Exhibition. Vers uit de tuin. Petrus Hondius’ dichterlijke wegwijzer door het zeventiende-eeuwse landschap.

From the 12th of April until the 29th of June 2024 you can visit an exhibition co-curated by GEMS-members Kornee van der Haven and Caroline Baetens in collaboration with Piet de Blaeij from Museum Het Warenhuis. The exhibition centres around the early modern Dutch poem Dapes inemptae, of de Moufe-Schans (1621) in which Petrus Hondius celebrates his life in the garden the ‘Moffenschans’. You can explore the seventeenth-century garden life in this exhibition through Hondius’ verses. You walk through the garden and the poetry to get a unique picture of garden life in the seventeenth century. The garden comes to life as a place of pleasant gatherings, of plant science, of experimenting with nature and landscape, but also as a place where you can indulge in gardening.

Vers uit de tuin. Petrus Hondius’ dichterlijke wegwijzer door het zeventiende-eeuwse landschap.

Tentoonstelling UGent & Museum Het Warenhuis (Axel), 12 april – 29 juni 2024

Bij verse oogst uit de tuin denk je waarschijnlijk in de eerste plaats aan wortels of komkommer. In de zeventiende eeuw oogstten tuinbezitters niet alleen groenten, maar ook dichterlijke verzen uit de Zeeuws-Vlaamse grond! Die gedichten geven een inkijkje in hoe het rijke tuinleven in de zeventiende eeuw werd ervaren. Een van de eersten die over dat leven in de tuin dichtte, was predikant Petrus Hondius. In 1621 bezingt hij in zijn dichtwerk, Dapes Inemptae, of De Moufe-schans, alles wat er te beleven valt in zijn tuin bij Terneuzen (de Moffenschans): van maaltijden met groenten van eigen bodem, tot de kweek van zeldzame bloemen en uitstapjes door de omliggende velden.

Van 12 april tot 29 juni 2024 kun je in Museum Het Warenhuis te Axel via Hondius’ wandelpaden zelf het zeventiende-eeuwse tuinleven verkennen in de expositie. Je bewandelt de gangen van de tuin via het dichtwerk en krijgt zo een uniek beeld van het tuinleven in de zeventiende eeuw. De tuin komt tot leven als een plek van gezellige samenkomsten, van plantwetenschap, van experiment met natuur en landschap, maar ook als een plaats waar je je kunt uitleven in het tuinieren. Wie weet herken je je eigen ervaringen wel in Hondius’ verzen of leiden zijn wandelpaden je tot nieuwe inzichten over de hedendaagse tuin!

Veel idealen uit Hondius’ poëzie zijn herkenbaar voor een hedendaagse lezer. Net zoals stedelingen vandaag aan de drukte trachten te ontsnappen in een tuin of park, zochten diegenen die daar de mogelijkheid toe hadden ook in de zeventiende eeuw de rust van het platteland op. De Terneuzense predikant geeft dan ook uitdrukking aan die herkenbare drang naar ontsnapping in een groen decor. Ook hedendaagse idealen van zelfvoorzienendheid of lokaal shoppen lijken al vroeg in die literatuur vorm te krijgen, want ook Hondius streeft naar ‘Ongekochte spijs’ of groenten van eigen bodem. Zijn verhaal schetst niet alleen een uniek beeld van het rijke tuinleven in de zeventiende eeuw, maar biedt dus ook een leidraad voor reflectie op onze bedrijvigheid in de tuin vandaag.

Als je het museum uit stapt, kun je de wandeling verderzetten en met een nieuwe blik het landschap rondom verkennen. Op een boogscheut van het museum vind je een laatnegentiende-eeuws landhuis dat nog steeds de naam ‘Moffenschans’ draagt, naar Hondius’ tuin die zich daar eeuwen eerder bevond. Te voet, te paard of te vloot bereist Hondius vandaaruit de polders, schorren, duinen en rivieren rondom zijn tuin. Hij treedt buiten de omheining en legt een breder beeld van het Zeeuws-Vlaamse landschap vast in woord. In de expositie leer je dus iets nieuws over de zeventiende-eeuwse beleving van de directe omgeving van de tuin en het hedendaagse museum.

Ontdek wat het Zeeuws-Vlaamse tuinleven in de zeventiende eeuw zo uniek en toch zo universeel maakt, van 12 april tot 29 juni 2024 in Museum Het Warenhuis (Markt 2, 4571 BG Axel).

