Ideas and Beliefs
Ideas and Beliefs focuses on interpreting and understanding political and religious values. We look at the attitudes and convictions of past societies.
About
Our research draws together academics from across the School. It links with other schools in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and beyond.
We're dedicated to understanding ideas and beliefs across historical periods and geographical boundaries. We make use of perspectives to study the past that span our subjects.
Research interests
We have a wide range of research interests, including:
- republicanism
- Protestant and Catholic belief and practice
- revolutionary ideologies
- the reception of classical culture in later periods
- pagan-Christian relations
- ancient divination and providence
- musical theory
Newcastle History of Scholarship Reading Group
The last few decades have seen the history of scholarship emerge as a recognised methodology for approaching the history of early modern Europe. This reading group is composed of Newcastle-based historians working either on the history of scholarship or on related fields in early modern intellectual history. Our primary interest is in situating the history of scholarship as a field and making sense of its relationships with the history of political thought, the history of religion and belief, and the history of ideas and intellectual culture in early modern Europe. In monthly meetings we discuss themes in the history of scholarship, recent publications, present our own work in progress, or host external contributors. We also tend to discuss the contemporary relevance of the history of scholarship for understanding the institutional infrastructure of research, the academy and higher education.
For more information please contact nicholas.mithen@ncl.ac.uk
Research focus
The strand's research focuses on the following areas:
- civil religion (we run a reading group on this theme and a range of workshops and conferences)
- ways belief manifests itself in landscape, space and rituals (with McCord Centre For Landscape)
- the study of intolerance
- how it forms and sustains
- the role it plays in animating historical action
- how peoples of different belief systems interact (hosted several conferences and published widely)
- the role of ideas and beliefs in provoking, and resolving, historical action, including:
- conflict
- revolution
- state formations
Research-led teaching
These research strengths are also reflected in the teaching on offer in the School. Ideas and beliefs are an integral part of many of the School team's taught modules, including:
Stage 1
Stage 2
- HIS2318 ‘Revolutions of the Mind: European Thought from late Renaissance to early Enlightenment, 1550-1750’
- HIS2319 ‘Reformation and Revolution: British History from the Tudors to the Georgians’
- HIS2301 ‘Ideas and Beliefs in Medieval and Early Modern East Asia’ (Launching 2022)
- CAC2063/3063 “Approaches to Greek Myth”
- CAC2058/3058 “Food for thought: Greco-Roman dining and sympotic culture”.
Stage 3
- HIS3352 ‘The Renaissance World of Machiavelli’ (Dr Katie East)
- HIS3204 ‘The English Revolution, 1640-1660’ (Professor Rachel Hammersley)
- HIS3351 ‘Buddhism and Society in Medieval Japan’ (Dr Philip Garrett)
Postgraduate Taught (MA)
- HIS8104 ‘Ideas and Influences in British History’
Theme modules include Ideas and Influences in British History and Pathways in British History. They involve a focused study of the ideas and beliefs of peoples in the past. There's a range of similar modules in MA Classics and Ancient History. These include Roman Egypt and The Archaeology of Byzantium and Its Neighbours
Collaborating across research themes
Synergies exist between our work and other areas of research strength in the School. We tie in with the work of Conflict and Revolution and the Empires and After research strands.
Our researchers work with the Medieval and Early Modern Study Group (MEMS). They work collaboratively with scholars in English Literature, Music and French.
We foster a supportive research environment for developing research projects in these fields. We're keen to offer research supervision in these areas.
We provide a home for post-doctoral projects, and visiting scholars. We have a proven track record in these areas.
- East, Katherine A. ‘Editing Ciceronian Religion in the Enlightenment’. In Cicero and Roman Religion Eight Studies., edited by Claudia Beltrao da Rosa and Federico Santangelo, 135–46. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2020.
- Hammersely, Rachel. Republicanism: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020.
