Epic Borders: Intersections in Spanish and Portuguese Epic (1500‒1700)
Epic Borders: Intersections in Spanish and Portuguese Epic (1500‒1700)
26 June 2023 - 27 June 2023
Organised by Dr Thomas Clark (Hertford College, Oxford)
Keynote Speakers:
Prof Rodrigo Cacho (Clare College, University of Cambridge) on monolingual multilingualism in Martín del Barco Centenera’s La Argentina
Dr Catarina Fouto (Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, King’s College London) on the Dual Monarchy, the War of Independence, and Luís de Camões’s Os Lusíadas
Spanish and Portuguese poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced a wealth of epic poems on matters of conquest, crusade, and empire building, inspired by recent voyages of discovery and in cultural exchanges and conflicts between Europeans and European colonisers and indigenous peoples and other races and religions closer to home. Epics like Luís de Camões’s Os Lusíadas (1572) — on Vasco da Gama’s pioneering journey to India — and Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga’s Araucana (1569–89) — on warfare between European settlers and the Mapuche people groups of the province of Chile — have received much critical attention, however, many other Spanish and Portuguese epics remain to be explored in their entirety or in much greater detail. Scholars of epic have often tended to work either within the Spanish or the Portuguese literary traditions and have considered the poems as part of a discrete poetic genre that runs parallel, but separately, to other forms of poetry. Epic Borders takes an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to the study of epic, emphasising the genre’s importance not within its own mode but through its influences on other contemporary forms of artistic, written, and linguistic expression and on the influence that these, in turn, exert on it; highlighting the interconnectedness of the Spanish and Portuguese literary traditions; and aiming to bring lesser known epics to the forefront of discussion. It works towards an appreciation of the epic mode as a significant early modern ‘Iberian’ tradition, deconstructing the frontiers between the Spanish and Portuguese literature.
Epic Borders is currently inviting proposals for papers on:
• intertextuality between Spanish and Portuguese epic
• epic and contemporary lyric poetry, drama, and prose
• epic and other European literary traditions
• epic and history and historical texts
• epic and classical texts
• epic and vernacular translations of contemporary and classical texts
• epic and cartography, visual arts, and other iconographic discourses
• and epic and lexicology and linguistics
Proposals for papers focusing on other thematic matters concerning a single epic or a selection of epics will also be considered but preference will be given to those discussing intertextuality and intersections.
Please send proposals to thomas.clark@hertford.ox.ac.uk by Sunday 12 February 2023. There is no attendance fee and refreshments and a light lunch will be provided on both days. There will be a three course dinner (subject to interest) with Hertford College wine on Monday 26 June 2023 at a cost of £60 per person. Accommodation can be provided at a cost of £92.25 per night for a single room and includes breakfast. The college is offering a conference package (dinner/accommodation/breakfast(s)) at a cost of £130 for one night and £200 for two nights.
If you are interested in attending but do not wish to participate in the call for papers please register your interest in attending on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/epic-borders-intersections-in-spanish-and-portuguese-epic-15001700-tickets-489411802877. Please note there will be a small fee of £15 for those attending but not offering papers.
Please direct any questions to the email address above.