The purpose of the EMRG @ RU: Early Modern Research Group at Rutgers will be to provide a forum for Rutgers faculty, graduate students, and visitors to exchange work-in-progress, to explore emerging problems and arguments in an interdisciplinary context, and to test new methods of research in the field of early modern studies. EMRG has no a priori commitment to any questions, theories, methods, or geographical areas beyond the broad chronological range of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. It welcomes contributions from any member of the Rutgers community who is engaged in work that spans this historical period, with the assumption that the problem of periodization itself will remain an active area of inquiry for members affiliated with the group.
EMRG sponsors guest lectures and conferences by scholars outside of Rutgers, establishes residencies on campus by distinguished scholars, fosters new teaching initiatives at both the graduate and undergraduate level, and organizes interdisciplinary workshops, colloquia, and seminars for faculty and students at Rutgers University.
Steering Committee:
Alastair Bellany (History)
James Delbourgo (History)
Thomas Fulton (English)
Jennifer Tamas (French)
Henry Turner (English)
Laura Weigert (Art History)
Faculty and graduate students are welcome to
- Co-sponsored events with related research groups on campus. Examples include a talk by Zachary Lesser (University of Pennsylvania) to the Rutgers Seminar in the History of the Book and a one-day conference on Formalisms New and Old sponsored by the English Department’s Medieval and Renaissance Colloquium featuring Maura Nolan (University of California, Berkeley), Scott Trudell (Rutgers University), Larry Scanlon (Rutgers University), Colleen Rosenfeld (Rutgers University), Christopher Warley (University of Toronto), Ellen Rooney (Brown University), and Susan Wolfson (Princeton University).
- Providing funds for graduate student travel to major national conferences, in any field related to PEMS projects.
- Acting as a network of information and a link to resources in Early Modern Studies in the New York area and beyond, through the consortium of local universities and the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Housed at the Center for Cultural Analysis at 15 Seminary Place, New Brunswick, NJ, the Program in Early Modern Studies is generously supported by the CCA, the English Department, the Dean of Humanities, the Executive Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, the Vice President of Undergraduate Education, and the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Coordinator
Henry S. Turner
Department of English, Rutgers University
Henry S. Turner is Professor of English at Rutgers University, where he has taught since 2007. He specializes in Renaissance literature and intellectual history, especially drama, philosophy, and the history of science. He is the author of The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial Arts, 1580-1630 (Oxford, 2006), Shakespeare’s Double Helix (Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2008), and The Corporate Commonwealth: Pluralism and Political Fictions in England, 1516-1651 (Chicago, 2016). He has also edited a collection of essays on Early Modern Theatricality (Oxford, 2013), a collection on literature, economics, science, and urban history entitled The Culture of Capital: Property, Cities, and Knowledge in Early Modern England (Routledge, 2002), and a special double issue of Configurations: Journal of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts 17.1–2 (Winter 2009) on “Mathematics and the Imagination” (with Arielle Saiber). His work has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, and the American Council of Learned Societies.