- Mahlberg, Gaby, The English Republican Exiles in Europe during the Restoration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
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Hammersley, Rachel. James Harrington: An Intellectual Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
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Mahlberg, Gaby, ‘A Parliament of Women and the Exclusion Crisis’, in: Cesare Cuttica/Markku Peltonen (eds), Democracy and Anti-Democracy in Early Modern England 1603-1689 (Brill: Leiden, 2019).
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East, Katherine A. ‘Deconstructing Divination: Superstition, Anticlericalism and Cicero’s De Divinatione in Enlightenment England, c. 1700-1730’. In Prophets and Profits Ancient Divination and Its Reception, edited by Richard J Evans, 183–98. London; New York: Routledge, 2018.
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Mahlberg, Gaby, ‘Machiavelli, Neville and the seventeenth-century discourse on priestcraft’, Intellectual History Review, 28:1 (2018), pp. 79-99.
- Dale R. 'Being a Real Man': Masculinities in Soviet Russia during and after the Great Patriotic War. In: Peniston-Bird C; Vickers E, ed. Gender and the Second World War: The Lessons of War. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp.116-134.
- East, Katherine A. ‘How to Read Ciceronian Scepticism: Anthony Collins, Richard Bentley, and the Freethought Debate in 1713’. In The Afterlife of Cicero, edited by Gesine Manuwald, 162–76. London: BICS, 2017.
- East, Katherine A. The Radicalization of Cicero - John Toland and Strategic Editing in the Early Enlightenment. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
- Mahlberg, Gaby, ‘The English Republican Exiles in Europe’, Philosophical Enquiries. Revue des philosophies Anglophones, 8 (2017), pp. 35-59.
- Mahlberg, Gaby, ‘Charles Stuart as office-holder: On regicides and monarchical republicans’, in: Anette Pankratz/ Claus-Ulrich Viol (eds), (Un)Making the Monarchy (Heidelberg: Winter, 2017).
- Manolopoulou V. Sensing Heaven on Earth: landscape, religious movement and sacred identity. In: Morris, C. and Papantoniou, G, ed. Unlocking Sacred Landscapes. Aström Editions, 2017.
- Dale R. "No longer normal": Traumatized Red Army Veterans in Post-war Leningrad. In: Leese, P; Crouthamel, J, ed. Traumatic Memories of the Second World War and After. New York, NY, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp.119-141.
- East K.A. Apocryphal Cicero: John Toland’s Cicero Illustratus and Notions of Authority in the Early Enlightenment. International Journal of the Classical Tradition 2016, 23(2), 108-126.
- East K.A. Cicero the Pantheist: A Radical Reading of Ciceronian Scepticism in John Toland's Pantheisticon (1720). Intellectual History Review 2016, 26(2), 245-261.
- Morton A. Popery, Politics and Play: visual culture in Succession Crisis England. The Seventeenth Century 2016, (ePub ahead of Print), 1-39.
- Turner S., ÓCarragáin T. ed. Making Christian Landscapes in Atlantic Europe. Conversion and consolidation in the early Middle Ages. Cork: Cork University Press, 2016.
- Allen J. 'Uneasy transitions: Irish nationalism, the rise of Labour and the Catholic Herald, 1888-1918'. In: Laurence Marley, ed. The British Labour Party and Twentieth Century Ireland. The cause of Ireland, the cause of Labour. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2015, pp.35-54.
- Allen J. “The Ink Of The Wise”: Mazzini, British Radicalism And Print Culture, 1848–1855. In: Carter, N, ed. Britain, Ireland and the Risorgimento. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
- Fowler C. Change and continuity in Early Bronze Age mortuary rites: a case study from Northumberland. In: Brandt, R., Ingvaldsen, H., Prusac, M, ed. Death and Changing Rituals: Function and meaning in ancient funerary practices. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2015, pp.45-91.
