2006 Abstracts

Albright, Andrea (University of Arizona): "Theatricality and Sacred Violence in The Duchess of Malfi"

The opening scenes of Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (1614) stage a partial collapse of crucial social categories. As the stability of social distinctions erodes, the community loses its ability to purge itself of violent urges, collapsing into a contagion of what Rene Girard would call “impure violence.” The play comes to an end when that violence is made pure: the deaths of the bloody final scene help to restore the social order that has been threatened since the play’s opening. However, the overtly theatrical elements of this final scene serve to foreground the theatricality of ritualized and restorative violence. The play thus responds to the anti-theatricality of the day by placing the Theatre at the center of social order.

Altimont, Alan J. (St. Edward's University): "Old Nedar's Daughter: Talmud, Synagogue, and A Midsummer Night's Dream"

The name of Nedar, Helena's father, derives from Hebrew words meaning "absentee" and "a vow," concepts that have both comic and serious ramifications. Nedar also alludes to the Nedarim chapters in the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud, one passage of which is a source for the comic terms of dispute and the magical transformation of lovers' perceptions. While not a Jew like Shylock, Helena is based on Synagogue, sharing with this medieval allegorical figure distinctive character traits and the essential dramatic predicament of the woman scorned. The iconography of this figure underlies Bottom's transformations into the "lovely Jew" Pyramus and an ass, and the significance of Wall, the "wittiest partition" in the play-within-the play.

Alvarez-Recio, Leticia (University of Seville (Spain)): "Anti-Spanish Prejudice in Charles I's England (1625-1649): A Vehicle to Reinforce the Government or an Instrument for Attacks against the Monarchy?"

Charles I started his reign after a long fruitless period of Anglo-Spanish negotiations for a possible marriage. His failed journey to Spain in 1623 was, in fact, celebrated by a large part of the English public opinion who explicitly opposed the wedding. But the prejudices against the Spaniards did not stop then and continued in the following years despite the fact that Charles had married a French Catholic princess who soon became another source of anxiety for English Protestants. This paper intends to analyse the anti-hispanic discourse in the first (1625-1630) and last years (1640-1649) of Charles’s reign, when this literature was especially abundant. I will study several pamphlets to show how such discourse went beyond the mere attack against Spain and could be used to praise or criticise the Stuart monarch depending on the period and circumstances.

Arioli, Kristin A. (University of Southern California/University of Missouri-Kansas City): "Jacopo Ripanda, Trajan's Column, and Artistic Fame in Renaissance Rome""

The popularity and success of the painter Jacopo Ripanda (Bolognese, fl. c1490-1520) in early 16th century Rome was intimately connected to Trajan’s Column. The column and its imagery grew in importance during the second half of the 15th century and into the 16th; nonetheless, the upper half of the column’s bands remained inaccessible. Around 1500, Ripanda achieved immediate fame by faithfully recording the entire length of the column’s surface. This paper explores the impact of this achievement on Ripanda’s subsequent success, and aims to address his status as a ‘niche’ artist, that is, an artist who both specialized in and capitalized on his association with the column and its popularity among an elite group of patrons.

Arnold, Miah (University of Houston): "The Confusion of Change: Globalization and the Comedy of Errors"

This paper uses globalization theory to analyze the way mercantilism, identity, marriage, and slavery pulsate beneath the farcical veneer of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. In situation after situation the play illustrates characters’ lives effected by nascent globalization forces: a family is torn apart on a trading mission, a trade war results in a man forced to purchase his life, well-born and long lost twin brothers blindly cross each others’ paths, and enslaved twin brothers are punished for all the ensuing confusions. This paper demonstrates how the displacement, confusion, masquerading, violence, and creativity that the characters suffer and perpetrate are linked to the changing, globalizing world they live in.

Baenziger, Ted (University of St. Thomas): "Olivier de Serre and the Silkworm: How a Gardener Changed History"

When Olivier de Serre (1539-1619) introduced the white mulberry into France, it was to feed the silkworms that would provide an entire industry to the South of France, bring about the rebirth of Lyon as a commercial center and lay the seeds for the first labor unions (the Canuts) in Europe and for the world. How could a caterpillar have such an effect?

Baker, Christopher (Armstrong Atlantic State University): "Shylock and St. Paul"

Shylock's closing statement "I am content" (4.1.394) is an ironic allusion to Paul's statement in Philippians 4: 11: "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." Despite its echo of Pauline conviction, his use of the word "content" is rooted in the original Greek word "autarches," which Paul borrowed from the Stoics whom he had debated in Athens. Shylock, in keeping with his resistance to Christianity throughout the play, here uses and subverts a famous Christian affirmation of faith by adopting a more pagan stance of self-sufficiency, rather than reliance upon Christ. Shylock's conversion will make him a Christian in name but not in fact.

Baumgarthuber, Christine (University of Arizona): "'Her wanton eyes did roll too lightly': The Anatomical Arts and the Question of Female Fluidity"

“‘Her wanton eyes did roll too lightly’: The Anatomical Arts and the Question of Female Fluidity’” sets out to explore the advent of the anatomical arts during the late-sixteenth/early-seventeenth centuries and the impact they had on contemporary views of women, particularly as exhibited in Book III of Spencer’s The Faerie Queene and Middleton and Decker’s The Roaring Girl. The paper sets out to demonstrate how the female body, a corporeal Pandora’s box, became a site from which new modes of subversion could spring (which justified the greater violence done to those bodies).

Benson, Sean (Malone College): "Shakespeare’s resurrectionary figurations: the paradigm of Romeo and Juliet"

This paper examines the use of resurrectionary images in Romeo and Juliet and Romeus and Juliet. I argue the play's basic antithesis between life and death lends itself to evocations of resurrection, the movement from death to life. The play embeds both a staged resurrection, Juliet's, and a failed one, Romeo's. I submit that resurrectionary failure in this play constitutes a paradigm for other tragedies, and provides a countervailing measure to the variety of theatrical resurrections one encounters in the comedies and romances. Such resurrectionary failure here evokes the memory of the Christian resurrection whose promised end is deferred before the this-worldliness of this tragedy with its unresurrected bodies raised high on the stage.

Bernhard, Virginia (University of St. Thomas): ""Other Armes": A Conflation of Politics, Religion, and Witchcraft in Bermuda, 1651-1655"

After the execution of Charles I in 1649 the militant Independents in Bermuda gained control of the government, and in 1651 the first witchcraft trial in the colony’s history took place. Between 1651 and 1655 ten people were accused of witchcraft, and five of them were hanged. These are the only recorded executions for witchcraft in Bermuda. For what it reveals about seventeenth-century Puritans, witchcraft, and the transatlantic shock waves generated by the English Civil War, Bermuda’s witch-hunt deserves a closer examination. One thing is clear: the turmoil of the Puritan revolution in England was deeply felt in England’s smallest colony.

Berntsen, Michael (University of Louisiana at Lafayette): "The Imposing Sense of Nothing in "King Lear""

Shakespeare's King Lear is about nothing. The word “nothing” surfaces in the play thirty-eight times. This word’s repetition causes an overbearing sense of nonbeing and negativity. King Lear gestures toward the modern, existential concept of Nihilism. The word “nothing” undergoes an electric metamorphosis in meaning and application. The ambiguous term primarily expresses the power of madness over identity and order but does not maintain a singular signification. The multiple meanings and contexts of the word “nothing” help develop Shakespeare's magnificent tragedy through its functions within the play’s actions, characterizations, and themes. The innumerable appearances of “nothing” eventually create the climax’s aggressively negative tone. The consequence is an unsettling atmosphere that suffocates the characters and audience.

Berntsen, Michael (University of Louisiana at Lafayette): "Does Love Demand Payment?"

