Making Stories in the Early Modern World

Making Stories in the Early Modern World seeks to investigate how scholars try to recover, understand and retell stories from the early modern period. Honouring the work of Elizabeth and Thomas Cohen, this three-day international conference brings together scholars to explore local and global developments in storytelling, narrativity, constructions of identity, community and alterity across geographies, cultures and faiths. We will explore how people from diverse backgrounds and parts of the world, and in diverse media, used narratives to construct, negotiate and challenge identity, community, and space. While we seek to recover the stories individuals told, and through them try to understand their worlds, we will also critically engage with the possibilities and limitations of this endeavor. We will analyze the immediate and long-term consequences of stories told and histories created, reproduced and fortified over the centuries, as well as the epistemological and ethical dimensions of attempting to retell past peoples’ stories to contemporary audiences.
* Please note that Making Stories will meet at York University on Friday, Nov. 1 in the Private Dining Room, Schulich School of Business (Keele Campus). The conference will continue on Saturday, Nov. 2 at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto, and Sunday, Nov. 3 at Victoria College, University of Toronto. Maps to all three venues are available on the right sidebar.
** Please also note that Making Stories has a conference rate ($239+tax) at the Kimpton Hotel, located near the subway line to York University and approx. 10 minutes’ walk to Victoria College, University of Toronto. Use this link to book by the deadline of October 16.
Recent Publications:

The Youth of Early Modern Women
Ed. Elizabeth S. Cohen & Margaret Reeves (Amsterdam University Press, 2018)

Roman Tales: A Reader’s Guide to the Art of Microhistory
Thomas V. Cohen (Routledge, 2019)
1-3 NOVEMBER 2019
Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies
Victoria College, University of Toronto (Canada)
ORGANIZERS
John Christopoulos (University of British Columbia)
John Hunt (Utah Valley University)
Margaret Schotte (York University)
SPONSORS
Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies
Social Studies and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium
University of British Columbia – Department of History
University of British Columbia – Faculty of Arts
University of Toronto – Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies
Utah Valley University – Department of History and Political Science
York University – Department of History
York University — Department of Humanities
York University – Italian Studies, Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics
York University – Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies
York University — Division of the Vice-President Research & Innovation (VPRI)