- Fowler C., Scarre C. Mortuary practices and bodily representations in north-west Europe. In: Fowler, C; Harding, J; Hofmann, D, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe. Oxford University Press, 2015, pp.1023-1047.
- Garrett P. Crime on the Estates: Justice and Politics in the Kōyasan Domain. Journal of Japanese Studies 2015, 41(1), 79-112.
- Hammersley R., ed. Revolutionary Moments: Reading Revolutionary Texts. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
- Hammersley R. Concepts of Citizenship in France During the Long Eighteenth Century. European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire 2015, 22(3), 468-485.
- Morton A. Images and the Senses in post-Reformation England. Reformation 2015, 20(1), 1-24.
- Redgate, A. E, ‘Seeking Promotion in the Challenging 640s: The Amatuni Church at Ptghni, Ideas of Political Authority, and Paulician Challenge – a Background to the Teaching of Anania Shirakatsi’, Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies IX/1 (2015), pp. 163-176.
- Racaut L. une juste moitié de vos livres«: le rôle de la propagande religieuse dans la production pamphlétaire. In: Médialité et intépretation contemporaine des premières guerres de Religion. 2014, Paris: De Gruyter.
- Redgate, A. E. ‘Faces from the Past: Aghtamar, the Anglo-Saxon Alfred Jewel, and the Sasanian Chosroes Dish – Ideas and Influences in Portraiture’, Banber Matenadarani 21 (2014), pp. 331-340 (= Hrachya Tamrazyan (ed.), Proceedings of the 13th General Conference of AIEA (Yerevan: Nairi, 2014) (electronic version http://www.matenadaran.am/ftp/data/Banber-21.pdf free access).
- Clarke N. ‘They are the most treacherous of people’: religious difference in Arabic accounts of three early medieval Berber revolts. eHumanista 2013, 24, 510-525.
- Garrett P. Holy Vows and Realpolitik: Preliminary Notes on Kōyasan's Early Medieval Kishōmon. e-Journal of East and Central Asian Religions 2013, 1, 94-107.
- Manolopoulou V. Processing emotion: litanies in Byzantine Constantinople. In: Nesbitt, C. and Jackson, M, ed. Experiencing Byzantium. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp.153-172
- Santangelo F. Divination, Prediction and the End of the Roman Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
- Clarke N. The Muslim Conquest of Iberia: Medieval Arabic Narratives. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.
Research Fellows
Tim Somers (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow)
Project Title: ‘Humour in Early Modern Print Culture’
This project investigates humour in early modern print culture. To our modern eyes and ears, the humour of the past can seem distinctly alien. Scholarship on this topic is scarce, and where it does exist, it focuses on discrete themes and periods. This project will provide the first dedicated study of humour over both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It will use jestbooks to create a quantitative survey of changes and continuities; it will explore the visual and musical aspects of humour in popular ballads; and it will uncover the reception of humour amongst readers using manuscript collections.
Gaby Mahlberg (Marie Curie Fellow)
Project Title: ‘The dissemination of English republican works and ideas in Germany’
Ideas have always travelled across borders. An example is the transmission of 17th-century English republican ideas in the German lands before the revolution of 1848-1849. This EU-funded project will investigate the distribution, dissemination and reception of English republican works in Germany in a variety of languages, including English, Latin and French in addition to German. Specifically, this transnational and multilingual project will focus on how printed works were translated, edited and rewritten for new contexts and audiences (in this case, German society from the later 17th century to the Vormärz period that preceded the 1848 March Revolution in the states of the German Confederation).
Nicholas Mithen (Marie Curie Fellow)
Project Title: ‘The scholar, the jurist, the priest: Moderation on the Italian peninsula, 1700-1750’
The crisis of liberalism and vacating of the political centre ground in the West has led to an interest in ‘moderation’. A ‘fuzzy concept’, at once a political stance and moral virtue, one way to cast light on moderation is to historicise it. This project is one episode in an attempt to do just this, excavating appeals to moderation in eighteenth-century Italy. I am looking at three kinds of moderation: political moderation, religious moderation and scholarly moderation. Tracing the boundaries of and interplay between these ‘moderations’, my project poses a reinterpretation of the Italian Peninsula in the early enlightenment.
