Events for the Current Term
Greetings!
This list announces talks in the greater Boston area pertaining to the study of the early modern period ca. 1350-1800, in any discipline and with any regional specialization. We are announcing in person and online events and activities that take place in the greater Boston area (broadly conceived). Please forward announcements of events, including exhibits and application deadlines for future conferences in our region. We’re planning a mailing roughly every two weeks—please therefore send notices of events at least two weeks in advance. Please forward announcements in the format requested at the end of this message, to: earlymod@fas.harvard.edu.
For security reasons the list will usually not disseminate zoom links directly, but we can list an email contact to which to write for further details about attending. Alternatively, we can circulate registration information for events. All times are Boston/Eastern times.
(An asterisk indicates a new event listing; two asterisks indicate a change or update.)
Upcoming Events
Friday, September 11, 2026, 3:00PM - 5:00PM EDT
Newton's Matter Theory: Between Mechanism and Hylomorphism
Sponsor: History of Philosophy Workshop, Harvard
Speaker: Patrick Connolly (Johns Hopkins University)
Location: Robbins Library, Emerson Hall 211, Harvard Yard, Cambridge MA
Sunday, September 13, 2026, 3:00PM EDT
The Blue Heron Songbook: From Burgundy to Broadway
Sponsor: Blue Heron — season benefit event
Performers: Michael Barrett, Cody Bowers, Paul Guttry, Corey Dalton Hart, Kim Leeds, David McFerrin, and Jason McStoots, with Brian Moll (piano) and Scott Metcalfe (harp)
Location: Sureau Family Discovery Barn, Nashoba Brooks School, 200 Strawberry Hill Road, Concord, MA 01742
Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 5:00PM - 7:00PM EDT
Harvard Early Modern World Fall Aperitivo
Sponsor: Harvard Early Modern World initiative
The aperitivo features faculty flash-talks by
Cécile Fromont (History of Art and Architecture), "Slavery, Colony, Beauty"
Nathan Perl-Rosenthal (Center for European Studies), "Empires of Privateering: The Case of La Cloche (South China Sea, 1713)"
Jennifer Oliver (Romance Languages and Literatures), "Forging French Fictions"
Robert Darnton (History), "Revolution, Information, and the Role of Writers in Eighteenth-Century France"
Location: Basement Seminar Room, Robinson Hall, Harvard Yard, 35 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 5:00PM EDT
Lewys Glyn Cothi: revisiting the manuscripts of a Welsh pencerdd
Sponsor: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Celtic Literature and Culture
Speaker: Gruffudd Antur, University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth
Location: Warren House, Kates Room (201), 11 Prescott St, Cambridge, Massachusetts
* Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:00PM - 1:30PM EDT
Jews in Old Rus': A Documentary History
Sponsors: Center for Jewish Studies and the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI)
Speaker: Alexander Kulik, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in conversation with Michael Flier (Harvard University), Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern (Northwestern University), Antony Polonsky (Museum of the History of Polish Jews), and Michelle Viise (Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute)
Location: Online, via Zoom (RSVP required)
Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 5:00PM EDT
Teaching 'Otherwise': Premodern Popular Pedagogy
Sponsor: Five College Medieval Studies Seminar (UMass Amherst Renaissance Program)
Speaker: Susan E. Phillips, Northwestern University
Location: South College E470, UMass Amherst
* Thursday, September 17, 2026, 5:00PM - 6:30PM EDT
Learning to Talk Shop: Mercantile Mischief and Popular Pedagogy in Premodern England (Book Talk)
Sponsors: English Medieval Colloquium, the Medieval History Graduate Workshop, the English Renaissance Colloquium, the Committee on Medieval Studies, the Department of English, and the Department of History, all Harvard University
Speaker: Susan Phillips, Northwestern University
Location: Robinson Hall, Lower Library, Harvard Yard
Thursday, September 17, 2026, 5:30PM - 7:30PM EDT
Sponsor: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar in the History of the Book
The event features microtalks by members of our community.
Location: Barker Center, Room 133 (Plimpton Room), Harvard University, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA. Please use the main entrance to enter Barker Center.
