This symposium aims to bring together researchers from English, history, political thought and performance studies, in order to probe some of these questions. It builds from recent currents in early modern history, considering the lived experience of government, and the state as social actor, and from the increased interest in the modalities of performance in early modern literary studies. It hopes to foster discussion across disciplinary boundaries, to explore different ways of approaching the ways that authority was performed in ordinary life, and to offer a new approach to social and legal history.

The symposium’s structure is distinctively interdisciplinary, and designed to provoke conversation between researchers. It will begin with a pair of keynote presentations, by Dr Clare Egan (English, Lancaster) and Dr Hillary Taylor (History, Jesus College Cambridge). There will then be a panel of three to four speakers from a variety of disciplines. The symposium will culminate in a practice as research workshop led by History DPhil Lucy Clarke, in which actors will experiment with staging proclamations and arrests, and in which attendees are encouraged to participate in discussion