PhD students
- Lauren Emslie – 'The Gods and the Intellectuals: Theological discussions of the late Roman Republic in Cicero’s De Natura Deorum'
- Harriet Frears (CDA – starting September 2021)
- Meg Kobza - 'Ulterior Identities: Anonymity in the London and Transatlantic Public Spheres'
- Emily Mitchelson – 'Agrarian Land Law and the Commonwealth Tradition'
- Harriet Palin
- Sam Petty - 'That Colonies have their Warrant from God'- English Protestant thought and theories of colonisation in the seventeenth-century'
- Alex Plane (CDA)
- Jerome Ruddick
- Jen Scammell – 'Comparative Responses to Royal Deaths in the Atlantic World, 1751-1817'
- Amy Shields - 'Republicanism in a European Context: The Influence of the Dutch and Venetian Republics on Seventeenth-Century English Thought'
- Leanne Smith - PhD Title: ‘No King but Jesus’: The Fifth Monarchist’s idea of a Christian Commonwealth'. This research focuses on the intellectual thought of the millenarian sect the Fifth Monarchy Men as they sought to establish a godly commonwealth in seventeenth-century England.
- Tom Whitfield - 'An Historical Archaeology of Later Eighteenth-Century Popular Protest in England'
Recent graduates
- Andrew Newton - 'The location of early medieval churches in Northumbria: conversion to a Christian landscape in northern England'
- Victoria Hughes – 'The culture and political world of the fourth century AD: Julian, paideia and education'
- Chris Mowat – 'Engendering the Future: Divination and the Construction of Gender in the Late Roman Republic'
‘Ideas and Translation in Early Modern Europe’, workshop
22 April 2021
To be held at Newcastle University (via Zoom) - details tbc.
‘Translating Cultures: Ideas and Materiality in Europe, c 1500-1800’, workshop
17-19 May 2021
In collaboration with the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel (Germany). Funded by the Thyssen Foundation. - details tbc.
Conference: ‘Civil Religion from Antiquity to the Enlightenment’
October 2019
This event brings together Historians, Classicists, Literary Scholars and Political Scientists to develop a longue durée perspective on the complex relationship between Church and State. By focussing on the proposed solution of a Civil Religion, this conference will bring together the different intellectual and religious legacies which informed this tradition.
Speakers include Ronald Beiner, Mark Goldie, Jacqueline Rose, Jörg Rüpke, Polly Ha and John Marshall
Workshop hosted by the Literary and Philosophical Society: ‘Politics and Religion: Past and Present’
October 2019
Leading thinkers will discuss what light can be shed by historical approaches on contemporary issues concerning the relationship between politics and religion.
Polly Ha (UEA), ‘Re-negotiating religious and civil liberties in early modern England’
Ronald Beiner (Toronto), ‘Why we should resist post-Secularism’
Adam Morton (Newcastle), 'Does the History of toleration make us more tolerant?'
Katherine East (Newcastle), ‘Priestly Power in the Political Sphere: who really benefits?’
Fashioning Difference: Sartorial Practices and Social Order in Eighteenth-Century Sweden
6 December 2018
A guest lecture delivered by Mikael Alm (University of Uppsala and 2018 Matariki Fellow at Durham University).
In early modern societies, the interplay between sartorial practices and social order was complex. Clothes did not merely reproduce set social patterns. They were powerful agents of change, actively used by individuals and groups to make claims and to transgress formal boundaries. This was not least the case during the revolutionary decades of the late eighteenth century. Drawing on his upcoming book, historian Mikael Alm will dive into these matters. Departing from the Swedish case, several fields of early modern cultural history are brought together: social culture and early modern preoccupation with order; visual culture and the preoccupation with a legible order; and sartorial culture and the preoccupation with the proper means of making difference.
