Charting the Future & the Unknown in the Middle Ages & Renaissance

A conference
Saturday, December 1, 2012
9 AM – 6:15 PM

Barnard’s 23rd Medieval and Renaissance Conference takes up the question of how writers, artists, historians, scientists, and the masses imagined and plotted the future and the unknown. How did they envision the future in their scientific and literary discourses? How did they articulate the new, the unexpected, the unforeseen? How did they conceptualize the end of the world, chart terrae incognitae, or devise the realms of divination and astrology? More than 20 scholars offer answers to these and other fascinating questions. Keynote speakers are Rebecca Bushnell, University of Pennsylvania, and Laura Ackerman Smoller, University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

 

 

 

FIRST SESSION
12.15pm-1.45pm
I. The Unknown Region of Hell (Moderator: Rachel Eisendrath, Barnard C.)
Juliette Bourdier, Colorado U.
“Charting Hell to Make it Real in Medieval Infernal Literature”

Meredith Bacola, Durham U.
“The hand of God and fiery Erebus: the uses of vision in the legend of St.Guthlac”

Andrew Majeske, John Jay C., CUNY
“Galileo’s Lecture on Dante: Plagiarism and Deception in the Accademia Fiorentina”