[Via H-Law, we have the following CFP. DRE]
Inclusion, Exclusion, and Resistance in the Renaissance World, ca. 1300–1700
The history of rights in the Renaissance is also a history of their limits. The vocabularies of dignity, right, and resistance that Renaissance thinkers developed to claim freedom and constrain power were never universal; they were always already structured by categories that determined who belonged to the community (citizens, subjects), who was tolerated within it (religious minorities), and who was excluded from it altogether (enslaved persons, women). This session asks how those boundaries were drawn, contested, and redrawn across the Renaissance world — and how rights expanded for some while narrowing or vanishing for others.
Abstracts on any of the following are welcome: toleration and the limits of confessional belonging; colonial encounter and new categories of subjecthood; resistance theory and who may act in defense of a community; the jurisprudence of slavery and the boundaries of personhood; and the legal and political status of women, whose rights often narrowed even as others expanded.
Depending on the abstracts received, this session may take the form of a traditional panel of papers or a roundtable discussion for the 2027 Renaissance Society of America Conference in Philadelphia (March 11–13). Please indicate your preferred format, and feel free to describe your contribution as either a research paper or a set of reflections drawing on your current work.
Abstracts are invited from scholars across all relevant disciplines. Papers recovering neglected or unexpected traditions are especially welcome. Early-career scholars are encouraged to submit.
Please send a 300-word abstract and a short copy of your c.v. to karrsn@uc.edu