Workshop: Anti-Catholicism in Europe and America, 1520-1900
11-13 September 2018
A three-day workshop on anti-Catholicism in Europe and America will be held at Newcastle University between 11-13 September 2018. The aims of the workshop are to compare and contrast the anti-Catholic traditions of a range of countries and regions across Europe and America from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century; to see how definitions of ‘popery’ changed according to the political/religious context in which they were situated; and to assess how, why and to what extent anti-Catholicism might be seen to have contributed to wider historical processes such as the Reformation, Enlightenment, empire, state building and the formation of national identities.
The workshop will not be run via a series of formal papers, but will encourage discussion, exchange and interdisciplinary debate. We would like to encourage historians, art historians, theologians and literature scholars, and those from other disciplines and at all stages of their careers to participate in this workshop. If you are interested in contributing, please submit a 300-word abstract of your research interests and how they relate to one or more of the following themes to adam.morton@newcastle.ac.uk by April 30th 2018:
- Anti-Catholicism and National Identities
- Anti-Catholicism and the Atlantic World
- Anti-Catholicism in America
- Anti-Catholicism and the Reformation
- Anti-Catholicism and the Enlightenment
- Anti-Catholic readings of the past
- Conspiracy Theories
- Stereotypes
- Representations of ‘papists’
- Anti-Catholicism and politics/political thought
- Anti-Catholic violence, unrest, and riot
- Change and continuity in concepts of anti-Catholicism
- Catholic reactions to anti-Catholicism
It is expected that proceedings from the workshop will be published at a later date.
The workshop is being organised by the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded network, Anti-Catholicism in British History: c. 1520-1900. The aim of this network is to outline the history of anti-Catholicism in Britain by focussing on how it contributed to political, cultural and religious movements during moments of crisis, by tracing the roles which stereotypes and conspiracy theories played in maintaining anti-Catholic ideology, and by assessing the ways in which anti-Catholicism changed across the centuries and how vital this change was to ensuring that it remained a significant part of ‘British’ and ‘Protestant’ identities. This workshop on Europe and America is intended to draw comparisons between nations: anti-Catholicism is often cited as being crucial to national identity, but was it, perhaps, a supra-national ideology? Given that so many countries and groups claimed it as a hallmark of their identity, can it be seen as a ‘national’ phenomenon in any meaningful sense?
Early Modern Political Thought and Twenty-First Century Politics: A Workshop
Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society, Westgate Road 16 May 2018
England in the mid-seventeenth century was politically turbulent. Civil War, regicide & republic all disrupted the normal institutions and practices of politics. While this must have been hard for those living at the time, it nonetheless generated a wealth of new political ideas. These included: the proto-democratic radicalism of the Levellers; the innovative constitutional proposals of James Harrington; the experiment in communal living enacted by the Diggers and the theories of political obligation, representation and church-state relations of Thomas Hobbes. Many of these ideas remain of interest and relevance today. And, while it would be wrong to suggest that seventeenth-century ideas can simply be applied to solve current problems, it is undoubtedly useful to look to the past to understand how we came to be where we are, and the other paths that could have been taken. At this workshop, experts on the seventeenth century will explore what early-modern thinkers had to say on the themes of popular mobilisation, toleration, environmentalism and exile and what their insights might add to contemporary political discussions.
