Early modern history plays dramatized the recent and distant past for audiences and readers across Europe. While there is a wealth of scholarship on individual national traditions, European history plays have been rarely studied from comparative, interdisciplinary and multilingual perspectives. This conference will explore a range of questions. What was the relationship between historical drama and other forms of historical writing? How did vernacular and neo-Latin history plays respond to major political events and religious conflicts, both at home and abroad? How far did history plays exert influence across national borders?

8 September – Programme

10:00-11:45 Session #1 Queens in History
Chair and Respondent: Susan Doran
Andrea Frisch, ‘The Tragedy of Mary Stuart in France, 1601-1691’
Anastasia Ladefoged Larn, ‘Gendering Roman History in Garnier, Sidney, and Shakespeare’
Oana Andreia Sambrian, ‘Staging Isabella Jagiellon, Queen of Hungary and Princess of Transylvania’

11:45-12:00 Break

12:00-13:45 Session #2 Looking East
Chair and Respondent: Tracey Sowerby
Ritchie Robertson, ‘The Ottoman court in Lohenstein’s Ibrahim Sultan and Racine’s Bajazet’
Sofie Kluge, ‘The Many Lives of Timur’
Magnus Tessing Schneider, ‘History, Romance, and Allegory in Busenello’s La Statira principessa di Persia’
Christopher Archibald, ‘The Eastern Roman Empire on the Jesuit Stage’

13:45-14:45 Lunch

14:45-15:45 Keynote #1 Paulina Kewes, ‘Representative Assemblies in Europe’s Political Imagination’
Chair: Paul Seaward

15:45-16:30 Tea

16:30-18:15 Session #3 Saints and Biblical Figures
Chair and Respondent: Liesbeth Geevers
Jan Bloemendal, ‘Heinsius’ Herodes infanticida’
Dinah Wouters, ‘The Biblical History Play’
Niels Nykrog, ‘Salvation History in Martyr Drama’

19:00 Dinner