A one-day symposium on Saturday 16 May 2009 with Professor Guido Ruggiero (Miami), Professor Brendan Dooley (UCC) and Professor James Knowles (UCC). The event kicks off at 10am in UCC's O'Rahilly Building (Room 255) with papers by the three speakers. Following lunch at a local café we will reconvene at 2pm for a round table discussion led by Dr Carrie Griffin (UCC) and doctoral researchers. Registration is not required but if you plan to attend please advise Melanie Marshall (ml.marshall@ucc.ie) so that we have a rough idea of numbers.

10am: Brendan Dooley, 'Donna Livia's New Clothes'

Professor Brendan Dooley recently joined University College Cork as Professor of Renaissance Studies. Professor Dooley's interests include media history, material culture of early modern Europe, the history of culture (1500-1800), and the history of science (1500-1800). Among his publications are Morandi’s Last Prophecy and the End of Renaissance Politics (2002), Science and the Marketplace in Early Modern Italy (2001), The Social History of Skepticism: Experience and Doubt in Early Modern Culture (1999). Italy in the Baroque: Selected Readings (1995), and Science, Politics and Society in Eighteenth-Century Italy: The Giornale de’ letterati d’ Italia and its World (1991). He edited Giovanni Baldinucci, Quaderno: Guerra, peste e carestia a Firenze nel Seicento (2001), and, with Sabrina Baron, The Politics of Information in Early Modern Europe (2000).

10:45am: Guido Ruggiero, 'Looking for Love: Italian Renaissance Prostitution Reconsidered'

Professor Guido Ruggiero (Miami) has published on the history of gender, sex, crime, magic, science and everyday culture, primarily in renaissance and early modern Italy. Early in his career he focused on social science history, but his interests have expanded toward yet more interdisciplinary approaches, including microhistory, narrative history, and the melding of literature, literary criticism, and archival history. Among other volumes he has published Violence in Early Renaissance Venice (1980), The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice (1985), Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage and Power from the End of the Renaissance (1993), Machiavelli in Love: Sex, Self and Society in Renaissance Italy (2007); as well as Sex and Gender in Historical Perspectives (1990), Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe (1991), and History from Crime (1993), edited with Edward Muir. In addition he has edited The Blackwell Companion to the Renaissance (2002) and Five Comedies from the Italian Renaissance (2003) edited and translated with Laura Giannetti. He also edited the series Studies in the History of Sexuality (1985-2002) for Oxford University Press and was a co-editor of the six volume Encyclopedia of European Social History for Scribner's (2002).  He is currently working on a general history of the Italian Renaissance.

12:00pm: James Knowles, 'Fabulous Possessions: Antarctic Parrots, Beagling Marmosets, China Cabinets, Silk Pyjamas and Early Modern Orientalism'

Professor James Knowles (University College Cork) has published widely on early modern drama, the masque, and culture. His research interests include sexualities, queer theory, literary topographies and spatiality, the connections between writing and art and architecture, material culture (including technology), and manuscript culture and the new histories of the book. He has published Shakespeare: Late Plays, New Readings (1999), Four City Comedies (2001), The Key Keeper (2002). His edition of masques for The Complete Works of Ben Jonson (Cambridge UP), and his monograph Political Culture and the Court Masque appear in 2009.

1pm: Lunch

2pm-4pm: Round table discussion convened by Dr Carrie Griffin (UCC)

Accommodation

Discounted rates are available for the first two establishments listed below; please ask for the UCC rate.

Jurys Cork Hotel is the closest hotel, and has everything you’d expect of a four-star hotel (leisure centre, complimentary broadband). Several conference delegates in the past have told me how much they enjoyed the little luxuries like underfloor heating in the bathrooms. The UCC rate is 125 euro per night for a single room.

Garnish House B&B is opposite the pedestrian gates to UCC. It comes highly recommended for its warm welcome. With 30-odd items on the breakfast menu, you should find something to suit your tastes. The UCC rate is 65 euro per night for a single.

According to their website, Cafe Paradiso (an acclaimed vegetarian restaurant) also has three rooms available for overnight stay above the restaurant.

More suggestions available from UCC Conference Office.