* Friday, September 18, 2026, 9:00AM - 5:00PM EDT
NEQ Symposium on Environmental Histories of New England, 1600-2026
Co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society and The New England Quarterly, with additional support from the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library
Location: Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA (in person)
* Wednesday, September 23, 2026, 12:00PM - 1:30PM EDT
White Ethiopian Girls haunting the Western Renaissance and Baroque Imagination
Sponsor: Hiphop Archive & Research Institute at the Hutchins Center
Speaker: Jean-Frédéric Schaub, EHESS Paris
Location: 104 Mount Auburn Street, Floor 2R, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
* Wednesday, September 23, 2026, 12:00PM - 1:15PM EDT
Book Talk on Performing Enlightenment: Buddhism and Theater in Early Modern China
Sponsor: Asia Center Author Book Talk Series, co-sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University
Speaker: Mengxiao Wang, University of Southern California
Location: Online, via Zoom (RSVP required)
Thursday, September 24, 2026, 12:00PM - 1:15PM EDT
Letters from the Augsburg Collegium Medicum and German Physicians / Practicing Healers
Sponsor: Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Speaker: Courtney Greer-Soliday (G3 PhD, History of Science)
Location: Science Center 252, Harvard University
Thursday, September 24, 2026, 4:30PM EDT
Sponsor: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on France and the World
Speaker: Joanna Stalnaker, Columbia University
Location: Barker Center, Room 133 (Plimpton Room), Harvard University (Please use the main entrance to enter Barker Center)
Thursday, September 24, 2026, 5:30PM EDT
Colossal Engineering in Carioca
Sponsor: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Visual Representation, Materiality, and Medium
Speaker: Erika Naginski, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Location: Sackler Building, Room 422, at 485 Broadway, Cambridge, MA, United States of America, 02138
Thursday, September 24, 2026, 5:30PM EDT
"The Idea of 'A New Antiquity'"
Sponsor: Center for the Study of the Early Modern World at Brown University
Speaker: Alessandra Russo (Columbia University)
Location: Andrews House, 13 Brown Street, Providence, RI 02906
* Thursday, September 24, 2026, 6:00PM EDT
Race, Slavery, and Transatlantic Scribal Politics
Sponsor: Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Eighteenth-Century Studies
Speakers: A. Veronique Charles, Columbia University; Fauve Vandenberghe, Harvard University/University of Ghent
Location: Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
Saturday, September 26, 2026, 1:00PM - 3:00PM EDT
Medusa's Bestiary Opening Reception (Artist in Residence)
Sponsor: UMass Amherst Renaissance Program
Featuring: Lauren Levato Coyne, 'Medusa's Bestiary: Embodiments & Ecologies'
Location: See event page
* Tuesday, September 29, 2026, 4:30 p.m., Boger Hall, Room 315
“Shared Shelves: Book Collecting and the Making of Prestige between Quattrocento Italy and the Ottoman Empire”
Co-sponsored by the Renaissance Seminar and the History Department, both at Wesleyan University
Speaker: Samet Budak (Hannah Seeger Davis Postdoctoral Fellow, Princeton University)
In-person, Wesleyan University, Boger Hall
Attendees must RSVP in advance to receive a pre-circulated paper. To RSVP please contact Joseph Ackley at jackley@wesleyan.edu.
Thursday, October 1, 2026, 12:00PM EDT
Sponsor: John Carter Brown Library (JCB Reads)
Speaker: Kenneth J. Banks
Location: Virtual
** Friday, October 2, 2026, 5:00PM EDT
Richard Burbage's Henry V: Collaboration and Rethinking Dramatic Authorship
Sponsor: Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Shakespearean Studies and Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Speaker: Tanya Pollard, Brooklyn College and CUNY
Location: Barker Center, Room 133 (Plimpton Room), Harvard University, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA. Please use the main entrance to enter Barker Center.
