Friday, February 15

1:30 – 3:00 PM

The Construction of Melancholy — Donovan Lounge, Greenlaw 223
Moderator: Karen Cook, Duke University, Music

The Notion of Melancholy in Galen of Pergamum
Marco A. Viniegra, Harvard University, History of Science

Guillaume de Machaut’s Remede de Fortune, Melancholy, and the Poetics of Self-Transformation
Eliza Zingesser, Princeton University, French and Italian

Religious Melancholy in the Lute Songs of John Dowland
Molly Breckling, UNC – Chapel Hill, Music

 “An Owl in the Desert”: The Preservation of Sorrow in the Journals of Lady Anne Clifford
Lauren Klapper-Lehman, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

 

3:30 PM – 5 PM

(1) Desire: Despair, Dejection, and Damnation — Murphey Hall 112
Moderator: Mark Jackson, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

Passion and Reason in Dante’s Paolo and Francesca Episode
Diane Biunno, Rutgers University, Italian

 “Pale Despair and Pain His Pen Doth Move”: An Examination of the Power of Poetry in Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella
Adrian Greene, Wake Forest University, English

The Eighth Deadly Sin: Dejection as Passion in The Wanderer
Benjamin Wilkinson, Wake Forest University, English

 

(2) Religiosity, Civilization, and Conflict — Murphey Hall 204
Moderator: Joe Wallace, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

Wine, Confession and Orthodoxy in Ibn al-Farid and the Archpoet
Kevin Blankenship, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

Pious Heathens: Aspects of Crusader Religiosity Through the Eyes of Muslim Writers
Aman Nadhiri, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

Binding the Dragon: Sir Francis Drake and Lope de Vega’s La Dragontea
George Vahamikos, Duke University, English

 

5:30 PM – 6:30 PM

Keynote Address – Murphey Hall 116

“Eloquent Blood and Body Thoughts: John Donne and Corporeality”
Michael Schoenfeldt, Professor of English and Assistant Dean for the Humanities
University of Michigan

6:30-7:30 PM

Keynote Reception — first floor Murphey Hall

 

Saturday, February 16

8:30AM
Coffee & Bagels (first floor Murphey Hall)

9 AM – 10:30 AM

Economic Interests — Murphey Hall 111
Moderator: Robert Erle Barham, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

Jewelers and Jealousy in Pearl
Elizabeth Harper, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

The Nowhere Men: Anti-Capitalist Rhetoric and Imperialism in Radical Utopian Literature
Pauline Spangler, Clemson University

Owing and Knowing: Economics and Affect in a Selection of Early Modern Texts
Lauren Garrett, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature


10:45 AM – 12:15 PM

(1) Edifying the Church — Murphey Hall 111
Moderator: Elizabeth Harper, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

Learning to Love: Redirecting the Wille in Piers Plowman
Rachael Deagman, Duke University, English

Affective Devotion vs. Christus Victor Theology
Sarah Lindsay, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

 

(2) Navigating Female Sexuality — Murphey Hall 104
Moderator: Nancy B. Warren, Florida State University, English & National Humanities Center Fellow

The Consequences for Women of a Materialist’s Conception of the Body
Joseph Bryan, North Carolina State University, History

Souls, Saints and Separation: The Matrimonial Poems of Donne and King
Julie Mayes, UNC – Charlotte, English

Constructing the Erotic: Images of Desire in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander and the Song of Songs
Michael Noschka, North Carolina State University, English

 

12:30 PM – 2 PM
Lunch on your own (see packet for recommendations)

 

2 PM – 3:30 PM

(1) Eco-Love: Affective Landscapes — Murphey Hall 111
Moderator: Sarah Lindsay, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

Boccaccio’s Edens: Parody and Paradise in the Third Day of the Decameron
David Cane, UNC – Chapel Hill, Romance Languages and Literature

The Ruminant Acrasia: Temperance, Passion, and Husbandry in Spenser’s Bower of Bliss
Hillary Eklund, Duke University, English

Grounds for Appreciation: Landscape and Emotion in the Sagas
Benjamin Utter, Wake Forest University, English

 

(2) Violence, Destruction, and Madness — Murphey Hall 104
Moderator: Lauren Garrett, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

 “What murderer was he / That lifted up my hand against my head?”: Divine Wrath and Human Agency in The Atheist’s Tragedy
Genevieve Romeo, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

Rape and Rhetorical Failure in Shakespeare’s Lucrece and Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller
Robert Erle Barham, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

Passionate Eyes: A Study of the Optics of Desire in The Duchess of Malfi and Optick Glasse of Humors
Jennifer Rae McDermott, University of Toronto, English

 

3:45 PM – 5:15 PM

Eroticism and Anxiety — Murphey Hall 104
Moderator: Genevieve Romeo, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

Sodomy, Prostitution, and Lust: The Whore of Babylon and John Donne
Paul Stapleton, UNC – Chapel Hill, English and Comparative Literature

 “All my Other Passions”: Lipsius De Constantia, Zizek and The Changeling
Shannon Ciapciak, Duke University, English

Silly Men: Male Performance Anxiety Represented as Lesbian Desire in Donne’s Sappho to Philaenis
James Newlin, University of Florida, English