October 30–31, 2009
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
The focus of the 2009 New England Renaissance Conference will be how developing technologies – whether the printing press, navigation, scientific instruments, importation of new materials, etc. – changed, challenged, and reinforced concepts of value and judgment in the Renaissance. Questions around authority and trustworthiness emerge across disciplines as previous standards of taste and value no longer apply.
Possible topics for papers could include, but are not limited to, the following:
– The role of emotion, reason, and the senses in judgment
– Judgment and taste as mediators to antiquity
– Patronage and new priorities in collecting
– The relationship between subjectivity and taste in the arts
– Changing worldviews and destabilization as a result of new technologies
We also seek papers that draw a comparison between these Renaissance concerns and those in our contemporary age of technological change. Underlying the entire conference will be a consideration of how the idea of “the Renaissance” is itself a term affecting value and judgment.
Please send abstracts of 250-500 words by August 1 to
cranston@bu.edu with cc: to blues@bu.edu