Events

MEMS is delighted to announce that at the UMBC 50th Anniversary Celebration, Professor Amy Froide of the Department of History will speak to
UMBC alumni, faculty, administrators, and guests on the subject of her new book, Silent Partners: Women as Public Investors during Britain's Financial Revolution, 1690-1750 (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Dr. Froide, Associate Professor of History, will offer a sneak peek at her new book on women investors in the world’s first stock market. Between a fifth and a third of investors in the Bank of England, joint stock companies, and government debt during Britain’s Financial Revolution were women, and Froide argues that women’s capital helped the rise of Britain as a trading and colonial empire. Women were early adopters of new financial opportunities and also served as investors for their husbands, brothers, and nephews. “Silent Partners” will hit bookstores this fall. Refreshments will be served.   Seating is limited.

“Some wine, ho!” Shakespeare, Women, and the Story of English Wine

What did Shakespeare’s contemporaries drink and what did they think about it?  If we think about Renaissance beverages at all, we tend to link Renaissance England with beer.  But wine was everywhere in Shakespeare’s plays and Shakespeare’s England.  More than a beverage, it was invested with all kinds of significance.  It was also a problem because it was usually imported, expensive, and spoiled. This talk explores the untold story of English wine and, in particular, the contributions of Shakespeare and women to that story.  To help us understand the English dream of growing their own grapes and making their own wines, Frances Dolan will range from Shakespeare’s London to colonial Virginia, from the sixteenth century to popular depictions of that period today.

Frances E. Dolan is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Davis.  A former president of the Shakespeare Association of America, she has edited six Shakespeare plays.  She is also the author of five books, most recently Twelfth Night:  Language and Writing (2014) and True Relations:  Reading, Literature, and Evidence in Seventeenth-Century England (2013), as well as numerous essays on a wide range of topics. She is an award-winning teacher and welcomes the chance to meet and learn from students.

Sponsored by the Dresher Center Humanities Forum, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, History Department, English Department, and Gender and Women's Studies

 

Commemorating the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death (1616)

DOUBLE, DOUBLE,

TOIL AND TROUBLE…..

Come join us as the English Department reads

scenes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Wed. March 23, 12-1 (free hour)

PAHB 4th Floor Lounge

Bass-Baritone Stephen Caracciolo presents and performs in Purcell’s London, a concert of verse anthems, with four guest vocal soloists from Washington National Cathedral — soprano Allison Mondel, soprano Crossley Hawn, countertenor Roger Isaacs, and tenor Oliver Mercer. The concert will be performed in collaboration with the Baltimore Baroque Band, Peabody’s ensemble specializing in historically-informed performances. Brian Bartoldus will be the guest conductor.

Works featured on the program include O Sing unto the Lord; O Give Thanks; Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei; Rejoice in the Lord, Alway; Thou knowest, Lord; Evening Service in G Minor; and Come Ye Sons of art.

One of the unique characteristics of Purcell’s verse anthems is they may be performed with soloists taking responsibility for all of the written sung music or in combination with a chamber choir joining and amplifying passages where Purcell has soloists singing at the same time. UMBC’s Camerata Chamber Choir will serve as the ripienists who fill out the tutti portions of Purcell’s exuberant cathedral and court music heard in London in the 1680s-90s. The performance will be conducted by Brian Bartoldus of Baltimore’s professional vocal ensemble ensemble, Third Practice.

Admission: $20 general, $10 seniors, $5 students, available through MissionTix. Tickets will also be available at the door, cash sales only.

October 30 2015
Futures of the Past
International Brotherhood of Teamsters Room [Gelman Library 702, GW Foggy Bottom Campus]
10 AM - 5 PM (includes lunch and a reception)
An all day symposium featuring new work in medieval and early modern studies. Please join us for some energetic conversation!

• Kim Hall, Barnard College, author of Sweet Taste of Empire (forthcoming)
• Patricia Clare Ingham, Indiana University, author of The Medieval New: Ambivalence in an Age of Innovation
• J. Allan Mitchell, University of Victoria, author of Becoming Human: The Matter of the Medieval Child
• Julie Orlemanski, University of Chicago, author of Symptomatic Subjects: Bodies, Signs, and Narratives in Late Medieval England (in progress)
• Coll Thrush, University of British Columbia, author of Indigenous London: Native Travellers at the Heart of Empire (forthcoming)
• Henry S. Turner, Rutgers University, author of The Corporate Commonwealth: Pluralism and Political Fictions in England, 1516-1651 (forthcoming)

Presentation titles, a schedule for the day, and a link to sign up for lunch and a reception will be posted shortly on the GW MEMSI blog.

Dr. Shannon McSheffrey  (Ph. D, Toronto), Professor, Department of History, Concordia University, Montreal, will speak on her research on women in late medieval London, including her work in digital humanities. She manages a database relating to the late medieval London Consistory court at http://digitalhistory.concordia.ca/consistory/index.php. In her lecture she will focus on a case study: in the spring of 1488, Margaret Heed, a young London woman about seventeen or eighteen years old, dithered about whether she would marry the man her father chose for her or another man whom she clearly preferred. Margaret’s dilemma highlighted a medieval paradox: young unmarried women were amongst the most powerless persons in medieval society, and yet at this one juncture in her life, as she was about to get married, a young woman held a particularly powerful card, as her consent was necessary for a marriage to be valid. Margaret’s story is a medieval one – but it’s also a 21^st-century digital humanities tale. We have more historical information than ever thanks to the digital revolution, but to interpret Margaret’s story, we also need the humanities, to teach us how to read the subtleties of the evidence, and indeed to remind us about how much we still do not know. 
Professor McSheffrey has published a number of scholarly articles and four books, Gender and Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities, 1420-1530 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995); Love and Marriage in Late Medieval London (Medieval Institute Publications, 1995); Lollards of Coventry 1486-1522 (co-authored with Norman Tanner), Camden Fifth Series, vol. 23 (Cambridge University Press, 2003);Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). She has won several awards for her research and teaching and was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society of the U.K. in 2002.