Every time Shakespeare concentrates on a couple attempting to pursue a loving relationship, it unknowingly or willingly participate in a system that places love in an economic context. His characters, specifically males but not limited to them, expect to gain capital as a result of their partnerships. Characters' language and economic concerns or ambitions construct nearly all social and emotional relationships in "The Merchant of Venice," "Twelfth Night," "The Taming of the Shrew," "Henry IV Part One," and "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." "Romeo and Juliet" is the only play in which two characters disengage from economic ties and almost escape them to pursue a relationship solely based on love-at-first-sight and true love.

Bokelman, Doot (Nazareth College): "Bermejo's "Bishop Saint": an Abbot Dressed as a Bishop"

Bermejo's Bishop Saint's identity is disputed. Previous scholars have determined that the small panel (Art Institute, Chicago) is from the main-altar retable of Sto. Domingo de Silos, Daroca. Although Domingo was an abbot, the contract stipulated that he be shown as ""a bishop seated on a chair in pontificals of embossed gold."" His garb is similar to that of the Chicago saint. Bermejo painted Abbot Benedict in bishop's vestments because it was an accepted practice for the superior of a vere nullius dioecesis abbey to wear bishop's clothing. Benedict’s Monte Cassino was a vere nullius dioecesis, in which the abbot’s authority was equal to that of a bishop's. So, Benedict serves as a precursor for Sto. Domingo, a later Benedictine abbot.

Brothers, Lester D. (Central Missouri State University): "Contextualizing Elizabethan Chromaticism: The Hexachord Fantasias"

With the rise of the hexachord fantasia—instrumental compositions based on the six-note scale ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la as principal subject—emerges two works of especial note for the use of scales that lie outside musica recta, one by William Byrd (1543-1623), the other by John Bull (c. 1562-1628). Study of these will provide a musical context for understanding the greatest of English chromatic fantasias, by Alfonso Ferrabosco the Younger (c. 1578-1628) for instrumental consort (after 1604). It appears that chromaticism was fascinating to the queen, perhaps even encouraged by her as a keyboard performer herself. Thus, even the chromatic hexachord fantasia may have been specifically “Elizabethan” in origin.

Bunker, Nancy (Macon State College): "Revenge of the Cozened: A Legacy of Redress and Retribution"

City comedy staples, sex, money, and intrigue, reach unpredictable plot ends and highlight unconventional character action in Thomas Middleton’s No Wit, No Help Like a Woman’s (1611). My essay examines Middleton’s unique treatment of usury; he departs from typically non confrontational characters and foregrounds the usurer’s widow as the object of a client’s revenge. Exploiting the naïve, lusty, and wealthy widow’s weaknesses, this usury critique exposes fissures inherent in statutes governing inheritance law distribution.

Campbell, Catherine E. (Cottey College): "On the Banks of the Nile: Egypt in French Renaissance Theatre"

French playrights have seemed to favor Greece, Rome, Italy, or France as settings for their plays. If they wanted to set their plays in a truly exotic location, they might have chosen the Middle East for stories from times long past (expecially Biblical ones), or for more contemporary plays, that far-off, exotic, romantic place called Spain. In all probability, however, the thought of Egypt as a setting would never come to mind. Yet there are, surprisingly, two Renaissance plays set there. One, a tragedy, is Estienne Jodelle's Cleopatre captive, dating from 1552, adn the other is Gérard de Vivre's tragicomedy of 1580, Les Amours pudiques & loyales de Theseus & Dianira. In this presentation I shall discuss these two plays, remarking on how each playwright used his setting, whether to advantage or simply as a different location from the norm.

Carrington, Jill (Stephen F. Austin State U), "A Legacy to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston: Italian Renaissance Terracottas from the Collection of Edith A. and Percy S. Straus"

The fledgling Museum of Fine Arts Houston received its first major gift of European art from Edith A. and Percy S. Straus of New York in 1941. The Strauses were motivated to make Houston, where one of their sons and his family lived, the beneficiary of their art collection by desire to foster the growth of art centers elsewhere in the USA besides Boston, New York and Washington, so everyone could enjoy the fine arts. The collection consists of eighty-three works dating the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries, of which more than sixty are from the Renaissance. The present paper highlights three Italian Renaissance terra-cotta sculptures given by the Strauses which have been little studied.

Casteel, Joshua (University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop): "Labels of Skepticism"

Michel de Montaigne is typically known for his “skepticism.” This conception is ill-guided, however, from the standpoint of a presumed Cartesian/Russellian ontology of grammar involving a collapse of signifier/signified. Once availed of this ontology, Montaigne may be viewed not as a “skeptic,” but rather as a “Socratic reactionary,” most appropriately set against the type of Rationalist project epitomized in his day by the Port-Royal Logic. The manner also by which Montaigne launches his criticism of Rationalism(s) and Skepticism(s) alike befriends him to contemporary thinkers such as Wittgenstein and Derrida, and various other poststructuralist approaches to literature and theory.

Champoux, Jennifer (Boston University): "Rogier van der Weyden's "Standing Madonna" and "St. Catherine": A Wedding Gift Symbolic of the Ideal Bride"

This paper suggests that two small, separate panels by Rogier van der Weyden, "Standing Madonna" and "St. Catherine," were created as a diptych to form a personal devotional object and that the pairing of the women is a symbol of the ideal Renaissance woman. The Virgin and Catherine uniquely share four virtues: a literal marriage to Christ (spirituality), virginity (purity), wisdom, and royalty. Just as this diptych represents an ideal female bride of Christ, a similar Rogier diptych of St. George and the Virgin portrays the ideal male warrior of Christ. Catherine and George share many similarities and each served as model for their gender during the Renaissance. These two diptychs were likely commissioned as wedding gifts for a couple.

Childress, Cindy (University of Louisiana at Lafayette): "Objections of the Objects From Reported Love Speeches in Shakespeare's Comedies"

The scenario of a lover asking a friend to speak on his behalf to a beloved occurs often in Shakespeare’s comedies, usually distorting the original statement and altering the conventions of love therein, such as Ovidian to Petrarchan. I examine Olivia’s rejection of Orsino’s wooing words spoken by Viola in Twelfth Night, and Rosalind-as-Ganymede’s rejection of Orlando’s words, but not his heart, in As You Like It in terms of Bakhtin’s speech genres and Butler’s strategy whereby a subject can be interpellated into a certain role within a speech act. I explain the theorists’ views and demonstrate their usefulness in interpreting the traditions of love as comprised of ideologically constructed roles and demonstrate the ways in which these contentions manipulate and are manipulated in Shakespeare’s lines.

Chishty-Mujahid, Nadya Q. (Independent Scholar): "The Triumph of Emmanuel Chrysoloras"

The article posits that Emmanuel Chrysoloras, Renaissance humanist and the legendary founder of the fraternity Kappa Sigma, may have also been the "forefather" of modern-day Tarot. There appears to be a connection between the E-series and S-series of the Mantegna Tarot (inaccurately attributed, I believe, to Andrea Mantegna), and the Pythagorean principles of Chrysoloras. The Mantegna Tarot may have been both an instructional device employed by Chrysoloras while training his students, and may also have served as a secret device that would both incorporate his teachings and principles, while simultaneously serving as a cipher whereby his followers could preserve and pass down those teachings that were precious and significant to them.

Christensen, Ann (University of Houston): "Absent, weak, or unserviceable': The East India Company and the domestic economy in The Launching of the Mary, or The Seaman’s Honest Wife"

My essay examines a little-known verse play written on the author’s return voyage from East India in 1624. Partly a mercantilist defense of England’s East India Company and partly a fictional account of the trials of Dorotea Constance, the puritan wife of an absent seaman, The Launching of the Mary is a flawed play. Yet it offers an invaluable snapshot of early modern English empire building and its critics. Commentary typically addresses either the play’s propagandistic function or its stilted, conventional portrayal of “the honest wife.” I demonstrate that, although these two plots coexist clumsily, Walter Mountfort’s play is an important example of conflicting conceptions of globalization in the period. It represents the emerging mercantilist discourse exemplified in Thomas Mun’s 1621 treatise A Discourse of Trade, from England unto the East-Indies, which the play quotes extensively, while also dramatizing an established discourse of domesticity that responds to the human and economic costs of globalization. The play works as a hybrid city comedy to depict the impact of global trade on the household, showing women’s roles in the processes of the developing global market.

