Changing Histories: Rethinking the early modern history play was held at Bush House, King’s College London, from 4th to 5th July 2019.

Please see below for the conference programme or download a PDF here.

 

4 July 2019 – Day 1

9:00 – 9:30                   Registration

 

9:30 – 10:30                 Keynote 1

Paulina Kewes (University of Oxford) – ‘Hamlet and the Staging of Danish History’

Chair: Amy Lidster

 

10:30 – 11:50               Panel 1: Originating Histories                    

Romola Nuttall (King’s College London) – ‘Mythical history and historic myth: Thomas Hughes’ The Misfortunes of Arthur’

Fraser McIlwraith (University of Oxford) – ‘An entrance for all disorders’: Macbeth and the Jacobean response to Robert Persons’s A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England (1594/5)’

Sofie Kluge (University of Southern Denmark) – ‘Problematizing History: Lope de Vega’s Columbus-Play and Dramatic Historiography in Golden Age Spain’

Chair: Sonia Massai

 

11:50 – 12:50               Lunch

 

12:50 – 13:50               Panel 2: Playing Histories                                       

Elizabeth Tavares (Pacific University Oregon) – ‘Men on Wire; or, The Queen’s Players and Their Extratheatricals’

Gerit Quealy (Independent Scholar) – ‘Duelling Histories: Insights and Insults from Philip Sidney to Thomas Nashe’

Chair: Nicole Mennell

 

13:50 – 15:10               Panel 3: Speaking/Feeling Histories         

Ann Kaegi (University of Hull) – ‘Traumatic Histories: Replaying the past on the English Renaissance stage’

Molly Clark (University of Oxford) – ‘Histories Transformed: Subversive verse form from Horestes to Edward IV’

David Hasberg Zirak-Schmidt (Aarhus University) – ‘“Sad Stories of the Death of Kings”: A Computationally Assisted Approach to Mourning in Shakespeare’s History Plays’

Chair: Romola Nuttall

 

15:10 – 15:40               Coffee/Tea

 

15:40 – 17:00               Panel 4: Counselling Histories                   

Lorna Wallace (University of Stirling) – ‘Classical Counsel as Negative Example in Matthew Gwinne’s Nero’

Nicolas Thibault (Sorbonne Université) – ‘“What’s done was with advice enough”: Questioning the authority of the royal word in four late Elizabethan histories’

Nicole Mennell (University of Sussex) – ‘Natural History in the History Plays: The Case of the Lion King’

Chair: Jakub Boguszak

 

17:00 – 18:00               Keynote 2                                          

Tracey Hill (Bath Spa University) – ‘“Bones of mee then I haue heard lyes”: Civic history and the invention of Dick Whittington’

Chair: Kim Gilchrist

Wine reception

 

5 July 2019 – Day 2

9:00 – 10:00                 Keynote 3                                          

Emma Smith (University of Oxford) – ‘True History: Tautology or Paradox?’

Chair: Kim Gilchrist

 

10:00 – 11:00               Panel 5: Fragmenting Histories      

Felicity Brown (University of Oxford) – ‘“Various historie”: The Misfortunes of Arthur’

Johannes Schlegel (University Würzburg) – ‘“Turning th’accomplishment of many years / Into an hour-glass”: Relating HistoryinKing Henry V’

Chair: Hester Lees-Jeffries

 

11:00 – 11:20               Coffee/Tea

 

11:20 – 12:40               Panel 6: Stuart-ing Histories                       

Warren Chernaik (King’s College London) – ‘History as Warning: Middleton, Massinger, and the Censors’

Jitka Štollová (University of Oxford) – ‘Shaping Richard III after Shakespeare’

Martin Moraw (Boǧaziçi University)– ‘Middleton’s Aleatory Allegory’

Chair: Lucy Munro

 

12:40 – 13:30               Lunch

 

13:30 – 14:50               Panel 7: Sourcing Histories             

Kit Heyam (University of Plymouth) – ‘Christopher Marlowe as historiographer: Shaping early modern narratives of Edward II’

Niall Allsopp (University of Exeter) – ‘Contingency and Consent: 1660s Heroic Dramas as History Plays’

Andrew Duxfield (University of Liverpool) – ‘“so honourable and stately a historie”: Tamburlaine the Great and Narrative Verse History’

Chair: Felicity Brown

 

14:50 – 16:30               Coffee/Tea and Workshop  

Henslowe’s Histories (featuring James Wallace and The Dolphin’s Back)

 

16:30 – 17:50               Panel 8: Performing Histories         

Hailey Bachrach (King’s College London) – ‘Genre Trouble: How Female Characters Reshape Shakespeare’s Histories’

Jakub Boguszak (University of Southampton) – ‘Casting histories’

Hester Lees-Jeffries (University of Cambridge) – ‘“How it must have been”: History plays and the novels of Hilary Mantel’

Chair: Elizabeth Tavares

 

17:50 – 18:50               Keynote 4                                         

Emma Whipday (Newcastle University) – ‘“The most here present, know this to be true”: Domestic Tragedy as “Horrible” History’

Chair: Amy Lidster

 

Dinner (at Bryn Williams, Somerset House)