Dit project is een samenwerking tussen Museum Het Warenhuis en de Vakgroep letterkunde aan de Universiteit Gent. De expositie kwam tot stand met de steun van de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte van de Universiteit Gent, het Maatschappelijk Valorisatiefonds van de Universiteit Gent, het Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen en het Scheldemondfonds.

Conference: ‘Performing theatricality and imaging religious ceremonies in early modern Western Europe’

VANDENHOVE (Centre for Architecture and Art at Ghent University) is hosting a conference on ‘Performing theatricality and imaging religious ceremonies in early modern Western Europe’
15-16-17 May

Register using the QR code or registration link

2023 marks the 300th anniversary of the publication of the early eighteenth-century book series Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde, a work on all the world’s religions known to Europe at that time and originally published in seven volumes between 1723 and 1737 in Amsterdam. Edited by the exiled French Huguenot Jean Frederic Bernard, the original seven volumes of the Cérémonies knew a vast distribution across European readers in the Netherlands, France, England, and the Holy Roman Empire, among other countries. Its popularity was at least partly due to the impressive set of prints included within the books. After all, the engravings were for the most part manufactured by the exiled Parisian artist, Bernard Picart, who was known as one of Europe’s most distinguished engravers at that time.

More than ten years after the publication of some pioneering studies on the project – Religionsbilder der frühen Aufklärung (2006), The Book That Changed Europe (2010) and The First Global Vision of Religion (2010) – the intriguing ceremonies and customs of the various religions depicted in the books still capture the imagination. This is not only caused by their ingenuity regarding the comparative method of inquiry into religion in general, as earlier research widely acknowledged, but also because of their importance as an early modern compendium of imaging religious ceremonies. After all, as the title already indicates, the Cérémonies discusses global religious ceremonies and customs. It focusses on performing religion, instead of on religion as such.

In line with Picart and Bernard’s project, this conference aims to focus on the ways in which early modern Europeans related to religious ceremonies of all kinds, ranging from customs that were familiar to Western Europe’s everyday religious life, to rituals from peoples across the globe that were still rather alien to early modern Europeans. How did early modern Europeans perceive religious rituals practiced in other parts of the world, particularly those in overseas territories? To what extent did early modern knowledge production on religious customs contribute to the development of early anthropology and ethnography in the latter half of the eighteenth century? How did representations of religious rituals either endorse or challenge existing knowledge on various religious practices? In what ways did the early modern period witness a shift toward a more encyclopedic approach to representing the ceremonies and customs of various religions, and how did this reflect broader intellectual trends of the Enlightenment era?

GEMS Presents: Young Researcher’s Day

Join GEMS on the 22nd of April for the Young Researcher’s Day, a work-in-progress session by MA students where they will be presenting their research through a short poster presentation, with ample time for questions. The presentations aim to help students fine-tune their research and are a great opportunity to get feedback from their peers and other researchers in the field of early modern cultural history and literature.
Location: Library Lab, Magnel Wing – 11am-3pm

Presentations:

• Widow Immolation (Sati) as a Religious Practice: Crystallisation of a European Image of India in the 18th Century
• The Late Medieval and Early Modern in Macbeth: The Transgressive Power of Blood, the Body and the Supernatural
• European Science Theories in 18th Century Latin America: The Almanacs of Cosme Bueno
• Early Modern Death: The Function and Form of Death in Everyman, The Faerie Queene, “Death Be Not Proud”, Paradise Lost and The Pilgrim’s Progress
• Trauma and Cognition in 20th Century Fiction
• Asexuality in Media

We encourage researchers who are interested to attend and register through this form by the 17th of April. Lunch and refreshments will be provided. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact Eru.Fevery@UGent.be and Caroline.Baetens@UGent.be

We hope to see you there!

Book presentation: Repertoires of Slavery. Dutch Theater Between Abolitionism and Colonial Subjection, 1770-1810

Join GEMS on the 22th of February for a Book Presentation by dr. Sarah J. Adams. She will present her new book Repertoires of Slavery: Dutch Theater Between Abolitionism and Colonial Subjection, 1770-1810 (University Press Amsterdam, 2023). Through the lens of a hitherto unstudied repertoire of Dutch abolitionist theatre productions, Repertoires of Slavery prises open the conflicting ideological functions of antislavery discourse within and outside the walls of the theatre and examines the ways in which abolitionist protesters wielded the strife-ridden question of slavery to negotiate the meanings of human rights, subjecthood, and subjection. 