Collmer, Robert G. (Baylor University): "Donne and Bunyan: A Study in Inverted Proportionality with Dutch as Intermediary"

Donne and Bunyan, though overlapping only three years, had writings that had their first international receptions in Dutch. Their literary movements had similarities but inversely. Donne was introduced by a prominent diplomat, Constantijn Huygens, into the most sophisticated circle of the Dutch Golden Age of Literature. Over the centuries his reputation filtered down into common knowledge though retaining a degree of sophistication. Bunyan's acceptance started among the common people and the motive for the first internationizing was both pietistic and commercial through Johannes Boekholt In later centuries his reputation has risen though still retaining some plebian roots.

Cox, Catherine I. (Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi): "Dialogues of Death from Bullein to Defoe"

From William Bullein’s "Dialogue Against the Fever Pestilence" (1564) to Daniel Defoe’s "Due Preparations for the Plague" (1722), readers and audiences were urged by the force of fictionalized debate to awaken from their slumbers and meet their brutal adversary Death with reason, charity, and faith. With its philosophical roots, dramatic potential, and ability to mediate between comic and tragic perspectives, religious and secular concerns, and the learned writer and the public, the early modern plague dialogues anticipate our modern novels of societal catastrophe.

De Los Reyes, Guillermo (University of Houston): "Transgressing Illicit Genders and Sexualities in Colonial Mexico"

Since the early colonial times, there is evidence of homosexual practices in Mexico. The people who were involved in such practices were from different social classes, ethnic traditions, and sexual and gendered behaviors. The role of the cities has been pivotal for organized (homo)sexual life in Mexico. Using archival and ethnographic fieldwork with a social constructionist approach, I study the impact that space and place have had in the development of a homosexual identity in three homosexual groups from Mexico City and Puebla from colonial Mexico.

Delsigne, Jill (Rice University): ""To this End, the Bashaw I Became": The Muslim in the Spaniard in The Spanish Tragedy and Soliman and Perseda"

While many critics focus on the play within The Spanish Tragedy, few question why Thomas Kyd chooses this particular play. Kyd uses the Turkish Soliman and Perseda as a play within The Spanish Tragedy to show that though Spain may claim purity of blood and to be a Western, civilized, Catholic empire, they really have an Eastern, barbaric, Islamic past and influence. Kyd collapses the two empires together, finding the negative stereotypes of Moors and Turks in the Spanish, and, with surprising self-criticism, he subtly implicates the English lack of limpieza de sangre (and of moral character) as well.

Dubrow, Heather (University of Wisconsin-Madison): "The Materialist Turn: Towards a Redefinition of Early Modern Lyric"

Often neglected by students of lyric, the allusions to it embedded in myth and trope provide intriguing evidence of how the early modern period saw that mode-- and no trope is more revealing than the frequent allusions to verse in terms of versus or turning. In the Jacobean period in particular, the term "turn" was frequently associated with lathe work. Thus lyric was at once linked to the craftiness also implied by turning and the craft of material and artisanal enterprises. Recognizing this link alerts us to cognate connections between stanzas and columns and to how and why the mode often associated with the ephemeral and immaterial was also represented as a physical product.

Eskew, Doug (University of Texas at Austin): "Anatomy of a Footnote: the Double Location of Coriolanus 5.6"

The final scene of Shakespeare's _Coriolanus_ seems to indicate that its characters stand in two locations at once, Antium and Corioles. Recent editors claim that Shakespeare began writing the scene as if it were in Antium, but when he came upon the "irresistible" phrase, "Coriolanus in Corioles," he was unable to withstand his own poetic genius and thus confused the scene's place. My paper proposes a less fanciful explanation, suggesting a connection between the play's confusion over where it should end and the character Coriolanus' confusion over where he should end. More generally, my paper investigates the encounter between literary analysis, editorial heuristics, and the authority of the scholarly footnote.

Etheridge, Charles (Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi): "The Queens' Rhetoricians: Juan Luis Vives and Roger Ascham"

Vives was known for 'The Instruction of a Christen Woman' and 'De tradendis disciplinis,' and Ascham for 'The Scholemaster' and 'Toxophilus.' Both explore issues of gender in rhetoric, especially concerning what texts are 'appropriate' for women. Vives explores the question of whether or not, when, and how a woman mights speak; Ascham provides examples of engaging conversation with women speaking well. This essay will examine the rhetorics of Vives and Ascham, focusing on their attention to issues of gender and rhetoric.

Faust, Joan (Southeastern Louisiana University): ""Upon Appleton House": To, About, and With My Lord Fairfax"

The obvious capturing and reflecting of images in “Appleton House” connects the poem to the visual arts and helps to justify Marvell’s purpose in writing and dedicating it to Fairfax. Not content to serve strictly as employee of the Fairfax family, Marvell creates both the reflective surface and underlying depths of “Appleton” to demonstrate his understanding of and value to the Fairfax circle. Designing a tableau that is both canvas and mirror, Marvell creates a place for himself both as painter and subject, succeeding in not only inserting himself into the Fairfax family portrait but also empowering himself as its artist.

Feldman, Denise (St. John's University, Doctoral student; Berkeley College, Professor of English): "By those rich Chaines: How Pressures of Class and Race Unsettle Female Solidarity in Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaerum"

Published in 1611, Amelia Lanyer’s poem, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, is marked by a strikingly bold and radical foregrounding of women. The society of women depicted in Lanyer’s poem has received much critical attention. However, while Lanyer’s work certainly does foreground and celebrate a community of women, it by no means presents an uncomplicated view of female solidarity. Lanyer’s poem ostensibly reaffirms and praises the aristocratic women, but that affirmation is continually subverted by a subtext that critiques social hierarchies, promotes a “leveling” Christian radicalism, and has an obvious and undeniable goal of self-promotion.

Flansburg, Margaret (University of Central Oklahoma): "Simone Martini's and Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Paintings for Sant'Agostino: Augustinian Art under The Nove"

This paper will examine the Sienese mendicant orders’ competition for position in the life of the commune under the Nine, and the intent of the commissions in the church of Sant’Agostino to communicate the Augustinians’ religious identity and value to the city. The altarpiece of Beato Agostino Novello of c. 1320 by Simone Martini shows the Sienese scholarly ecclesiastic and spiritual leader whose achievements including posthumous miracles were rendered in behalf of the citizens of Siena. The Ambrogio Lorenzetti Maestà fresco of c. 1338, located in the chapter room of the church, demonstrated the special guidance of the deliberations of the Augustinians by the Virgin, saints of the order, and local civic patrons.

Fors, Nils Olov (Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi): "Every Word a King"

King Lear is a case study of how a human being is undone by language and how the theatricality of life affects an individual who has become a character. Lear brings about his own destruction by deconstructing the very order upon which his existence depends; that order is not the order of the world, but rather the “order of the word,” or language. King Lear reveals the arbitrary nature of life and language by showing how human beings and words are by definition meaningless. Lear has become more king than man, and his inability to separate rhetoric and reality constitutes a deconstruction of the very order on which his personal and public identity depends. King Lear, then, should be read as a self-defeating search for the language that will give us meaning; or rather the meaning that makes order—linguistic or societal—possible. When Lear steps down from the throne he becomes an actor without role or plot, a word without meaning, a signifier without the signified. Lear is every word a king—he lives by the word and dies by the word.

Frost, Kate Gartner (University of Texas at Austin): "Jonson's "To Penshurst" and the Year 1605"

This paper will present a case for a date of Jonson’s poem as early as 1605, responding to the Stuart accession to the English throne, to the ambitions of the House of Sidney, and to the poet’s suspected involvement in the Gunpowder Plot. “To Penhurst” ratifies James’s as defender of the Church and unifier of the two kingdoms, providing an iconography of David as establishing the Ark in Jerusalem and Solomon as builder of the Temple which would house it. Sir Robert Sidney’s goal was to shore up his family’s traditional proNetherlands/antiSpain position, which set him on a course of personal aggrandizement at court and enhancement of his Penshurst estate. He was created Baron Sidney of Penshurst in 1603 and Lord Lisle in 1605. Jonson’s conception, if not actual composition, of Penshurst as type of the British Church was possible in 1605, when his loyalties were under serious scrutiny.

