The Global Renaissance

On Friday, April 1st the Center for Early Modern Studies will host a conference on “The Global Renaissance: Some New Interdisciplinary Perspectives.” The conference will be held in Memorial Union (check the Union on the day for the exact room); the conference will start at 10:45 and conclude at 5:00. You are all very welcome to come and to invite any interested undergraduate students. This conference will explore the “Global Renaissance” from a variety of perspectives and will address the following topics: the exchange of commodities and goods; imperial encounters with distant cultures; European intellectual encounters with non-European cultures; and literary representations of non-European cultures. The conference will highlight the work of three keynote speakers who have done or are doing significant work on some area of the “Global Renaissance.” The conference will conclude with a discussion panel on “The Global Renaissance: New Perspectives and New Directions for Interdisciplinary Work.”

10:45-12:00: Su Fang Ng (U of Oklahoma), "Dutch Wars and Spice Islands."

12:00-1:00: lunch break

1:00-2:15: Jyotsna Singh (Michigan State U), "The Early English Global Slave Trade in the English Imaginary, 1550-1620: Heraldry, Portraiture, and Cartography"

2:30-3:45: Neil Whitehead (UW-Madison), "Primal Anthropology and the Project of Power in the Caribbean"

3:45-4:45: Discussion panel: “The Global Renaissance: New Perspectives and New Directions for Interdisciplinary Work.” The panel will include the three keynote speakers plus Kevin Boettcher (UW-Madison) and Ricardo Court (UW-Madison)

Reception: 4:45-5:45