Monday, October 5, 2026, 6:00PM - 7:30PM EDT
A Conversation on Petrarch's "Canzoniere: A New Translation"
Sponsor: Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center public event
Speakers: Andrew Frisardi, A.M. Juster, and Kate van Orden
Moderator: Ramie Targoff
Location: Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall, Harvard Yard
Tuesday, October 6, 2026, 5:15PM EDT
Sponsors: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar in the History of the Book and Early Modern Workshop in the Department of History, Harvard University
Speaker: Michael Legaspi (St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary). Comment: Gabriel Parlin (Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard)
Location: Basement Seminar Room, Robinson Hall, 35 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
* Tuesday, October 6, 2026, 5:30PM EDT
George Herbert and the Heresy of Paraphrase
Sponsor: Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Speaker: Gabriel Bloomfield, Smith College
Location: Barker Center, Room 133 (Plimpton Room), Harvard University
Thursday, October 8, 2026, 12:00PM - 1:15PM EDT
Locanadarpaṇamu (A Mirror for the Eyes)
Sponsor: Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Speaker: Sri Sathvik Rayala (G1 PhD, History of Science)
Location: Science Center 252, Harvard University
* Tuesday, October 13, 2026, 5:00PM - 6:15PM EDT
The Constitutionalization of Politics in Founding-Era Pennsylvania
Sponsor: Pauline Maier Early American History Seminar, Massachusetts Historical Society
Speaker: Tingfeng Yan, University of Chicago. Comment: Mary Sarah Bilder, Boston College
Location: Online, via Zoom
* Thursday, October 15, 2026, 6:00PM - 7:30PM EDT
Palimpsests Past and Present: The Sufis and Sultans of the Maklī Necropolis, 1380–1660
Sponsor: Fall 2026 AKPIA Lecture Series: A Forum for Islamic Art & Architecture
Speaker: Fatima Quraishi, Princeton University
Location: 485 Broadway, Room 422, Cambridge, MA
Tuesday, October 20, 2026, 5:00PM - 7:00PM EDT
Five College Medieval Studies Seminar with Stacey Murrell (Amherst College)
Sponsor: Five College Medieval Studies Seminar (UMass Amherst Renaissance Program)
Speaker: Stacey Murrell, Amherst College
Location: See event page
Thursday, October 22, 2026, 12:00PM - 1:15PM EDT
Sponsor: Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Speaker: Xiao Di "Janice" Tong (H-Net Reviews Editor)
Location: Science Center 252, Harvard University
Thursday, October 22, 2026, 5:30PM EDT
"Solitary Wandering and Civic Pleasures: Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran"
Sponsor: Center for the Study of the Early Modern World at Brown University
Speaker: Farshid Emami (Rice University)
Location: Andrews House, 13 Brown Street, Providence, RI 02906
Saturday, October 24, 2026, 3:00PM EDT
Divine Songs: Secular chansons & sacred transformations
Sponsor: Blue Heron
Program: Franco-Flemish chansons and the sacred motets and masses that borrow their tunes — music by Binchois, Du Fay, Ockeghem, Agricola, La Rue, and Bauldeweyn
Location: First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA
Monday, October 26, 2026, 12:00PM EDT
Sponsor: John Carter Brown Library (JCB Reads)
Speaker: Erika Valdivieso
Location: Virtual
* Thursday, October 29, 2026, 6:00PM - 7:30PM EDT
High Stakes, Big Data: The Existential Entanglements of the Abbasid Nilometer in Cairo
Sponsor: Fall 2026 AKPIA Lecture Series: A Forum for Islamic Art & Architecture
Speaker: Heba Mostafa, University of Toronto
Location: 485 Broadway, Room 422, Cambridge, MA
Monday, November 2, 2026, 5:00PM EST
What is Sacred about Emotions? A Historical Exploration of Emotion in Hasidism
Sponsor: Harvard Mahindra Humanities Seminar on Jewish Cultures and Societies
Speaker: Leore Sachs Shmueli, Bar Ilan University
Location: Barker Center, Room 133 (Plimpton Room), Harvard University (Please use the main entrance to enter Barker Center)
Thursday, November 5, 2026, 12:00PM - 1:15PM EST
A Cooler Art History of European Landscape
Sponsor: Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Speaker: Kirsten Burke (Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows)
Location: Science Center 252, Harvard University
* Thursday, November 5, 2026, 5:00PM - 6:15PM EST
The Ecology of Land Deeds in the Colonial Mid-Atlantic
Sponsor: Environmental History Seminar, Massachusetts Historical Society
Speaker: Zoe Zimmermann, Princeton University. Comment: Christine M. DeLucia, Williams College
Location: Online, via Zoom
** Friday, November 6, 2026, 5:00PM EST
Hamlet's "Garbage" and the Tragedy of Waste
Sponsors: Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Shakespearean Studies and Harvard English Department Renaissance Colloquium
Speaker: Matthew Ritger, Dartmouth College
Location: Barker Center, Room 133 (Plimpton Room), Harvard University, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA. Please use the main entrance to enter Barker Center.
Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 5:15PM EST
A Closer Look at the Crespi Chronicle: An Illustrated History of Mankind in the Early Renaissance
Sponsors: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar in the History of the Book and Early Modern Workshop in the Department of History, Harvard University
Speaker: Paolo Sachet (Sapienza University of Rome and Institut d'Histoire de la Réformation, University of Geneva)
Location: Basement Seminar Room, Robinson Hall, 35 Quincy St, Cambridge MA
Saturday, November 14, 2026, 1:00PM - 2:30PM EST
Sponsor: UMass Amherst Renaissance Program (Renaissance of the Earth)
With: Ellena Baum, Renaissance of the Earth Teaching Fellow
Location: See event page
* Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 4:30 p.m., Boger Hall, Room 315
“Ruling Women and Their Concubines, 1109-1435”
Sponsor: Renaissance Seminar, Wesleyan University
Speaker: Stacey Murrell (Assistant Professor of History, Amherst College)
In-person, Wesleyan University, Boger Hall
Attendees must RSVP in advance to receive a pre-circulated paper. To RSVP please contact Joseph Ackley at jackley@wesleyan.edu.
* Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 5:00PM - 6:15PM EST
War, Disease, and the Atlantic Maritime Economy, 1775-1800 - A Panel Discussion
Sponsor: Pauline Maier Early American History Seminar, Massachusetts Historical Society
Speakers: Ken Banks, Wofford College; Julia Mansfield, Villanova University. Comments by Denver Brunsman, George Washington University
Location: Hybrid (Massachusetts Historical Society, in person, and online via Zoom)
Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 5:00PM - 7:00PM EST
Book Discussion: "Antiquity Made Whole: The Renaissance Continuation of Ancient Literature"
Co-sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center Seminars on Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome and on History of the Book, and the Renaissance Colloquium in the Department of English, Harvard University
Author: Leah Whittington (English, Harvard)
Respondents: Gordon Teskey (English, Harvard), Eric Weiskott (English, Boston College), Megan Heffernan (English, DePaul) and Stephen Hinds (Classics, University of Washington, Seattle)
Location: Thompson Room, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA. Please use the main entrance to enter the Barker Center.
Thursday, November 19, 2026, 12:00PM - 1:15PM EST
Sponsor: Harvard Early Sciences Working Group
Speaker: Seongun Park (G7 PhD, East Asian Languages and Civilizations)
Location: Science Center 252, Harvard University
* Thursday, November 19, 2026, 6:00PM - 7:30PM EST
Entangled with the River: The Making of Safavid Isfahan from Watershed to Body
Sponsor: Fall 2026 AKPIA Lecture Series: A Forum for Islamic Art & Architecture
Speaker: Sahar Hosseini, University of Pittsburgh
Location: 485 Broadway, Room 422, Cambridge, MA
* Tuesday, December 1, 2026, 5:30PM EST
Sponsor: Renaissance Colloquium, English Department, Harvard University
Speakers: Jude Willoughby and Sean Coomey (both Harvard English)
Location: Barker Center, Room 133 (Plimpton Room), Harvard University
Thursday, December 3, 2026, 5:30PM EST
"Pathology or Moral Sin? Physicians and Lovesickness in Early Modern Italy"
Sponsor: Center for the Study of the Early Modern World at Brown University
Speaker: Eva Del Soldato (University of Pennsylvania)
Location: Andrews House, 13 Brown Street, Providence, RI 02906
** Friday, December 4, 2026, 5:00PM EST
Sponsors: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar on Shakespearean Studies and Renaissance Colloquium, English Department, Harvard University
Speaker: Erika Boeckeler, Northeastern University
Location: Barker Center, Room 133 (Plimpton Room), Harvard University, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge MA. Please use the main entrance to enter Barker Center.
Friday, December 18, 2026, 8:00PM EST
Additional performances: Saturday, December 19, 2026 at 3:00PM and 8:00PM
Sponsor: Blue Heron
Program: 15th-century English music for the season — plainchant, carols, antiphons, and polyphonic Mass settings
Location: Cambridge and Newton, MA — see event page for venues and times
***
*If you would like your announcement to be posted in an upcoming Early Mod Events listing please send your event details to: earlymod@fas.harvard.edu
To be included in the Early Mod Events mailing, the event must take place or (in case of online events) be relevant to the greater Boston area. Announcements are posted at the discretion of the Early Mod Listserv administrator. It would be a great help if you could follow this format:
Day, date, time
Sponsor (if available)
Type of event (ex. Lecture/Symposium/Workshop), Event Title
Person giving talk (in bold), their home institution (if applicable)
Location: in-person or virtual