Fulton, Christopher (University of Louisville): "Antique and Life Models in Early Renaissance Drawing"

This lecture examines the relationship between antique and life models in quattrocento drawing practice. In this period, the “rediscovery” of classical antiquity coincided with the first widespread use of studio assistants as models, setting up a dynamic interplay between these two sources and leading to a method in which life models were arranged in classical poses. Personal and professional relationships within artistic workshops encouraged the synthesis of these two sources, and promoted a sensitive treatment of youthful male figures.

Goetz, Julie (Southeast Missouri State University): "Race as an Identity: The Question of Race in Othello"

The issue of race in Shakespeare’s play Othello has been examined in almost every way imaginable. Before the 1970’s the issue of race was downplayed, even ignored. Now race has become an important issue in the text. The problem facing critics today is that we are unable to separate ourselves from our own culture and society to understand what this meant in Shakespeare’s early modern England. We are unable to see what Othello being black meant, if anything, to Shakespeare and his audience. By using a cultural studies approach, I am going to discuss how Shakespeare’s culture and society defined/treated race. I will also examine the issue of race as a seventeenth century phenomenon, discussing how this impacts Othello’s representation.

Harris, Mitchell M. (University of Texas at Austin): "Light from Above: Radical Augustinianism and John Milton's Ethics of Inner Light"

This essay argues that John Milton was consistently informed by an ethics of inner light, which is largely visible in key moments in his late poetry. By examining this ethics in relation to his radical interpretation of Augustinian theology, one can better appreciate how Milton appears as a Quietist to some scholars, a radical militant to others, and both a Quietist and militant to others yet, because the ethics of inner light is situational—that is, it calls for the discernment of particular courses of action in specific situations without an existential a priori vision of how one should act in theory.

Hernandez, Jr., Nicolas (Russell Sage College): "The Proto-convento in Huejotzingo and the Early Labors of the Franciscans in Nueva España"

The evangelization of Nueva España led by the Franciscans in Nueva España manifests itself in the Iglesia and Convento of San Miguel de Huejotzingo, State of Puebla. Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros, OFM, primate of Spain, and Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, OFM, first bishop of the archdiocese of Mexico were well versed in the writings of Erasmus and More. Zumárraga welcomed the twelve friars led by Fr. Juan de Valencia, sent from Spain to create a New Jerusalem. In Huejotzingo, the elements of evangelization resulted in a workable paradigm: open chapel, atrial cross, posa chapels, the replica of the Porciúncula, church proper, cloister, refectory, etc., all point to the greater service of God and man. Spiritual fortification is symbolized through the allegorical iconography of the City of God.

Herrada, Jessie (Texas State University-San Marcos): "Peevish Imperfections: Parthenia's Gender Slippage in Philip Sidney's *Arcadia*"

My paper examines Parthenia and Argalus as an illustration of perfect love for early modern and contemporary critical readers, while contemplating its role as a warning to early modern women. Though it is tempting to read Parthenia and Argalus’s story as just an example of perfect love, to do so would be to overlook the darker elements playing into their situation. Bi-Qi Beatrice Lei aptly writes, “To read [Arcadia] as a straightforward legend of good women is undoubtedly reductive, if not incorrect” (26). I will explore Parthenia’s character beyond the image of a simple “good woman” and show her purpose in the narrative is quite complex.

Herron, Thomas (East Carolina University): ""A marchandise wherof ther is no sale": Raleigh's "Oceans Love to Scynthia" as colonial text"

One of the longest and most significant of Sir Walter Raleigh’s poems, “Oceans Love to Scynthia,” has generally been read as the courtier’s anguished plea to the Queen following his disgrace during the Throckmorton fiasco. Yet one concrete result of the scandal was litigation against and suspension of Raleigh’s extremely lucrative plantation activity in Ireland. This suggests a colonial dimension to the poem which can, in turn, be found in figurative language centered on images of landscape and labor. Understanding the profound material basis of this poem broadens the scope of colonialist treatments of Raleigh to include his poetry as well as his prose, and to include Ireland as well as the New World. Raleigh’s poetry notifies the Queen that while his disgrace continues her love will receive a very poor return indeed on its investment.

Hillar, Marian (Center for Philosophy and Socinian Studies): "Freedom of Conscience and Michael Servetus: The Beginning of Change of the Social Paradigm"

This paper traces the development of the ideas about freedom of conscience by analysis of the evolution of the moral social paradigm from antiquity to modern times. Michael Servetus (1511-1553) is a central figure in history who, through his writings and personal sacrifice, initiated the process of recovering the social humanistic paradigm lost since the fourth century leading eventually to the development of the principles in American democracy.

Howard, W. Scott (University of Denver): "A Silent Tempest: Screening Shakespeare in 1908"

Percy Stowe’s 1908 silent film, “The Tempest,” counters the emerging consensus—-following Thomas Campbell’s 1838 commentary—-about Prospero as a benevolent magician and _The Tempest_ as Shakespeare’s glorious farewell to the stage. Whereas Shakespeare’s text grants Caliban the promise of redemption, Stowe’s film shuns Caliban as an irremediable savage and portrays Prospero as a complex, erratic, and contradictory figure capable of fits of rage. Stowe’s brave new interpretation thus arguably screens some early-twentieth century cultural anxieties over contemporary challenges to England’s imperialistic ventures, thereby offering a glimpse (perhaps) of the “silent tempest” that has become central to recent post-colonialist readings.

Human, Elizabeth (St. Louis University): "That Female (?) Wanton Boy': Refunctioning Desire in Dido, Queen of Carthage"

In Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage, the opening scene of Jupiter dandling Ganymede on his knee becomes the organizing principle of the play. In this scene, Marlowe fuses same-sex desire with the transmission of empire; the reiterations of this scene throughout the play reconfigure our understanding of the relationship between desire and empire. Where Virgil’s Aeneid suggested that desire was opposed to the pursuit of empire, Marlowe’s Dido upends the proposition, making empire dependent on same-sex desire. Marlowe maintains the outlines of the Virgilian epic – Dido’s intrusion into the masculine world still threatens the political order – but the nature of that threat is radically reconfigured.

Hunter McGowin, Emily (Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University): "Hanserd Knollys and "Mystical Babylon Unveiled" in Post-Restoration England"

Early English Baptist, Hanserd Knollys, penned the robust and inflammatory treatise “Mystical Babylon Unveiled” following the so-called Popish Plot of 1678, in which Jesuit priests were falsely implicated for the attempted murder of Charles II. This treatise appears to offer a significant challenge to Christopher Hall’s thesis that by the 1660s, the significance of the apocalyptic “Antichrist” theme had seen rapid and widespread dissolution in post-Restoration England. Despite its consequence, however, recent publications on Knollys’ eschatological works retain a narrow focus and give little attention to this and similar tracts on the New Testament Apocalypse. In response, this paper will offer an in-depth treatment of Knollys’ “Mystical Babylon Unveiled,” within its political, religious, and theological context, along with an evaluation of Knollys’ interpretive approach. Also, a contemporary English edition of the work will be offered.

Irish, Bradley (U of Texas at Austin): "Scholarship, Identity, and the Earl of Essex"

Though the Earl of Essex has been traditionally considered in the dual terms of soldier and favorite, historians in the last decade have emphasized his considerable intellectual seriousness. Essex’s relationship to contemporary scholarship, it is increasingly apparent, played a central role in the larger construction of his public self. This paper argues that scholarship connected to Essex—such as Sir Henry Savile’s 1591 translation of Tacitus and Sir John Hayward’s The first part of the life and raigne of King Henrie the IIII —constructs a localized, intellectual identity in a manner that reproduces the strategies by which Essex fashioned his political identity at Court.

