The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America
Boston, 31 March–2 April 2016

CFP for a panel on "Ink, Dyes and Pigments: The Production of Colours and the Making of Metaphors"

A Panel Sponsored by Epistémè (Research Group on Early Modern England)

Organizer: Anne-Valérie Dulac, Université Paris 13 – Sorbonne Paris Cité
Respondent: Anne-Marie Miller-Blaise, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

Following up on last year's two panels on "Scriptile Objects and the Making of Metaphors" and the many questions and discussions that ensued, the aim of this panel is to enquire further into the material qualities of ink, dyes or pigments used in writing, printing, colouring or limning.

This panel will thus investigate the material history of the production, circulation and uses of ink, dyes and pigments as well as the interactions between this history and the way these materials made their way into literature as metaphors.

We welcome individual papers addressing:

- The history of all practices related to writing, inscribing or colouring with ink, dyes and/or pigments in the early modern period (e.g. tattooing, limning, printing, cosmetics…).
- The circulation of such practices inside or outside Europe and their descriptions by travellers, ambassadors or merchants.
- The coining of metaphors related to ink, dyes or pigments in early modern European literature.
- The ways in which these practices may have contributed to shape specific literary forms or literary experience.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 150 words along with a title and a list of keywords to anne-valerie.dulac@univ-paris13.fr and anne-marie.miller-blaise@univ-paris3.fr and by June 8 2015. The RSA also requires a one-page C.V. (no more than 300 words). It must include degrees awarded, institutional affiliation, major publications. Please do not send a prose bio.