Author: Early Modern & Renaissance Studies

Folger Research Report: “My Experience in the Folger Orientation to Research Methods and Agendas Skills Course, Summer 2019”

Posted on September 8, 2020September 21, 2020 by Early Modern & Renaissance Studies

Kristen Vitale is one of the Early Modern Studies Working Group’s New Co-coordinators and received a travel grant last spring to conduct research at the Folger Library This past July I participated in the Folger Orientation to Research Methods and Agendas Skills Course. The Library hosted twenty-six scholars from around the world to develop “a set of research-oriented literacies,” navigate the archive, and enhance our understanding of early modern book history. I left the Folger with thorough knowledge of the promised objectives and so much more. I now have a better grasp on my intended thesis project, refined paleographic proficiency, and a range of research skills that will aid in developing my ever-looming dissertation. I also gained a number of professional and personal relationships which formed with such ease that I, along with many others, viewed our meetings as pure serendipity.

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Q&A with Katie Beene

Posted on September 8, 2020September 21, 2020 by Early Modern & Renaissance Studies

Today’s Post is a Q&A with a new member of the EMSWG. Katie is a first year history PhD student who specializes in early modern Irish history.

1. Where are you from originally?

I am originally from a town called Evans, GA, it is just outside of Augusta, GA. For the past seven years I have been living in Villa Rica, GA, just outside of Atlanta, GA.

2. Where else have you gone to school?

I started school at the University of Georgia but switched to Georgia Southern University because it offered a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management. I graduate from Georgia Southern in 2011 and worked in the restaurant industry for several years before coming back to school. I then went to Georgia State University for an undergraduate in history and religious studies. After I graduated with my BA in history I continued at Georgia State and earned my MA in Early Modern European History in December of 2018.

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Report from the Folger: Enslaved and Freedwomen; Creators of the Atlantic Economy

Posted on September 8, 2020September 18, 2020 by Early Modern & Renaissance Studies

Ricardo Raúl Salazar Rey is an Assistant Professor at the Stamford Campus of UCONN. He visited the Folger with funding from the Early Modern Studies Group.

Since the Renaissance of the 12th century (the real one), one of the exhilarating drivers of human innovation has been the collective learning enabled by conferences/universities/libraries, where scholars gather to discuss and sharpen their ideas. However, as a nontraditional, single parent, early career academic at a regional campus, the requirements to find, apply, and attend such academic gatherings can be a bit daunting. When my eagle-eyed mentor Mark Healey pointed out that Jennifer L. Morgan, one of my academic heroes, would be directing a yearlong colloquium on Finance, Race, and Gender in the Early Modern Atlantic World at the Folger Institute, I really wanted to participate. However, with time running out to finish my application I got stuck. In what would become a theme, the UCONN liaison Brendan Kane and others kindly reached out and helped me to understand what/how I could contribute and shepherded me through the process. Continue reading →

Folger Research Report: Dr. Debapriya Sarkar

Posted on September 8, 2020September 18, 2020 by Early Modern & Renaissance Studies

Today’s blog post describes Dr. Debapriya Sarkar’s research trip to the Folger Shakespeare Library

Thanks to the support of the Early Modern Studies Working Group, I was able to return to the Folger for a short trip in Fall 2019 before the library closed for renovation. I am in the early stages of research on a new project on terraqueous spaces—islands, shores, riverbanks—in early modern romance, and I wanted to consult some maps at the Folger that would enable me to think further about how these spaces functioned across different representational media. The project asks how the liminal spaces that demarcate the boundaries between land and water not only provide physical relief from the maritime dangers, but also serve as symbolic escapes from nature’s unpredictable forces. Before going to the Folger, I had been tracking how the instabilities of the romance form provided writers with an ideal literary mode within which to use these thresholds—between inland and ocean, between calm and chaos, and even between life and death—to inquire about the struggles of humans to understand, control, and manipulate their natural surroundings. While I had consulted images available on LUNA, I hoped to study a few of the atlases in greater detail at the library. At the Folger, I decided to begin by looking at the physical copies of some of the same texts I had studied online, since I hope—as the project develops—to think more about how the maps were compiled and ordered, and if such organization follows other logics of collection and compilation prevalent in the period. During my visit, I focused on English translations and abridgments, but I plan to expand my archive in future archival trips.