For more information and to order the book, you can follow this link: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463726863/repertoires-of-slavery

Please let us know if you can attend by the 16th of February through the following link: https://forms.gle/kuPeG66SofhWZjaSA

Lecture: “Transvestism and Blackface in Italian Renaissance Theater” by Lies Verbaere

Renaissance authors tended to fall back on classical literary models, which they wanted to equal or even surpass. In the case of theater, Terence’s Eunuchus was one of the most popular model texts. In the city of Vicenza, near Venice, Giovanni Battista Calderari began to translate this comedy into Italian, but not only that: he also began to rework it. The result is a fascinating rewrite, in which, for example, the secondary character of the ‘Other’ becomes a Moorish woman. In this lecture we place Calderari’s text next to the original, and highlight current issues such as gender, ethnicity and performance in a play text from the Renaissance – which is not so far removed from our own time.

Tuesday January 23, 2024, 7:30 PM
Followed by reception
Rozier Building, Classroom 2.1 Rozier 44 – 9000 Ghent

Book presentation: Marketing Violence. The Affective Economy of Violent Imageries in the Dutch Republic

Book presentation

Marketing Violence: The Affective Economy of Violent Imageries in the Dutch Republic

Tuesday 23 January 2024

14:30 – 17:00

NIAS Conference Room – B3.02, Oost-Indish Huis in Amsterdam

Registration is required before 22nd of January via email (free): secretariaatnl-lab@huc.knaw.nl

specify “Book presentation Marketing Violence” in the subject line

Marketing Violence was published by Cambridge University Press as part of the Elements in Histories of Emotions and the Senses series and written as part of the NWO & FWO funded project Imagineering Violence: Techniques of Early Modern Performativity in the Northern and Southern Netherlands 1630-1690.

Frans-Willem Korsten, Inger Leemans, Cornelis van der Haven and Karel Vanhaesebrouck invite you to join them for the presentation of their recently published book Marketing Violence on Tuesday 23 January in the NIAS conference room.

Marketing Violence is available through open access: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/marketing-violence/2156DA0F35E440BE3F23E730FD1FA663.

Program:

14:30 Walk-in

15:00 -15:15 Introduction by dr. Yolanda Rodríguez Pérez

15:15 -15:25 Prof. Dr. Frans-Willem Korsten’s reflections on the collaborative process of Marketing Violence

15:25 – 15:35 Prof. Dr. Kornee van der Haven on the History of Emotions

15:35 – 15:55 Dr. Ayşenur Korkmaz on representations of violence from the perspective of genocide studies

15:55 – 16:20 Dr. Matthias van Rossum on colonialism and the History of Emotions

16:20 -17:00 Drinks!

Find the invitation and more information via this link: Invitation book presentation Marketing Violence

Introducing the GEMS Reading Group: Machiavelli’s The Mandrake

Group for Early Modern Studies (GEMS) is convening a new Reading Group. This group welcomes BA students, MA students, doctoral students, postdocs, and colleagues from any field to read an early modern text together and discuss it. This year, for the very the first edition, we shall be reading Machiavelli’s play The Mandrake (La Mandragola).

We will meet biweekly in the spring semester (i.e. from February to May), most likely from 5-6.30pm on Thursdays. We will read the text aloud, stopping periodically to discuss in depth any aspect of the text participants like––all the while enjoying some drinks and snacks. We read in English and there is absolutely no background or prior knowledge of Machiavelli and/or Italian required.

Indeed, participants are expressly forbidden to do any reading in advance! In other words: this reading group does not require you to do any work or reading beyond what we do together in the sessions. You do not have to attend all sessions: participants will receive an email with what will be read each session, so that you can read up and re-join if you wish.

The GEMS Reading Group is thus a low-stakes, fun way of engaging with early modern texts you might otherwise never read; and of getting to know & learning from colleagues and students from other disciplines with fresh perspectives.

If this appeals to you, please send an email to geertje.bol@ugent.be to be added to the mailing list.

GEMS Presents: Young Researcher’s Day

GEMS is hosting a work-in-progress session for MA students working on early modern (broadly defined) literature and cultural history. We want to create a low threshold and open setting for students to present their work and get feedback on it.

