Keynote speakers: Prof. Melissa Sanchez (English, University of Pennsylvania) and Prof. Mitchell Merback (History of Art, Johns Hopkins University)

This interdisciplinary conference will explore the instances, effects, and functions of violence throughout sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. How we understand violence effectively informs how we understand other far-reaching phenomena in the period—e.g., colonization; performances of ability, class, gender, race, and sex; public entertainment; religious reformation(s); social discipline; and urbanization. Recent scholarship has evinced a renewed interest particularly in the dynamics between violence and power, and this conference will therefore focus on a variety of related questions. When and where did violence serve the interests of hegemonic power? When and where did it thwart the interests of hegemonic power? How did violence shape identities? Collectives? Cultures? By whom or by what was violence practiced and endured? What were the costs of violence? What were the rewards?

The Early Modern Colloquium is a graduate interdisciplinary group at the University of Michigan. It will give priority to abstracts submitted by graduate students. Please send any questions to John Paul Hampstead (jphampst@umich.edu) or Amrita Dhar (amritad@umich.edu).

Please submit 250-300 word proposals to John Paul Hampstead and Amrita Dhar (at the same addresses) by December 30, 2012.