cems

Welcome to the Centre for Early Modern Studies

Oxford University offers unparallelled resources for the study of early modern English literature and has the world's largest concentration of specialists in this field. Based in the English Faculty, the Centre for Early Modern Studies serves as a central forum for research, conferences and graduate study, and aims to encourage collaboration across a wide range of related disciplines.

From the Blog

  • In the last session of this year’s CEMS series on ‘The Universities in Historical Context’, Professor T. J. Reed spoke on Immanuel Kant’s The Conflict of the Faculties. Professor Reed set this fascinating text in the context of the anti-Enlightenment reaction in Prussia under Frederick William III. More generally, as he showed, it is a classic statement of the relationship between the principles of philosophical...

The establishment of the Centre for Early Modern Studies was funded with a grant from the John Fell OUP Research Fund. Read more about John Fell and the history of the book.

Trinity Term 2012

Many Hands -
A New Shakespeare Collaboration?

We are very pleased to be able to offer the article recently published by Laurie Maguire and Emma Smith in the TLS with additional documentation.

Seminars in the next seven days

Week 4

Cultures of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe
Glenn Roe, 'Text Mining Electronic Enlightenment: Influence and Intertextuality in the Eighteenth-Century Republic of Letters'
Thursday 3pm, Colin Matthew Room of the History Faculty on George Street

Religion in the British Isles, 1400-1700
John MacCafferty, 'Donatus Mooney's De Provinciae Hiberniae (1617) and the Once and Future Glory of the Irish Franciscans'
Thursday 5pm, Memorial Room, Jesus College

The Demonic Seminar
Vera Hoorens, 'How anti-Catholicism inspired the landmark book against the witch trials: Jan Wier (1515-1588)'
Thursday 5pm, MacGregor Room, Oriel College

Dacre Lecture 2012
John Robertson, 'Religious Obstacles to the Enlightenment'
Friday 5pm, IBM al Jaber Building, Corpus Christi College

Week 5

Literature and History in Early Modern England
Arnold Hunt, 'tba'
Monday 5pm, Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College

Astor Visiting Lecture
James Vernon, 'Distant strangers: how imperial Britain became modern'
Monday 5pm, Magdalen College Auditorium

Early Modern Literature Graduate Seminar
Bradin Cormack, 'Knowing Action: Ethical Shakespeare'
Tuesday 5pm, Breakfast Room, Merton College