The Arthur F. Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies Annual Report 2020

The Arthur F. Kinney

CENTER FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY RENAISSANCE STUDIES

The Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, founded in 1998, is a research institution serving a dedicated community of scholars,

Students learn

students, artists, and the general public. Our mission is to support and promote interdisciplinary scholarship and public-facing humanities programming with the goal of exploring connections between the early modern world and our own.

The Center cultivates original and timely research by gathering diverse scholarly communities at public conferences, workshops, lectures, classes, and performances. Our extensive research library is open to the public for use in our reading room, where rare book exhibits explore challenging historical and literary questions in accessible ways. The historical gardens and orchards on our 28-acre estate flourish as collaborative, hands-on laboratories for the study of the environmental humanities, past and present. New teaching agendas in the creative arts take shape on our outdoor stage, as artists in residence showcase productions of Renaissance and contemporary drama in the summer months.

The theme, “The Renaissance of the Earth,� inspires our 2020 programming.

Drawing together our gardens with the literary, botanical, agricultural, and

early modern printmaking

earth science materials in our special collections, interdisciplinary research teams will dig into the past for how we might imagine alternative forms of habitation and cultivation of the earth. I invite you to explore our current

...and calligraphy arts

and upcoming programs and welcome you, as well, to contact me with suggestions for future events.

Marjorie Rubright, Director

umass.edu/renaissance 2

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‘ S HAKESPEARE, RACE, AND A MERICA...

Photo- John Crispin

not necessarily in that order ’

Kim F. Hall, Lucyle Hook Professor of English,

The American Moor residency opened with a gallery exhibition entitled Othello Re-imagined in Sepia displayed in the Anne Greer and Fredric B. Garonzik Family

Professor of Africana Studies —Barnard College, Columbia University

Gallery, Mount Holyoke College. Professor, painter, and master printmaker Curlee Raven Holton engaged in a public conversation with actor and playwright Keith Hamilton Cobb on the topic: African American Perspectives on Othello. In conjunction with Mount Holyoke College, we sponsored live performances at the Rooke Theater followed by after-show talkbacks.

Kim F. Hall (Lucyle Hook Professor of English and Professor of Africana Studies, Barnard College, Columbia University) delivered a historically wide-ranging

Photo- Colin Stanley

KEITH HAMILTON COBB

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HOW DOES THE RENAISSANCE SPEAK TO URGENT

keynote, “‘Othello Was My Grandfather’: Shakespeare and Race in the

QUESTIONS ABOUT RACE IN AMERICA TODAY?

African Diaspora.” Her talk explored connections between Shakespeare and

THE CENTER EXPLORED THIS QUESTION IN TANDEM

freedom dreams in the African Diaspora, outlining a tension between the ways

WITH KEITH HAMILTON COBB’S AWARD-WINNING

that “Shakespeare” and blackness have been valued in the 400 years since Shakespeare’s birth. It opened onto the ways that black writers and actors in the

Company and has performed numerous roles on, off-, and off-off-Broadway, including two years in the title role of the Tony Award-winning War Horse at Lincoln Center Theater.

Together, the director of American Moor, Kim Weild, actor/playwright Keith Hamilton Cobb, scholar Kim Hall, and actor Jude Sandy engaged our UMass Amherst community in urgent and open conversations about Shakespeare, race, and America today. Cobb gifted the Center with a copy of the playscript, which we currently hold in our rare book collection. The Center is the second library in the world to hold a copy in its collections; the other is the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC.

THEATRICAL PRODUCTION, AMERICAN MOOR.

early twentieth century used Shakespeare when grappling with constructions of

This program drew audiences from all of the Five Colleges and the broader

BY WAY OF CREATIVE, PUBLIC-FACING, AND

blackness and race in the United States.

New England community. Interviews with Cobb appeared in the Daily Hampshire

SCHOLARLY PROGRAMMING, THE CENTER EXPLORED

Our conversations bridged research and the creative arts by way of an Actors

‘SHAKESPEARE, RACE, AND AMERICA . . .

Studio, facilitated by the Trinidad & Tobago-born actor, movement artist, teacher,

NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER.’

and director Jude Sandy. Sandy is currently in residency at the Trinity Repertory

Gazette and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Morgan Reppert, managing editor for Massachusetts Daily Collegian, reflected on the immersive and hands-on learning experiences that American Moor offered to undergraduate students.

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The American Moor programming at the Center was generously supported by:

Berlin Lecture

The Office of the Provost The College of Humanities and Fine Arts

“The Lure of the Moor: Othello in an Arab American Setting”

The Five College Consortium Lecture Fund The Department of English, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Professor Mazen Naous (Department

The Department of Theater, University of Massachusetts Amherst

of English, University of Massachusetts

The Department of English, Amherst College

Amherst) inaugurated discussion of

The Department of English, Mount Holyoke College Photo- John Crispin

Othello’s global afterlives in the annual Normand Berlin Lecture. Drawing upon his forthcoming book, Poetics of Visibility in the Contemporary Arab American Novel, Naous explored Diana Abu-Jaber’s novel Crescent.

“O for a Muse of Fire!”

HENRY V, HAMPSHIRE SHAKESPEARE This past summer the Center welcomed Hampshire Shakespeare Company’s production of Henry V. Noah Tuleja (Director of Theater Arts, Mount Holyoke College, and Artistic Director of The Players Project at the Center) created a thrilling production that was both visually striking in its minimalist design and innovative in its approach. With only five actors, Tuleja captured the complexity of Henry’s character, the intrigue of court politics, and nuances of the soldier-King’s English language, thereby painting a robust picture of the Anglo-French wars at the center of the play.

An interview with Tuleja regarding his creative choices can be found on the Center’s new podcast: Foraging Shakespeare.

Photo- Colin Stanley

PLAYERS PROJECT Under the founding direction of Noah Tuleja, the Center is growing

American Moor is a 90-minute solo play written and performed by Keith Hamilton Cobb

its programming with The Players Project. The Players Project is a

and directed by Kim Weild. Following its performance in the Valley, the play enjoyed a run at Off-Broadway’s Cherry Lane Theatre. The work examines the experiences and perspectives of black men in America through the metaphor of William Shakespeare’s character, Othello. It is not an adaptation of Othello but an echoing of it in our lives today. American Moor is a play about race in America, but it is also a performance about who is allowed to make art, who is cast in Shakespeare’s plays, actors and acting, and the nature of unadulterated love.

Rare Book and Curatorial Exhibit

company of Five College actors meeting across

Noah Tujela

different campuses to workshop modern plays that use the lens of the Renaissance to view

The World of Othello

contemporary culture.

FORAGING SHAKESPEARE:

The Moor “of here and everywhere”?

A New Podcast

Discovering Othello in maps, visual arts,

This podcast features interviews with theater directors,

and early theatrical criticism.

writers, scholars, students, and invited artisans to discover the sometimes surprising ways in which our creations today find their roots in the Renaissance.

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THE REFINERY

Collins Lecture “Shakespeare’s Reformations: Thinking with Conversion”

A NEW RESEARCH INITIATIVE AT THE CENTER

“Shakespeare is at his most creative and influential when thinking with conversion rather than The Refinery offers a forum for advanced graduate

For the inaugural Refinery, the Center welcomed

The conversation illuminated the central importance

students to share work in progress with an invited

Liz Fox, PhD (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

of feminist criticism in the project of uncovering

scholar whose research is currently shaping their

and Assistant Professor of Literature Stephen

early modern notions of cosmopolitanism. Fox

thinking. Authors precirculate their works in progress

Spiess (Babson College, Boston). Their theme:

is currently revising her dissertation into a book

to our research community. The authors begin their

Un/Chaste: Whore Plays & Cosmopolitan Desires.

project entitled, Sophisticating Comedy: Global

conversation by raising questions for each other,

Trafficking with comedy’s un/chaste women across

Exchange on the Jacobean Stage, and Spiess is

discussing intersections between their work, and

the cosmopolitan fictions of the Renaissance, the

completing his first book, Shakespeare and the

then open into a roundtable discussion with faculty

authors asked participants to grapple with the

Making of English Whoredom (under contract with

and graduate students from around the East Coast.

conceptual instabilities of the early modern whore.

Oxford University Press).

thinking about it,” argued Professor Paul Yachnin (Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies, McGill University) in the 36th annual Dan S. Collins Lecture. The English Department’s Collins Lecture is delivered by a leading scholar in the field of early modern literature. The lecture is named for the co-founder of English Literary Renaissance, a journal devoted to current criticism and scholarship of Tudor and early Stuart English literature.

Five College Book History Seminar “Servant-Functions and Author-Functions in Early Modern Europe” Ann Blair (Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, Harvard University) specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of early modern Europe with an emphasis on France. Her talk shared the contours of her recent research project on early modern amanuenses.

ShaxMoot

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Five College Renaissance Seminar

moot, n. 1 A meeting, an assembly of people, esp. one for judicial or legislative purposes.

“‘A Strange, Hollow, and Confused Noise’: Prospero’s Start and the Phenomenology of Magic”

Just as we think of the Civil Code or the judgments of the

Graduate students and faculty debated the case of Violette

Lyn Tribble (Professor, University of Connecticut) explored how magic practitioners were trained to

Supreme Court as law, our project was to think of Shakespeare

and Normand LeBlanc versus The Miranda Hospital of Hope.

alter their states of consciousness in order to perform the emotional labor of conjuring spirits.

as law—a ShaxMoot! Professor Paul Yachnin (Tomlinson

The hearing considered the right to medical aid in dying for an

Professor of Shakespeare Studies, McGill University) offered

advanced Alzheimer’s patient, Violette LeBlanc. The document

the Center’s research community an exciting new method of

by which this case was argued was a single Shakespeare play,

Community Shakespeare

engaging with Shakespeare. By a process of dramatic invention

All’s Well That Ends Well. Using the play as law, the community

This season our popular Community Shakespeare courses were offered by Professor Marie Roche,

and indirection, this interactive workshop modeled and explored

debated what determined consent. This single case offered a

Professor Emeritus James van Luik, and Independent Scholar and Friend of the Center, Tony Burton.

the nature of interpretation, the development of a legal

taste of the more extensive Shakespeare Moot Court Project,

Seminars ranged in topic from Shakespeare in Translation to Science in the Renaissance.

tradition, and the way in which value and meaning intersect in

a collaborative effort between the Department of English and

the creation of law and literature alike.

Faculty of Law at McGill University.

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nt er e Ce h T

con g r at u l

ate s

RSA PHILADELPHIA 2019 FOUNDING EDITOR

The annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America will be held in Philadelphia this year,

Arthur F. Kinney

and the Center is proud to announce our sponsorship of roundtable and panel discussions

INCOMING EDITORS Joseph Black, Mary Thomas Crane,

on

50 y ea r s

of field- defi

la r s o h c s n i ng

h ip

Jane Hwang Degenhardt, Adam Zucker

RARE BOOK AND CURATORIAL EXHIBITS

organized by our faculty and graduate students.

ROUNDTABLES ELR 50

OLD BABEL & NEW PHILOLOGIES

Adam Zucker

How did early moderns navigate

EDITORIAL BOARD Reid Barbour, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Mary Ellen Lamb, Southern Illinois

Elaine V. Beilin, Framingham State University

Lucy Munro, King’s College London

Ilona Bell, Williams College

William Oram, Smith College

Peter Berek, Amherst College

Ayesha Ramachandran, Yale University

William Carroll, Boston University

Marjorie Rubright, Massachusetts

Elizabeth H. Hageman, New Hampshire

Sharon Cadman Seelig, Smith College

Eugene David Hill, Mount Holyoke

Ian Smith, Lafayette College

Ann Rosalind Jones, Smith College

Alan Stewart, Columbia University

Greg Kneidel, Connecticut

Evelyn Tribble, Connecticut

ELR’s 50th Anniversary issue, “The State of Renaissance Studies II,” was published in January 2020.

It features new essays by over 20 former ELR authors discussing the past, present, and future of Renaissance studies.

The Center is home to both English Literary Renaissance and The Sidney Journal.

their polyglot world? An exhibition of

In celebration of English Literary Renaissance’s

dictionaries, grammars, and word books.

50th year of publication under the editorship of Arthur F. Kinney, this roundtable draws

TINY BOOKS How do you carry the world of knowledge in the palm of your hand? How the Renaissance predicted our digital age.

HENRY V BEYOND SHAKESPEARE Where did early moderns learn their medieval history? An exhibition of the literary histories of Henry the Fifth.

together many of the most prominent voices in the field as we reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going in the future of Renaissance studies. The roundtable celebrates the field-defining editorial tenure of Arthur F. Kinney, founding director of the Center.

Dina Alqassar, PhD Candidate

SESSIONS

University of Massachusetts Amherst, working with the Folger’s collections

Futures of the Maritime Humanities Hayley Cotter

OVIDIAN TRANSVERSIONS

The Sophisticated Stage:

How did translators shape the tales of

A Study in Object-Human Relations

Ovid? A transhistorical exhibition of Ovid’s

Liz Fox

Metamorphoses.

Intersections of Race Formations

FOLGER CONSORTIUM The Center is a consortium member of the Folger Institute (Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC), a collaborative endeavor involving over 40 leading colleges and universities.

Yunah Kae 10

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STUDENTS TEND TO THE CENTER’S HISTORICAL RENAISSANCE KITCHEN GARDEN

ENTANGLEMENTS

ECO-

UNEARTHING THE RENAISSANCE:

What can we learn by turning to the past to consider today’s environmental crises?

Our 17th annual Graduate Student Conference, “Eco-Entanglements: Ruin, Grafting, Stratification,” drew together Anglo-Saxonists and early modernists to consider the ecological affordances of thinking with the medieval and early modern pasts.

Our keynote speakers: Jean Feerick (Associate Professor, John Carroll University) and Heide Estes (Professor, Monmouth University).

Photo-Don David

Co-organized by Melissa Hudasko and John Yargo.

Renaissance Wednesday Lecture Ellen Kosmer, Professor Emerita of Art History, Worcester State University, delivered a lecture: 12

“Grottoes, Mazes, and Labyrinths in the Renaissance Garden.”

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2018—2019 DONORS CENTER PERSONNEL Marjorie Rubright, PhD

The Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies is grateful to our donors whose generous contributions build our rare book collections, support our seasonal artistic programs, and foster a vibrant research community.

Director

Amherst Garden Club

Arthur F. Kinney

Joseph Black, PhD

The Amherst Woman’s Club

Ellen Kosmer

Associate Director

Ronald Anderson

John Lancaster

Barbara Blumenthal

Gilbert Lawall

Edla Brabham

Nathaniel Leonard

David W. Briggs

Hal and Rebecca Lockwood

David Alan Brown

Brenda Lyons

Jeffrey Goodhind, MLIS Librarian

Liz Fox, PhD Interim Arts and Academic

Carolyn Collette

Programs Coordinator

Walter Denny and Alice Robbins

Emily Bernhard Assistant to the Director

Madeleine Pereira

Photo- Don David

Student Gardener Ellen Carroll-McLane The Alta Luna Consort

MUSIC TRANSPORTS US TO THE PAST.

Our Sunday and Holiday Concerts feature music from

Office Manager

Kirby Farrell Joanne Elizabeth Gates and Greg Halligan Dorothy Gavin

local attorney, and his wife, Janet Wilder Dakin, the youngest sister of the playwright Thornton Wilder. Janet Wilder Dakin was also a philanthropist

Gerald McFarland

and founder of the Dakin Animal Shelter.

John Nove

The research institute and classrooms are housed in

Melissa Perot

their brick home built in the style of a Renaissance

Brandon Shaw

cottage in Shakespeare’s Warwickshire.

Kenneth Gouwens

Diana Stein

Margaret K. De Gregorio

Raymond Waddington

Catherine Grygorcewicz

John Waldman

Anne Herrington

Dee Waterman

Bonnie Isman

Wilhemina Van Ness

David and Melba Jensen

T.C. Price Zimmermann

Lois Kackley

THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY! Contributions may be made by mail using the form attached

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28-acre estate of Winthrop Saltonstall Dakin, a

Dorothy McCaffrey

AyreCraft, the Pioneer Valley Renaissance Wind Band, Alta Luna Consort, and The Harper and The Minstrel.

The Center occupies the grounds of the former

or online at: umass.edu/renaissance/give-renaissance

Arthur F. Kinney

Joseph Black, PhD

The Amherst Woman’s Club

Ellen Kosmer

Associate Director

Ronald Anderson

John Lancaster

Barbara Blumenthal

Gilbert Lawall

Edla Brabham

Nathaniel Leonard

David W. Briggs

Hal and Rebecca Lockwood

David Alan Brown

Brenda Lyons

Jeffrey Goodhind, MLIS Librarian

Liz Fox, PhD Interim Arts and Academic

Carolyn Collette

Programs Coordinator

Walter Denny and Alice Robbins

Don David PhotoDon David

David and Melba Jensen

T.C. Price Zimmermann

Lois Kackley

Alta Luna Consort, and The Harper and The Minstrel.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY! Contributions may be made by mail using the form attached

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or online at: umass.edu/renaissance/give-renaissance

ZIP ________

AyreCraft, the Pioneer Valley Renaissance Wind Band,

Please accept my gift to support the artistic and scholarly programming

Wilhemina Van Ness

at the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies

Bonnie Isman

o $75

Dee Waterman

o $500

Anne Herrington

o $50

John Waldman

o $250

Catherine Grygorcewicz

o Other amount__________

Raymond Waddington

o $150

Margaret K. De Gregorio

o $100

Our Sunday and Holiday Concerts feature music from

Diana Stein

Name _____________________________________________________

MUSIC TRANSPORTS US TO THE PAST.

Office Manager

Kenneth Gouwens

Address ___________________________________________________

Ellen Carroll-McLane The Alta Luna Consort

Brandon Shaw

City _______________________ State ____

Student Gardener

Dorothy Gavin

Melissa Perot

Email Address _____________________________________________

Madeleine Pereira

John Nove

o I wish to join the Center’s mailing and email lists to receive

Assistant to the Director

Joanne Elizabeth Gates and Greg Halligan

Gerald McFarland announcements of upcoming programming.

Emily Bernhard

Kirby Farrell

Dorothy McCaffrey

The Kinney Center is grateful for the generosity of our

Amherst Garden Club

PO Box 2300

Director

scholarly programming.

our seasonal artistic programs, and foster a vibrant research community.

donors and Friends who make possible our arts and

donors whose generous contributions build our rare book collections, support Amherst, MA 01004

Marjorie Rubright, PhD

The Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies is grateful to our

Please consider making a tax-deductible gift today.

CENTER PERSONNEL

Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies

2018—2019 DONORS