Symposium Archive

The Symposium is an interdisciplinary forum that features student research. Presentations bring to the fore topics spanning from antiquity to modernity, drawing insights at the intersections of the past and the present. Students come together from a wide variety of fields, majoring in such diverse disciplines as Finance, Music, History, Government, Philosophy, Religious Studies, International Relations, English, and more. Everyone is welcome to attend, learn, and offer critical feedback to our presenters as they will work towards submitting their papers to peer-reviewed journals.

Program from the 2022 Symposium

Crossing Boundaries: Intellectual and Cultural Exchange between the Past and the Present

Organized by Prof. Alexander Angelov & Terence Flannery (Student Assistant)

Award Recipients

Michael Pagano, “Money and Identity: The Socio-Political Power of Ancient Coinage and the Emergence of Greco-Bactrian Culture”

Kirsten Sweigart, “The Bogurodzica Hymn in Medieval Poland: An Intersection of Slavonic East and Latin West”

Heidi Zmick, “To Skip, To Sway, To Stamp: Female Agency as Revealed through Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Dance Manuals”

English Law and Literature Prof. Suzanne Hagedorn, Chair
Nathan Dudani (Government)
Rachel Lee (English/Linguistics)
Sarah Richman (English/Med. Ren.)

Social Networks and Cultural Interconnections Prof. Ayfer Stump, Chair
Michael Pagano (Classics)
Henry Stratakis-Allen (Med.Ren./Math)
Grace Subu (International Relations)

Christianity across the East-West Divide Prof. Alexander Angelov, Chair
Kirsten Sweigart (Music/Chemistry)
Terence Flannery (History)
Jacob Conrod (History/Philosophy)

Theology, Philosophy, and Politics Prof. Alexander Angelov, Chair
Austin Hillebrandt (Government/Religious Studies)
Tanja Rounds (Religious Studies/Philosophy)
Russ Beisswanger (Economics/Religious Studies)

Gender, Agency, and Culture Prof. Suzanne Hagedorn, Chair
Jarrett Miller (Economics, St. Andrews)
Jana Considine (Med. Ren./Classics)
Heidi Zmick (History/NIAHD)

Bridging the Pre-Modern and the Modern Prof. Ayfer Stump, Chair
Andrew Hou (History, St. Andrews)
Mark Smith (Finance/Religious Studies)
Isabella Stark (History/Government)

Program from the 2015 Symposium

On March 28, 2015, Medieval and Renaissance Studies convened its seventh undergraduate research symposium. The symposium seeks to highlight excellent presentations of undergraduates, no matter what year or major, on relevant medieval and early modern European topics. Students interested in presenting in 2017 should ask for a nomination from the professor for whom they completed the work, and contact Prof. Suzanne Hagedorn, Dept. of English for additional information.

Session I: Imagining this World and the Next: Literary History and Mystery

Laura Becht, "Dreaming of Natural and Spiritual Worlds in Pearl"

Elisabeth Bloxam, "Succession—That Was the Question: Shakespeare's Succession Plays of the 1590s"

Rebecca Heine, "The Pendragon Cycle: The Author as Bard through Arthurian Legend"

Session II: Confronting the Self and the Other from the Crusades to the Counter-Reformation

Stacy Hong, "Familiar Faces: Christian-Muslim Artistic Interactions After the Crusades Through Figural Representation"

Emma Kessel, "The Bartered Body: Medieval Pilgrims and Spiritual Transaction"

Carter Lyon, "Outlets of Contrition: Penance and Sacramental Confession in the New Sacramentalism of Catholic Confessional Societies"

Session III: Histories of Honor, Love, and America

Lauren Jean, "'A Recklessly Hospitable People:' