Medieval and Early Modern Research

Welcome to the Open University’s Medieval and Early Modern Research Group. This group brings together staff from a variety of disciplines across Arts and Humanities at The Open University, including Art History, Classical Studies, English, History and Music.

We have wide-ranging expertise in social, political, religious and cultural developments of the medieval and early modern periods. Our interests embrace a broad geographical area, covering developments across Europe and further afield. The group fosters a supportive environment within which staff and students can develop, exchange and collaborate in their research.

Our research has been presented in numerous individual and collaborative publications and we are involved in several major research projects at the university. We also promote medieval and early modern studies through the Open University’s undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum and welcome applications for MPhil and PhD studies concerning the primary research interests of our group:

  • People and objects in movement: courts and cities
  • Symbolic and material witnesses: letters, objects, music and art
  • Bodies: religion and medicine
  • Elizabethan society: politics, religion, gender
  • Uses of the arts, uses of knowledge: The Mediterranean and the Italian states
  • Performance and performativity: music, theatre, poetry
  • Intellectual, cultural and cross-cultural networks:  patronage, production and intermediaries.

Header image: detail from Fra Mauro World Map, c.1450, public domain.

News

CFP EMSE 2023: Early Modern Sensory Encounters

The University of Oxford and the Open University invite papers for our annual interdisciplinary Early Modern Sensory Experiences (EMSE) conference.

28th November 2022

CFP: Early Modern Sensory Experiences

The CFP for our next annual conference is now open! This first annual conference on the theme of 'Early Modern Sensory Experiences' will take place at Kellogg College, Oxford on 9-10 June 2022. The CFP closes on 14 January 2022. For further details see here.

11th November 2021

The Wedding of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, 1625

Dr. Sara Wolfson, Staff Tutor and Lecturer in History, has published a co-edited volume with Dr. Marie-Claude Canova-Green on The Wedding of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, 1625: Celebrations and Controversy. The union of 1625 between Charles Stuart, the Protestant king of Great Britain, and Henrietta Maria, a Catholic Bourbon princess, was a unique cross-confessional alliance in post-Reformation Europe. The volume brings together literary, art, music, and political-cultural scholars to explore for the first time the variety of celebrations that accompanied the match. ...

4th November 2021
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Contact us

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