Speakers: John Rees (author of The Leveller Revolution); Ann Hughes (Keele University); Ariel Hessayon (Goldsmiths); Gaby Mahlberg (author of Henry Neville & English Republican Culture in the Seventeenth Century)
For more information contact Rachel.Hammersley@ncl.ac.uk
Conference: ‘Locating the Ancient World in Early Modern Subversive Thought’
April 2018
Featuring Keynote Speakers Peter Harrison (University of Queensland) and Marianne Pade (Danish Academy at Rome)
The aim of this conference is to expand on the revived appreciation of the classical influence in early modernity by looking specifically at the role played by the ancient world in that sphere from which it has most usually been excluded: subversive literature. The idea that the texts, philosophies, and exempla of the ancient world might have served as significant tools for those who sought to undermine and challenge political, religious and cultural authority stands in direct opposition to the traditional role assigned to the classics in this period. Emphasising an interdisciplinary approach, this conference will draw scholars together to build a coherent picture of how the classical tradition functioned as a tool for subversion, illuminating a previously neglected aspect of the ancient world in the early modern thought.
Workshop: Trajectories of Anti-Catholicism in Britain 1520-1900
Research Beehive, Newcastle University 21-22 March 2018
This two-day workshop will assess the various traditions of anti-Catholicism in British history. It will compare and contrast traditions in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, and trace continuities and change in anti-Catholic ideology across the centuries. Speakers will consider the role of stereotypes in the sustaining of anti-Catholicism, and discussion will focus on how prejudice and intolerance can be approached historically. The event will be interdisciplinary and will feature presentations from historians, literary scholars and social psychologists.
Provisional Programme:
DAY 1 (12.45-13.00) Welcome (Adam Morton)
13.00-15.45 Trajectories and National Perspectives
Commentator: Anthony Milton (University of Sheffield)
- Alan Ford (University of Nottingham): Ireland
- Clotilde Prunier (Paris): Scotland
- Paul O’Leary (Aberystwyth University): Wales
- John Wolffe (Open University): England
15.45-16.15 Coffee
16.15-1800 Roundtable: Analysing Anti-Catholicism
Chair: Andrew Holmes (Queens University Belfast)
- John Craig (Simon Fraser University), Emma Turnbull (University of Oxford), Donald McRaild (University of Roehampton), Aishlinn Muller (University of Cambridge), Joan Allen (Newcastle).
19.30: Dinner
DAY 2 (9-10.30) Approaching Prejudice and Intolerance
Chair: Adam Morton (Newcastle University)
- Cristian Tileaga (Loughborough University)
- Jovan Byford (Open University)
10.30-11: Coffee
11.00-13.00: Roundtable: Anti-Catholic Stereotypes
Chair: Rachel Hammersley (Newcastle University)
- Carys Brown (University of Cambridge), Colin Haydon (Winchester University), Thomas Freeman (University of Essex), Adam Morton (Newcastle University), Naiyla Shamgunova (University of Cambridge)
13.00-14.00: Lunch
14.00-15.00: Roundtable – Going Forward: Analysing Anti-Catholicism
Chair: Adam Morton (Newcastle University)
To register, please contact adam.morton@newcastle.ac.uk
Workshop: Anti-Catholicism in 19th Century Britain
Wednesday 31st January 2018
This half-day workshop will consider the various and contrasting roles which anti-Catholic ideology played in nineteenth century British society. Topics covered will include religion, patriotism, immigration, sexual politics and memory of the Reformation. The event is being chaired by Professor Hugh Macleod, FBA, and speakers include Dr Harry Cocks (Nottingham), Dr Andrew Atherstone (Oxford), Dr Sarah Roddy (Manchester) and Dr Jonathan Bush (Ushaw College, Durham). The event is being organised by the Ideas and Beliefs research strand in conjunction with the Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies at Durham. To register, please contact adam.morton@newcastle.ac.uk
Workshop: Re-assessing R. I. Moore's Formation of a Persecuting Society (1987)
Friday 15 September 2017
This event intends to celebrate and assess the contemporary relevance of R. I. Moore’s ‘Formation of a Persecuting Society’, first publishes in 1987, for the current historiography of mediaeval and early-modern Europe. The workshop will be divided into four sessions: firstly on the relevance of the concept of a persecuting society in contemporary mediaeval studies; second its impact on the scholarship of early-modern Europe; third on the use of the concept beyond the chronology and geography of the original work; and finally on the legacy of R. I. Moore’s scholarship on the historiography of exclusion, orthodoxy / heterodoxy and identity politics in general. The event celebrates Newcastle's contribution to these fields of scholarship, and the continued importance of a retired member of the School, his contribution to scholarship worldwide, and the impact of his work through translation and adaptation in other contexts than mediaeval history.
