CfP: “Sex, Sin and Madness: the Borgia Family in Early Modern and Modern Popular Culture,” Kings & Queens Conference 7, Winchester UK, 9-12 July 2018
“Sex, Sin and Madness: the Borgia Family in Early Modern and Modern Popular Culture”
Call For Papers – Kings & Queens Conference 7: Ruling Sexualities: Sexuality, Gender and the Crown
Winchester, UK – 9-12 July 2018
In
the last two decades there has been a resurgence of interest in the
Borgia family, both in academic and general interest circles. Partly
this is due to the appearance of big budget network television series
that capitalize on a continued interest in the ruling houses of early
modern Europe, and partly due to increased attention paid to the papacy
through the conclaves of Popes Benedict XVI and Francis. Undoubtedly,
the quincentennial of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses has also
illuminated his and other reformers’ criticism of the papacy. The Borgia
family, including papal patriarchs Popes Calixtus III and Alexander VI,
as well as their relatives Cesare Borgia, Lucrezia Borgia and St.
Francis Borgia, has received a disproportionate amount of attention,
suggesting that it reflects something important about us as modern
consumers of and participants in legacy-building.
This
Call For Papers is open to scholars focusing on any aspect of the Borgia
family’s legacy of rule and notoriety, both in the academic
historiography and popular media from the 1400s through the present day.
These presentations might include, but are not limited to, studies of:
- public anonymous criticism, pasquinades, broadsheets, pamphlets, cantastoria
- histories of the papacy and local histories of Ferrara, Gandia, Valencia, Rome, etc.
- Borgia relationships with other controversial figures, like Niccolò Machiavelli
- visual and literary media: television, film, paintings (historical paintings and arguments for attribution), graphic novels, fiction, opera, plays
- incest, adultery, homosexuality, and venereal disease in depictions of the Borgia
- anti-Spanish, anti-clerical and anti-Catholic depictions; Black Legends
- framing Borgia success amid accusations of Borgia sin
Please send a half-page curriculum vitae, a title and a 250-word abstract of the proposed presentation to Jennifer Mara DeSilva (jmdesilva@bsu.edu). Please detail any A/V requirements that you might need.
For more information about the Kings & Queens Conference 7, please see the conference website: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/0f5aaa_d494361af9734764b0fe72e1639da9f2.pdf
The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 22 December 2017.