In this session, students will give a poster presentation (in English) on their current research. The presentation aims to help students fine-tune their research and is a great opportunity to get feedback from your peers in the field of early modern cultural history and literature. The presentation can be about a specific chapter or methodology in your research, or an outline of your thesis. We don’t expect your research to be in a finalized stage, feel free to come with drafts and invite your peers to think along with you.

The seminar will take place on Monday 22 April 2024. We aim for seven-minute presentations with ample time for questions. GEMS will finance the print costs for the posters. Refreshments (food and drinks) will be provided.

Please register your interest via this form by the 15th of December: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQtIe057ca-SrljkXnT28avmA-42RkJuVQQSuHZetL1pSX3g/viewform?usp=sharing

If you have any further questions, please contact Caroline.Baetens@UGent.be, Eru.Fevery@UGent.be, or Zoe.VanCauwenberg@UGent.be

Medieval and Early Modern Studies Spring School 2024

Landscape History & Ecology – Ghent, 27-31 May 2024

This Spring School is organised by Ghent University (Doctoral Schools), University of Groningen, the Huizinga Institute and the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies to stimulate contacts and exchange between PhD candidates and ReMa students in the field of cultural history, art history, historical geography, urban history, archaeology, early modern history, medieval history, literary studies, environmental psychology, environmental design and engineering, sustainability studies and environmental education. The course will mainly focus on the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, but students working on Antiquity or the Modern Period can attend as well.

Topic

Climate change, depletion of natural resources, loss of natural and cultural landscapes, and many other (ecological) sustainability challenges urge us to (re)evaluate human interaction with the natural world. This renewed environmental consciousness has invigorated not only scientists working on effects in the present and solutions for the future, but also those who study the (distant) past. It has become clear that we need to take the story back(much) further than the industrialisation of the second half of the eighteenth century. Specifically in medieval and early modern studies, scholars have uncovered the deep historical backgrounds of the anthropogenic ecological challenges, including (over)exploitation of natural landscapes, diminishment of open space, deforestation, food production, use of energy and water, fauna and flora extinctions et cetera. Over the past decades, ever more research has been conducted into the ecological impact and implications of practices in different landscapes. Also the traces of environmental mentalities in art and the cultural representation of human interactions with the environment is a flourishing field, strongly influenced by ecocritical approaches. The Spring School will therefore pay attention to a wide range of ecological issues in history related to the landscape of city, country and colony and their mediation in cultural production, most notablyliterature and art. It combines a focus on the medieval and early modern period with an multidisciplinary perspective, attending to the theoretical and methodological background of landscape and cultural history, ecocriticism and archaeology.

Approaches

This course takes four topics and methodologies related to historical landscape and ecology as a starting point:

(A) History of the city and the country,

(B) Archaeology and landscape history,

(C) Artistic representation and ecocriticism,

(D) Ecology and economy.

Ten specialists will reflect from their scholarly background (landscape history, archaeology, literary studies, cultural history) on ecological issues in their own research. An accompanying reading list gives rise to further reflection and discussion with the participants. This will offer students a framework to think theoretical concepts and methodologies through in relation to their own work. Through short pitches the attending PhD students will reflect on the possibilities and difficulties of working with the same concepts and methodologies in their own research projects. A guided bike tour on the ecology of the city Ghent and its surroundings will be part of the programme, as well as an excursion to the Zwin-region and Zeeland Flanders, with presentations and discussions ‘in the field’.

Programme

Session I: Visit Exhibition ‘Ghent’s Lands’ & Bike Tour – Guide: Esther Beeckaert (Ghent Museum for Urban History STAM)

Session II & III: History of the City and the Country- Lecturers: Tim Soens & Iason Jongepier (UAntwerpen)

Session IV: Archaeology and Landscape History – Lecturer: Wim De Clercq (UGent)

Session V: Landscape History and Garden Culture – Lecturer: Willemieke Ottens (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Session VI: Workshop ‘Nature Writing’ – Lecturer: Femke Kramer (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Session VII: Artistic Representation & Ecocriticism – Lecturer: Joana van de Löcht (Universität Freiburg)

Session VIII & IX: Ecology and Economy – Lecturers: Marrigje Paijmans (University of Amsterdam), Charlotte Kießling (University of Cologne) & Thijs Lambrecht (Ghent University)

Registration

PhD students and ReMa students are invited to register for this course before 12 January 2024 through the following link: https://forms.gle/hQUuu4SVfs4wTRsq9 Please note that there is a limited number of places available for this course. After your registration you will soon receive more information about whether your registration can be confirmed or not. Some of the participating graduate/doctoral schools will cover tuition and lodging for their participating members (please wait for more information after your registration).