Speakers include: Professor R. I. Moore (Newcastle, Emeritus), Professor Mark Pegg (Washington, St Louis), Professor Robin Briggs (Oxford, Emeritus), Professor Mark Greengrass (Sheffield, Emeritus), Dr Julien Théry-Astruc (Lyon II), and Dr Simon Yarrow (Birmingham).
For more information please email Dr Luc Racaut.
Workshop: Early Modern Civil Religion
Thursday 14 September 2017
Recent scholarship has reintegrated the religious perspective into how the intellectual culture of the early modern period, particularly in the political sphere, can be understood. This has opened up new avenues of enquiry for those working on the role of scholarship (biblical, patristic, and classical) in intellectual engagement, scholars of philosophy and theology, as well as historians of culture, books, and political thought, consequently providing a much more varied understanding of how ideas were formed and justified. Yet in the midst of these developments, the reality of how the Church-State relationship was envisaged by those writing on politics and religion in this period remains under-explored. The notion of a ‘civil religion’ was a prominent feature of the discourse, but its ambiguity and the contradictions and difficulties involved in its practical realisation has left it as something of a by-stander in the intellectual history of the period. The arguments that were made for civil religion have been used by scholars as evidence for established interpretations of the period, whether that be for the existence of a ‘Radical Enlightenment’, or for the Christian Reformist tendencies of these so-called radicals, or as proof of continuity with existing traditions in republican, patristic, or classical ideologies.
This one-day workshop proposes to examine civil religion in early modernity on its own terms, rather than as a subsect of existing scholarly narratives. It seeks to bring together scholars from different disciplinary spheres in order to encourage reflection on this notion of ‘civil religion,’ and to construct an understanding of its specific contribution to its intellectual and cultural context. Possible points of discussion include:
- What is ‘early modern civil religion’? Can a clear and unified understanding be established?
- What intellectual arguments were used to justify a ‘civil religion’? How were the counter-arguments constructed?
- How were ancient precedents utilised to create a tangible vision of a ‘civil religion’? How was the historical development of episcopal authority represented in the debate?
- How developed were ideas for how such a religion might work in practice? For example, the selection of priests, their role in the community, and the conduct of religious practice?
- What relationship did the notion of civil religion have with republican ideology as it developed from antiquity to the early modern world?
- Did civil religion have an impact beyond political and religious discourse? How was it represented and used in editorial practices, literature, art, rhetoric, or biographical writing?
For further details please contact Dr Katie East (Katherine.East@newcastle.ac.uk).
Workshop: Intellectual Biographies
Tuesday 4 July 2017
The genre of the intellectual biography has recently come back into vogue. It has been reinvigorated by two recent developments. First, the construction of large digitised data sets that allow published pamphlets, newspapers and government documents to be searched by name, date, and theme, making it possible to uncover new information even about the lives of very well known figures. Secondly, the growing receptiveness of intellectual historians and literary critics to utilise methods drawn from political, social and even economic history, which has encouraged and facilitated the combination of archival research on an individual’s life with textual analysis of their works. Substantial volumes have recently appeared on the life and work of Edmund Burke, David Hume and Karl Marx. Richard Bourke’s Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke (2015), in particular, has revolutionised the way in which that complex political thinker and actor has been viewed. With great skill Bourke integrates Burke’s life with his writings, demonstrating the intimate connection between the two and enriching our understanding of both late eighteenth-century politics and the political thought of the period in the process. The trend for intellectual biography is now moving back into the seventeenth century, with major studies of John Milton, James Harrington, John Lilburne and John Locke currently in preparation. It is, therefore, an ideal moment to consider the benefits of this approach to intellectual history and other related disciplines, as well as the opportunities and challenges that writing an intellectual biography presents.