Jackson, Jeffrey E. (Rice University): "We Call them Priests at Venice: Catholics and Turks in Philip Massinger's _The Renegado_"

Studies of Philip Massinger’s The Renegado have seen the play’s complimentary portrayal of Catholics as either a gesture of ecumenical unity against a Muslim foe, or they interpret the play’s various “Turks” as metaphorical stand-ins for Catholics, which register contemporary British conflict with Europe. I contend that Massinger offers something more complex: The Renegado projects onto its Muslim characters the negative qualities conventionally ascribed to Catholics. Rejecting the view that the Muslim figures simply represent Catholicism, my reading accords with seventeenth-century conceptions of the Levantine region stressing its hybridity, depicting how the Catholic and the Turk seemed complexly intertwined.

Jones, Mark (Trinity Christian College): "The Artificial Jew of Malta"

Stephen Greenblatt has observed that the Marlovian protagonist typically embodies a kind of "repetition compulsion" whereby he "repeats himself in order to continue to be that same character on the stage." What is curious about Barabas, the Jew of Malta, however, is that the "self" he is most at pains to repeat—the dramatic effort that is most necessary to the subversive work he carries out on the island—is the enactment of a medieval anti-Semitic stereotype. Although Barabas is a protean character who takes on a number of roles in the play, the part at which he proves most adept and which most effectively confounds everyone—other characters in the play, members of the audience, and critics alike—is that of the stereotypical Jew.

Kendrick, Susan (Emporia State University): ""Begot by Mars": Elizabeth I and the Image of Chastity Militant in Thomas Blenerhasset's "The Revelation of the True Minerva""

Thomas Blenerhasset's "Revelation of the True Minerva" employs the device of divine election as Elizabeth Tudor is chosen to replace the goddess. This comparison between Goddess and Queen brings about some interesting parallels, even as it reveals the patriarchal anxiety over a female ruler. Elizabeth as “begot by Mars” would have undoubtedly brought her father Henry VIII to mind; a mother figure is conspicuously absent from the poem. Minerva was the child of Zeus alone; she sprang from his head, fully grown and in armor, an image of militant chastity. Blenerhasset designs the image of Elizabeth as Minerva to reinforce her right and ability to rule, particularly since it emphasized her relationship to Henry VIII.

Klawitter, George (St. Edward's University): "Marvell's "Garden" and the Myth of Narcissus"

Although Lynn Enterline has looked intently at Marvell’s “Garden” Narcissus, her focus is on modern critical theory and what it makes of this quaint and puzzling poem. While such readings are enriching, they do little to help us understand Marvell’s purpose because they do not examine the literary foundations for the poem nor the way in which the poet adapted them for his own poetic goals. It is like examining a Mayan sport using the language of modern basketball. So we start with what Marvell had to work from, and what he had basically was Ovid’s Narcissus, that is, a single forlorn young man in a secluded garden with a pool. Society becomes “rude” for Marvell, a fading nightmare to the “delicious solitude” his narrator seeks. Poor little Narcissus pursued by unwanted women, and Marvell’s poor narrator torn by whatever demons surfaced from the hurly-burly of the Civil Wars, can do little but congratulate themselves for finding some seclusion by which they might retemper their souls.

Kosec, Justin Michael (Creighton University): "Exploratory National Representation and the Mobile Ethnic Instabilities in Thomas Heywood's The Fair Maid of the West, Part I"

In combining Jean Howard’s reading of Bess as representative of a cluster of English identities in The Fair Maid of the West, Part I, with Walter Mignolo’s notion of the separation of geographic and ethnic centers in The Darker Side of the Renaissance, this essay explores how Bess’s national identification and sexuality threaten to undermine the stability of the English expansion in the Age of Exploration.

Lambert, James (University of Arizona): "Nick Bottom: Pyramus, Thisbe, Lion, Antitheatricalist, Ass"

In my presentation, I will argue for a reading of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a direct response to many of the criticisms leveled against the stage in the late sixteenth century. I do this by presenting Bottom, who I consider to be the center of the play, as both the antitheatrical prejudice and the defense against it; he represents, as both subject and object, the loud accusations made against the theater in Early Modern England as well as the much quieter defenses for the theater. In several close readings of Bottom’s speeches, I will demonstrate his allegorical function in Elizabethan society.

Land, Norman (University of Missouri-Columbia): "Michelangelo as a Murderer"

The composite image of the Italian Renaissance artist, as he is depicted in the writings of his contemporaries, is generally an exalted one. As Renaissance authors also recognized, artists often have a dark side. This paper is concerned with this dark side of the image of the artist, and particularly with the accusation, made about three quarters of a century after Michelangelo’s death, that he murdered one of his models. An anti-Catholic Englishman and Protestant convert named Richard Carpenter in his Experience, Historie, and Divinitie (London, 1642) is responsible for first making the accusation in print.

Logan-Bourbois, Julia (Autry National Center): "Painted Soldiers: An Examination of Armor in 16th Century Portraiture"

Armor appeared frequently in portraiture of the 16th century. Portraits of armor enabled the subjects' image to be immortalized and dispersed throughout Western Europe. Additionally portraits lend to establishing provenance, dating armor, indicate the original appearance of armor, and display the owner's artistic refinement and social position. Inherently utilitarian, the significances of the armor rendered shall be explored within an art-historical context providing insights in to the motivations for the commissions of armor, the portraits, and the sitters. These qualities are particularly evident in the portraits of Portrait of Alfonso I d'Este by Dosso and Battista Dossi, Portrait of Alfonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, in Armor with Page by Titian, Portrait of Francesco Maria I della Rovere by Titian, Henry II on Horseback by the Atelier of Francois Clouet, the portrait of Duke Cosimo I de Medici in Armor by Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Emperor Charles V at the Battle of Mühlberg by Titian, and the portraits of Philip II in Armor by Titian and that by Sir Anthony More.

Lomanno, Matthew P. (University of St. Thomas): "Suarez in the History of Political Philosophy"

The standard history of political philosophy gives Locke the primary place of honor regarding the beginning of the liberal tradition in the West. Examining the political writings of Francisco Suarez, however, shows why this history in incomplete. Suarez held that rulers derive political authority from both God and the political community, thereby rejecting the divine right of monarchs. He also held that the political community may dissent to an unjust ruler (granting the right of rebellion) and that democracy is the best form of government (contrary to Aristotle and Aquinas). Thus, understanding Suarez is essential to a fuller history of political philosophy.

Lovett Barrick, Jeannie (Texas Tech University): "A Tale of Two Byrds: The English Anthems and Latin Motets"

The sacred choral music of William Byrd was influenced by the theological, political, and social turmoil of the English reformation. Byrd, a devout Catholic, wrote anthems appropriate for the newly established Church of England, yet continued to write Latin motets that reflected his personal beliefs at a time when the practice of Catholicism was considered treasonous. This paper compares Byrd’s English anthems and Latin motets in the context of the English reformation. The comparison focuses on methods of text painting used in each genre and explores how mandates for a syllabic and homophonic compositional style in the Church of England affected Byrd’s overall compositional style.

Marchante Aragon, Lucas (The College of William and Mary): "The Indian Bride: Discourse and Ritual of Sexual Domination in the Hapsburg Empire"

The cultural production that supported the ideals of the Spanish Hapsburg Empire was more often than not expressed by means of a symbolic discourse of sexual domination. The conquered Other’s iconic cultural products were engendered as female objects to be appropriated, penetrated and inseminated by the symbols of imperial virtue (the set of masculine and chivalric values upon which the empire itself rested). This ritual of sexual domination served as a metaphor for the subjugation of a prestigious cultural other without erasing it. As a case study I will use an episode of Alonso de Ercilla’s Araucana (the one in which the valorous chieftain Caupolican is emblematically executed by impalement) along with the Renaissance urban and architectural projects that changed, but not erased, the Muslim face of cities such as Cordova, Seville, and Granada.

