anglican's review of Peter Lake's new book, On Anglicanism, just published by the Cambridge University Press. I am intrigued about how news spreads across networks of historians and speculations about its author (upon which I have been informed). Apart from this, I have greatly enjoyed reading Caroline Barron's reminiscences about the History Department at Bedford College in the University of London and have been left with a vision of Penelope Corfield portraying a Playboy Club bunny girl seeking admission to the department in a skit performed by its staff to students. I shall not easily forget this. A couple of pieces by Phil Withington and Mark Kishlansky on Blair Worden passed into my download files as did two History Today articles on Puritan attitudes to Christmas in the 1640s and 1650s. But I have been having far too much fun. Back to the travails of the Virginia Company and its colony in the period from

Review of Peter Lake's new book, On Laudianism (C.U.P. 2023)

 This interesting but anonymous review can be read  on this site  .

Princeton University tribute to the late Natalie Zemon Davis

 This tribute can be read  here  . Well worth reading.

Pasted advertisement: Lectureship in Early Modern History at the University of Bristol

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  Lecturer in Early Modern History University of Bristol  - Department of History (Historical Studies) Location: Bristol Salary: £41,732 to £46,947 per annum Hours: Full Time Contract Type: Permanent Placed On: 12th December 2023 Closes: 12th January 2024 Job Ref: ACAD107268 The role The successful applicant will be expected to contribute fully to high-quality teaching and administration within the Department of History and to pursue research in their area of specialism to the highest standards in order to enhance the international research profile of the Department, the School of Humanities, and the Faculty of Arts. The successful applicant will be a specialist in any aspect of early modern history. We particularly encourage applications from scholars of global early modern history and/or from scholars whose area specialism extends the geographical range of early modern studies in the department. The successful applicant will ideally be able to start on August 1 or as soon as possible