Date: 11 January 2020 at the University of Warwick

Plenary lecture by Professor Alison Shell (UCL)

Catholicism in the British Isles was an international enterprise. With seminaries, convents and printing-presses abroad, expatriate communities, and its natural dependence on the papacy, international patronage – and therefore international perceptions – mattered. British Catholics spent considerable time, effort and ink on portrayals of themselves and their nation for European audiences. The many and varied forms these portrayals took crossed genres as well as borders.

This conference aims to explore these projects and their impact, bringing together scholarship on English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Catholics: their relations with those they lived among as expatriates, the reach of their writings (broadly conceived), art, drama, music, and political thought in European cultures, as well as how they were portrayed and perceived by European writers and audiences. Papers may focus on one or more of the nations in the British Isles, or on Catholicism and ‘Britain’ as such. We hope to facilitate conversations on the role of British Catholics in the religious, social and political culture of post-Reformation Europe.

Confirmed speakers: Dr Clarinda Calma, Dr Liesbeth Corens, Professor Peter Davidson, Dr Katy Gibbons, Professor Jane Stevenson

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers on any aspect of European engagement with British Catholicism c.1530-1750. Please submit abstracts of 200 words to: katie.mckeogh@new.ox.ac.uk

Deadline: 1 September 2019

Organised by Dr Lucy Underwood (Warwick), Dr Katie McKeogh (Oxford), Dr Eilish Gregory (RHS)