Matthews, Steven (University of Minnesota, Duluth): "The Myth of Protestant Biblical Interpretation in the Lutheran Reformation"

In textbooks as well as in an unfortunate amount of scholarly writing much is made of the uniqueness or novelty of the Lutheran approach to the scriptures as a key feature, if not the central feature, of the Reformation. This new reading has been distilled into principles such as “the sola scriptura principle,” or the “historical/literal sense of the scriptures.” However, what dominates Reformation era Lutheran biblical interpretation is that which Jean Leclercq has identified as one of the key features of medieval monastic culture -- the primacy of a unified, and unscholastic, reading of scripture. Rather than a novelty, early Lutheran readings of scripture represent a revisiting of the old monastic/scholastic divide.

Mayernik, David (University of Notre Dame): "Renaissance And Renaissances: Contemporary Classical Architecture and the Renaissance"

This paper will explore the ways in which Renaissance art and architecture provide compelling models for contemporary practice, and the ways in which the practice of classical design today can inform insights into the art and architecture of the Renaissance; it will, Janus-like, look backwards and forwards at the ways the past and the present can exist in fruitful exchange. what this paper will show is that there is a nascent consciousness of the unique value of the Renaissance for architects and artists today, and that those architects and artists can, conversely, contribute to our historical understanding of the practice of painting, sculpture, and architecture.

Mayus, Melissa (St. Louis University): "Taking the Audience Prisoner: Tamburlaine and English Captivity Narratives"

It is revealing to examine Marlowe’s Tamburlaine Parts I and II in light of some of the captivity narratives that were printed between 1589 and 1595, telling stories of English prisoners who were taken into slavery in North Africa. This paper focuses most closely on the narrative of Richard Hasleton, which recounts his captivity between 1582 and 1592. It argues that Tamburlaine and Hasleton’s captivity narrative follow the same trajectory, first pulling their English and Christian audiences into identifying with Africans and Muslims, and then backing up and reaffirming the cultural differences and prejudices with which the audience began.

McCord, Sheri (St. Louis University): "Leading Zenocrate: Militarizing Women and Establishing Empire in I Tamburlaine"

In establishing Zenocrate’s role as a militarized subject, I will discuss Marlowe's construction of femininity and masculinity in I Tamburlaine to show how gender roles aid in the establishment of Tamburlaine's empire. Proceeding from Cynthia Enloe's contention that "the militarization of women has been necessary for the militarization of men," I also argue that Zenocrate becomes the guiding force for Tamburlaine’s exploits and regime building in Marlowe's I Tamburlaine. When she is fully assimilated into Tamburlaine’s worldview, or militarized, Zenocrate functions not only as an object of desire, but as a representation of the empire that Tamburlaine will eventually build in both their names.

McDowell, Sean (Seattle University): "Lived Experience in Marvell's "A Dialogue between the Soul and Body""

Most scholars writing about Marvell’s “A Dialogue between the Soul and Body” argue that the dialogue ends in a stalemate. My essay, however, contends that the body’s final speech offers a trenchant commentary on the soul’s culpability in faults ascribed in Neoplatonic discourse to the body. By alluding to the workings of specific psychological processes, the poem establishes that the soul is both responsible for the torments it and the body must endure and eager to evade blame. It thus undercuts the naïve belief that the soul stands apart from the body like a monarch refusing to dirty its hands.

McGowan-Doyle, Valerie (Lorain County Community College/University College Cork): "Elizabeth's Role in Elizabethan Imperialism in Ireland"

Studies of Elizabethan imperialism in Ireland have addressed a number of elements central to its evolution such as the roles of cultural identity and representation and the influence of various viceroys and factions in determining administrative and military policy. These component strands, though, have yet to be brought together for consideration of their junction at the very apex of imperial authority in Elizabeth herself. This paper addresses Elizabeth’s perceptions of Ireland and its conquest and her influence on colonial policy and practice. It argues that assessments of Elizabethan imperialism in Ireland must re-consider Elizabeth not as one whose name as monarch was merely lent to its development in this era, but as one who played a fundamental role in its key episodes.

McKinney, Timothy R. (Baylor University): "Musical Sins in Orlando di Lasso's Penitential Psalms"

Lasso’s settings of the seven Penitential Psalms are renowned for the vividness of his musical illustration of the texts, which are unified by frequent pleas for deliverance from sin. The current paper uncovers instances in which Lasso breaks a compositional rule or convention in order to represent humanity’s transgressions against God’s rules. Some of these are quite local and easily understood in the immediate context, while others are more subtle and may only be understood in the larger context of the passage or composition as a whole. To the former belong the use of forbidden or dissonant melodic or harmonic intervals, while to the latter belong cadential or melodic departures from the mode of the work as a whole.

Murray, Kristi (Southeast Missouri State University): "A Study of King Lear and All Its Nothings: Elements of Nihilism in Shakespeare's King Lear"

It is my contention that the rejection of the material and the political- as well as other practices commonly utilized by nihilists- leads to the rise and eventual fall of both Lear and Cordelia. I will explain how King Lear’s portrayals and uses of perception, language, and ceremony adhere to the basic components of nihilism as first explained by Friedrich Nietzsche and then elaborated upon by other nihilists such as Martin Heidegger. I also intend to show how both the deaths of Cordelia and Lear purposely occur after they are enlightened, and that after enlightenment, the pragmatic consequence is death. This is because one would no longer be able to remain a player in the system he/she has so justifiably rebelled against once he/she has seen. For Lear or Cordelia to have lived and ruled would have betrayed their newfound knowledge and eventually have made them less admirable and astute as characters.

Narveson, Kate (Luther College): "Donne's "Canonization" and the Trope of Poetic Immortality"

This paper argues that when a writer’s conception of his or her literary endeavor intersected with Christian ideas of time, the trope of literary immortality became the site of tensions between temporal and eternal ambitions and between two conceptions of the literary text, as time-bound object and as self-existent form bearing the author’s expression to future generations. As a whole, early modern thought anchored the trope in a concrete sense of time and literary production. After surveying a range of poems, I show that Donne does not take a stand on the nature of literary immortality but rather takes wry advantage of the ambiguities created by these tensions.

Nydam, Arlen (University of Texas at Austin): "Sidney's Catholic Semiotic"

While Philip and Mary frequently borrow from previous Protestant versions of the Psalms, several overt rejections of and oppositions to Calvinistic readings suggest that while not Catholic in outward religion, these poets manifest an unmistakably Catholic way of thinking. Although the Sidney Psalms, where they differ from other Protestant versions, stress seeing over hearing, the visible over the invisible, and exterior ritualism over interior spirituality, the importance of these differences moves beyond the aesthetic. In this paper I analyze these selected passages in light of Philip Sidney’s discussion of language in the Defence of Poesie. Here I posit that in the authors of the Sidney Psalms participate in a "Catholic semiotic."

Oakes, Margaret J. (Furman University): "Entering Upon That One Pathâ: Baconâs Knightly Quest for Knowledge"

Far from the “close, naked, and natural” style extolled by Bishop Thomas Sprat as the conduit of clear scientific prose, Francis Bacon’s writing is obviously dependent on extended metaphors and tropes to describe his scientific visions. Bacon uses the literary trope of the quest to provide an intellectual, political, and even religious justification for the grand schemes and procedures in The Great Instauration and The New Organon. Bacon is able to pull from an older mode of thinking about intellectual and social development and mimic that process as he argues for a new application of it to scientific rather than spiritual or military development. This trope enables Bacon to position himself literally as the champion of the New Science.