This one-day workshop will combine presentations by scholars who are currently producing intellectual biographies on leading early-modern figures with a round table facilitating wider discussion on the genre. The approach will be explicitly interdisciplinary and although the workshop will be grounded in the early modern period, the discussion will also explore the relevance of the genre to both earlier and later periods. The workshop will explore themes such as:
- What are the best ways of integrating biographical detail with analysis of the subject’s thought and writings?
- How can an author do justice to both the archival and textual aspects of the project?
- Does an intellectual biography have to adopt a chronological structure?
- In what ways can an individual life illuminate a period more generally?
- What are the particular opportunities and challenges associated with writing intellectual biographies of early-modern figures?
- How does the construction of an intellectual biography fit within the broader field of Life-Writing?
Speakers will include Professor Mike Braddick (Sheffield); Professor Mark Goldie (Cambridge); Professor Sarah Hutton (York); Professor Nick McDowell (Exeter); Dr Gaby Mahlberg (Journalist and Independent Scholar, Berlin).
For more information please contact Dr Rachel Hammersley.
Early Modern Civil Religion
This Reading Group is a community of scholars and postgraduates from Newcastle University and institutions across the North-East which meets fortnightly to investigate and discuss the notion of civil religion in the early modern period. Taking as our general chronological remit the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and using both primary and secondary readings, we aim to encourage discussion of the development of the concept of 'civil religion', how it was understood, and its role in progressing the burgeoning Enlightenment discourse. We encourage an interdisciplinary approach, engaging with the influence of ancient religion and classical writers, and welcoming contributions from philosophical, literary, political cultural and social perspectives. Our first meeting will take place on Thursday 10th November at 10am in Room 1.23 in the Armstrong Building. We will be discussing Mark Goldie’s seminal article ‘The Civil Religion of James Harrington’, in The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe edited by Anthony Pagden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 197-222. If you have any queries, please email katherine.east@newcastle.ac.uk.
The Reformation Colloquium
Over 80 delegates from 10 countries attending the Reformation Colloquium 2016 in the Research Beehive at Newcastle University. This is the largest Reformation conference in the UK and was preceded in Newcastle by the European Reformation Research Group on the 13th September. The plenary speakers were Prof Marc Forster (Connecticut College), Prof Susan Karant-Nunn (Arizona) and Dr Lucy Wooding (Oxford). Further details and the programme can be viewed here https://reformation2016.wordpress.com/, 14-16 September 2016.
Historicising Belief
The School of History, Classics and Archaeology hosted a one-day workshop dedicated to discussing the challenges and opportunities faced by scholars researching belief in the past. This was an interdisciplinary workshop featuring Historians, Classicists, Archaeologists, Literature Scholars and Japanologists, and included papers spanning an expansive chronological range (from Classical Rome to 20th Century Russia). Discussing focussed on presenters responding to the challenges posed to scholars by Brad Gregory, whose work has challenged the extent to which methodologies borrowed from sociology and anthropology (which have dominated approaches to religious history in the past two generations) are useful in the study of belief. List of participants: Adam Morton (Newcastle), Lucy Sackville (York), Susan Karant-Nunn (Arizona), Nicholas Terpstra (Toronto), Rob Dale (Newcastle), Philip Garret (Newcastle), Esther Eidinow (Nottingham), Ceri Houlbrooke (Hertfordshire), Alexandra Anokhina (Catholic University of Leuven), Vicky Monolopoulou (Newcastle), Chris Fowler (Newcastle), Ria Snowdon (Auckland Castle Trust), Federico Santangelo (Newcastle), Luc Racaut (Newcastle), Scott Ashley (Newcastle), Nicola Clarke (Newcastle), 12 September 2016.