Organising institutions and partners

This Spring School is organised by Ghent University (Doctoral Schools), the University of Groningen, the Huizinga Institute and the Research School for Medieval Studies in cooperation with the following research groups: the Group for Early Modern Studies (UGent), the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies (UGent), the Amsterdam Centre for Studies in Early Modernity (UvA), the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), the Centre for Urban History(UAntwerpen), the Institute for Early Modern History (UGent-VUB) and the Onderzoeksgroep Nieuwe Tijd (KU Leuven). The Spring School was also made possible by the Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development (University Groningen).

Organising committee

Caroline Baetens, MA (UGent, Group for Early Modern Studies), Dr. Femke Kramer (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Research Institute for the Study ofCulture), Dr. Stefan Meysman (UGent, Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies), Dr. Marrigje Paijmans (UvA, Amsterdam Centre for Studies in Early Modernity), Prof. Jeroen Puttevils (UAntwerpen,Centre for Urban History), Prof. Hanneke Ronnes (UvA / Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Landscape History), Prof. Kornee van der Haven (UGent, Group for Early Modern Studies)

Belvedere Lecture 2023 with Prof. Caroline van Eck

BELVEDERE LECTURE: New perspectives on Early Modern Studies

Caroline van Eck (University of Cambridge) on Architectural Grotesques in 16^th-century Florence

Tuesday, 26 September, 5-6 PM

Boekentoren (Rozier 9, 9000 Gent): Belvedere

Registration (before 21 Sept): https://event.ugent.be/registration/belvederelecture2023

The Belvedere Lecture is the Ghent annual lecture on early modern history and culture. It sheds light on the early modern period from a multi-disciplinary perspective. ‘Belvedere’ suggests a bird-eye view on early modern history, which is indeed one of the aims of this annual lecture: to invite international scholars in the field of early modern studies to present their research in the light of bigger questions early modernists are dealing with today.

‘Belvedere Lecture’ refers to the Belvedere of the Ghent famous Boekentoren (Book Tower), an iconic building designed in 1936 by Henry van de Velde. Belvedere is an architectural structure that was especially popular in the renaissance and baroque, but also in modern architecture. It not only refers to the idea of providing an scenic view on early modern history, but it also connects early modernity with modernity.

The Belvedere Lecture is a joint initiative of different research groups at Ghent University that have a connection with early modern history and culture: the Institute for Early Modern History, the Sarton Centre for History of Science, the Group for Early Modern Studies (GEMS), the Institute for Legal History, THALIA and RELICS

SPEAKER

Prof. Caroline van Eck (University of Cambridge)

Architectural Grotesques in 16^th-century Florence

Renaissance Florence offers a particularly rich variety of three-dimensional grotesques, appearing on doorways, windows, and façades, in fountains, pedestals and armour. They occur particularly in liminal situations, both spatial, as in window frames, but also when they cross boundaries between disciplines, as in the architectural/sculptural objects created by Michelangelo and his followers. In my talk I will start with grotesque designs by Michelangelo, to move on to grotesques in façades and window frames, as well as fountains and hybrid objects by his followers Buontalenti and Ammanati. This group of grotesques does not lend itself very well to current readings of these figurations in terms of the corpus of 16th-century theories produced by Vasari, Ligorio, Lomazzo, Paleotti or Borromeo, because these theories are mainly based on the pictorial grotesque figuration inspired by the rediscovery of the Domus Aurea, not the three-dimensional masque variety of today’s talk. But also because that body of thought is normative and aetiological: normative because it attempts to regulate grotesque design, and aetiological because of its tendency to relate contemporary grotesques to Vitruvius and Roman art. Instead, starting from patterns of visual similarities, I will consider the relation of grotesque architectural ornament to contemporary armour; and I will consider the suggestion of a second skin, as well as the duplication and sometimes triplication of masque features in one grotesque in the light of anthropological work on masks by Franz Boas and Philippe Descola.