Ohan, Christopher (Southern Illinois University Carbondale): "A Christian Remedy in a Climate of Fear: Francesco Bernadone, the War with Perugia, and Conversion"

The early sources for the life of Francis of Assisi provide the portrait of a young man undergoing a crisis in values. His father instilled the concept that material possessions were the measure of existence. Around the age of 20 Francis began a conversion whereby he rejected the values of his youth and status, and adopted what he considered the virtuous life prescribed in the Gospels. In the climate of fear that gripped much of Italy in the early thirteenth century, Francis found security by returning to the roots of the very faith that his society claimed to revere. This paper will examine that society as revealed in the early Franciscan accounts and argue that the conversion experience brought about a reformation of values that did nothing to combat the climate of fear but rather created a paradigm shift that transcended it.

Owens, Judith (University of Manitoba): "Spenser's Irish Rivers"

The history of Ireland’s waterways is inextricably bound up with the customs and conflicts of human settlement. As Aidan O’Sullivan’s archaeological evidence confirms, the ownership and management of rivers and their resources were highly politicized matters. Such contests take on an extra charge in the context of the Irish / Anglo land-title, and military, conflicts of the late sixteenth century. State papers for this period are peppered with the names of rivers and streams that demarcate contested ground. I will argue that the Irish rivers of Spenser’s poetry both register and mediate the political-historical and material pressures shaping his experience of Ireland.

Parrish, Paul A. (Texas A&M University): "Front Matters: Editions of Crashaw in the Seventeenth Century"

The extra-textual material (“paratexts”) in the editions of Crashaw’s poetry printed in the seventeenth century yields a remarkably consistent view of Crashaw’s accomplishments. From the publication of Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber in 1634 to the 1690 re-issue of Steps to the Temple, we are asked to read Crashaw as a confident and distinctive author of a particular kind of sacred verse, one that places his stature as a “Divine Poet” far above that of others who are merely “arrogant pretenders to Poetry.” If contemporary readers wish to search for the origin of Crashaw’s reputation as one of the most unconventional and un-English of early modern English poets, they should begin with the volumes printed in the seventeenth century.

Pasini, Joy (Rice University): "Imperial Encounters: The Ottoman Empire in Early Modern English Drama"

This paper investigates the significance of Islam and the Ottoman Empire to the English in two Stuart Era dramas, Robert Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk and Philip Massinger’s The Renegado. I argue that these plays sometimes conflate and sometimes separate material and spiritual powers of the Ottomans and the English in order to achieve a tenuous English ascendancy in the face of the real power and attraction of Islam and the Ottoman Empire. I will conclude by positing how this recognition and dramatic assertion of Islamic and Ottoman imperial power represents an English consciousness of the concerns of empire that both precedes and prefigures English empire.

Paul, Ryan (University of Arizona): "Moll Cutpurse and the Disruption of the Sexual Economy"

In this paper, I explore the sexual economy of London as presented in Middleton and Dekker's "The Roaring Girl." This economy is built on a system of alliances and transactions of wealth and property, a system which is easily threatened by deviation and desire. Moll functions as a necessary repository for dangerous and threatening urges; she provides a space onto which unbounded eroticism and female agency may be displaced in order for the traditional gendered sexual economy to proceed without impediment. She remains, at the play's close, unpunished despite her many transgressions, because of her role as a safety valve, a willing Roaring Girl to experience that which those in the audience could not allow themselves to enjoy.

Powers, Katherine (California State University, Fullerton): "Playing the Tambourine during the Renaissance: A New Look at Iconographical Evidence"

Relying on newly-examined images in liturgical and poetic manuscripts as well as newly re-examined paintings, I will describe the performance of the tambourine in sacred music during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Manuscripts studied include an early fifteenth-century Florentine copy of Dante's Divine Comedy and an early fifteenth-century Florentine gradual; also examined are angel musicians in Madonna paintings by Pordenone and Romanino.

Rampone, Jr., William Reginald (South Carolina State University): "Disciplining Desire in Measure for Measure"

Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is a play-text consumed with the control and regulation of sexual behavior through the use of civil and religious authority. The play opens with the departure of Duke Vincentio as he places in charge Angelo, whose blood, we are told by Lucio, is " very snow broth." While many critics have argued that this is largely an allegorial text in which the figure of the Duke Vincentio functions as a godlike figure whose job is to test the integrity of the citizens of Vienna, other critics suggest that the play largely concerns the dissemination of governmental power as it attempts to control its subjects' sexuality. I wish to suggest that this play is about the use of power to regulate sexuality by legal control.

Razovsky, Helaine (Northwestern State University of Louisiana): "What's in a Title; Or, Constructing a Sub-Genre of Conduct Books"

This paper outlines the delineation of characteristics for a sub-genre of conduct literature labeled “spiritual conduct books.” Although the texts that I have identified as fitting as into this sub-genre are primarily English Protestant books and pamphlets from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the characteristics can also be used to identify books and pamphlets from other periods and nations that fit into this sub-genre. The characteristics discussed include title, purpose, audience, content, and structure. All spiritual conduct books are practical; some authors present them as “practical divinity,” in contrast to doctrinal speculation or controversy. A large number of books are explicitly presented as practical guides to every aspect of life.

Rice, Allen (University of Central Oklahoma): "Milton the Uncertain Prophet"

According to Seventeenth Century definitions, Milton functions as an "Ordinary" Prophet who uses traditional scholarship as he composes Paradise Lost, but he experiences some of the mystical phenomenon associated with “Extraordinary” Prophecy. Paradoxically, the four prologues reveal that Milton claims more and more power for the mystical Muse who inspires him (suggesting Extraordinary Prophecy) but he claims less and less authorial certainty (suggesting Ordinary Prophecy). His right foot is planted in Ordinary Prophecy, but part of his left foot may be into the mystical, miraculous world of Extraordinary Prophecy. But the room is dark, and Milton cannot see for sure. He is uncertain. The reader must decide, as Andrew Marvell did.

Ronan, Clifford (Texas State University): "The Aqueous and Annihilated in the Marlowe-Shakespeare Relationship"

Seldom if ever has the inventory of Shakespeare’s debt to Marlowe included the liquidity images in *Doctor Faustus*, which appear have influenced bleak passages in Shakespeare’s plays beginning with *Comedy of Errors* and *Richard II*. Even where statements of disintegration and annihilation emerge with little or no aqueous imagery in *Measure for Measure* and many other of the author’s works, there can be felt the moderate influence of Lucretian Epicureanism as a counterbalance to Shakespeare’s correspondingly nuanced sympathy for Senecan Stoicism.

Rouland, Roger (Baylor University): "Bringing to Light the Just Term: Edmund Spenser’s Art of Definition"

AS TIME IN HER IUST TERME THE TRUTH TO LIGHT SHOULD BRING— The Faerie Queene, I.ix.5.5-9 This paper will explore Edmund Spenser’s process of naming and how, for Spenser, naming—or the process of seeking the proper or just “term”—serves as a metaphor for the quest to understand one’s own heritage, and vice-versa. That is, many of the key figures in Faerie Queene—like terms separated from the sacred origins of a language which Spenser strives to recreate—are orphaned from their true past and await a time when their “the truth to light should bring.” In sum, this paper will shed light on Spenser’s art of definition and the meanings of particular liminal words.

Roy, Kelly (Southeast Missouri State University): "Justified Trickery: The Marriages of Rosalind and Helena"

Employing the theory of agency and lovesickness, this paper examines feminine erotic identity and role in conjunction with Helena and Rosalind. At that base of this argument is Samuel Bufford’s “Discourse on Unequal Marriages,” which serves as a cultural guide for evaluating Rosalind’s and Helena’s marriages. Bufford’s text establishes the inequality in Helena’s marriage to Bertram. The materials are used to assert that Rosalind is justified in using disguise trickery to woo Orlando while Helena’s bed- trick is not a justifiable form to capture Bertram’s love.

Saad Maura, Asima F. X. (Haverford College): "Gender and genre transgression in a Spanish American pastoral novel"

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Bernardo de Balbuena (1562-1627) attempts to reconcile Spain’s old glories with the greatness of Mexico in his pastoral novel Siglo de oro en las selvas de Erífile (Golden Age in the Woods of Erifile, 1608). Through the recreation of this genre’s particularities, Balbuena brings together the utopian pastoral ambiance to a new utopian metropolis in which nature and city are conquered through poetic language. Balbuena transposes to the New World the shepherds and nymphs of the Old, converting them into courtly ladies and gallant men. I argue how Balbuena’s pastoral –long after the genre has lost its momentum–, is Eurocentric.

Shafranske, Kristin (Pepperdine University): "Reflections of Spiritual Identity in Albrecht Dürer’s Self-Portraiture"

Albrecht Dürer, often credited as the father of self-portraiture, created a body of self-portraits clearly illustrating the personal, spiritual transformation he experienced while working in Germany immediately preceeding the Protestant Reformation. In an attempt to define and understand his spiritual beliefs, Albrecht Dürer created psychologically transparent self-portraits. These self-portrayals begin as depictions of skill, wealth, and status, quickly becoming psychological representations of his dissatisfaction with the Church and expressing his personal beliefs. The progression of thought present in each of Dürer’s self-portraits offers a striking look at the development of theological thought during this important historical time.

Shenk, Linda (Iowa State University): "Elizabeth I at Prayer: Godliness, Learning, and the Anxieties of Female Rule"

In 1563, Queen Elizabeth I made her first foray into publication as a queen with Precationes priuatae. Regiae E. R., a small, Latin prayerbook marketed as her private devotions. Whether she actually penned these prayers is unknown, but this religious, learned text depicts Elizabeth as the author and creates a royal image that she needed in 1563. Representing herself as a godly, learned queen, she modulates the feminine pose of God’s penitent handmaid into an absolutist self-image as a new Solomon and uses this persona to counter the humanist rhetoric her statesmen employed to limit her personal sovereignty.

Skerpan-Wheeler, Elizabeth (Texas State University-San Marcos): "The Mysterie of Milton's Art of Logic Unveil'd"

The Art of Logic was the last Ramist logic published in England, at a time when Ramism as an academic practice was supposedly long since passé. So why does it exist? An inquiry into its immediate publishing contexts shows that the political and intellectual ferment of the period from 1650 to 1675 was mirrored in the logic and rhetoric texts. Publishers reprinted many staples of English Ramist work, evidently believing that the Ramist approach to the major bodies of knowledge empowered common readers to appreciate advancements in learning and philosophy. Ramist method became a "passage" technique, providing a bridge from an older worldview to a modern one. Milton's Art of Logic is his bridge between his vision of truth and a way of living it in the world.

Stagg, Louis Charles (University of Memphis (Emeritus)): "Ariel's Story: From Tree to Free"

Most thought I created a tempest that shook Neptune’s trident. But I hurt no one, destroyed nothing, not true of Mrs. Wakefield Noah’s, Katrina’s, or Rita’s storms. I helped Master do things effectively and fairly, rewarding the good and giving the wretched another chance to be decent. By changing storm fury to music of love, I led Prince Ferdinand to meet and marry Miranda and gain a kingdom. I helped Master regain his throne. Even Caliban could rule his island again, after the ship and its people left. Master was so happy he freed me! He thanked me! I’m free!

Sweat, Stephen (University of Arizona): ""bring it in better order": Reconfiguring the Patterning of Experience in The Duchess of Malfi"

John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi constructs a patterning of experience for its characters quite similar to that of Jacobean England: a well articulated social system predicated upon hierarchical relationships largely concerned with gender and status and perpetuated through the deployment of ritual and ceremony. While the action within play predominantly revolves around Ferdinand’s and the Cardinal’s endeavors to neutralize potential contaminants and preserve the established social order, the play simultaneously posits traditional pollutants, most notably female agency and economic exogamy, as catalysts for effecting a purification and subtle reconfiguration of that order. Although undoubtedly a tragedy, the play optimistically anticipates a better world still.

Thiel, Jossalyn (St. Louis University): "'Mongst Things Corruptible': Madness in Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling"

Resisting modern temptations to choose between a focus on psychology and a focus on spirituality in Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s The Changeling, I use sources like Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy and Thomas Adams’s sermon, Mystical Bedlam, to examine the way in which the dramatists have echoed the common trend of their time in combining spirituality and physic. The line between sin and madness is blurred, making the two terms virtually interchangeable. All the characters in The Changeling are mad, a condition resulting first from original sin. When one accepts this Jacobean worldview, layers of the Beatrice-Joanna character are revealed, and man’s susceptibility to madness becomes terrifyingly real.

Van Note, Beverly M. (Texas A&M University): "But Let That Pass: Self-Effacing Female Discourse in The Shoemaker's Holiday"

In Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday, Simon Eyre is able to refashion himself, in part through his protean language, from sometime master of the “Gentle Craft” of shoemaking to Lord Mayor of London. However, the opportunities for verbal self-fashioning available for his wife are considerably more limited. Constrained by her own desire for luxury, by notions of appropriate wifely conduct, and by the tendency of the males in her household to appropriate her speech, Margery in effect loses her voice. In contrast to Eyre’s repeated assertions of his natural nobility—“Prince am I none, yet am I nobly born”—Margery’s catch phrase is self-effacement: “but let that pass.”

von Maltzahn, Nicholas (University of Ottawa): "Andrew Marvell's Religion"

Fifteen years ago Willie Lamont described ‘The Religion of Andrew Marvell’ as a moderate Presbyterianism in the Baxterian middle way, ‘a very clearly defined wing of Protestant nonconformity’. This has become the consensus that I now question with closer reference to Marvell and his father's writings. My argument is that Marvell’s apparent solidarity with moderate Presbyterians reflects the strategy, described over forty years ago by Hugh Trevor-Roper, whereby Erasmian free-thinking before the Enlightenment sought to protect itself against worse oppressions by consorting in England with Presbyterianism, or more widely with Calvinism. Marvell's anti-clerical writing in prose and verse thus prepares for later Enlightenment religion.

Wadia, Mickey (Austin Peay State University): "Paralyzing Drudgery or Incandescent Performances?: Michael Radford's The Merchant of Venice"

The first big-screen version of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in the sound era (2004) has sparked quite a divergence of opinion as to the film's merits. Jeremiah Kipp famously calls Michael Radford's film "a morass of paralyzing drudgery" while Roger Ebert praises the film, calling Al Pacino's performance "incandescent" and "fascinating." Michael Radford proclaims that “What I tried to do is make something that’s coherent, human, and alive.” This paper examines the various critical opinions surrounding Radford’s film, arguing that it does share an equal standing with other well-received television versions of the play and will, in all probability, exert some lasting influence on studies in Shakespeare and popular culture.

Yeom, Wooseong (University of Texas at Austin): "The Revenger's Aside"

In early modern drama, in general, and in revenge tragedy, in particular, the aside deserves more attention for its effect on character, plot, structure, tone, audience response and involvement. I examine the development of the aside into an indispensable tool during the “golden age” of this popular sub-genre and elucidate its workings within select plays by Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Middleton. From the appearance of Gorboduc in 1562 to The Changeling in 1622, the use of the aside increases from single utterances to closely-packed “clusters.” By the end of this period, I contend that Middleton elevates the dramaturgical value of the “a-side” so that it paradoxically becomes a centripetal, not a peripheral force in his plays.

Yu-wen Wei, Teresa (Rice University): "Early Modern Polemical Metaphors of Captivity in Phillip Massinger's The Renegado"

In this paper, I investigate how Catholicism relates to Anglo-Islamic dynamics in The Renegado. Contrary to earlier views of Anglo-Islamic relations as polar opposites, I contend that tropes of captivity render the Anglo-Islamic self-other boundary in The Renegado fluid and slippery. Both the captivity tropes within the play and the polemical debates outside of it associate Turkishness with Catholicism. As the Anglo-Islamic dynamics in The Renegado is enacted through Catholic Venetians and Islamic Turks, polemical tropes of captivity disrupt self-other oppositions. The fluidity of Anglo-Islamic dynamics enact a reconfiguration of religious and gender identities, reflecting the unstable character of identity politics in the early modern Mediterranean littoral.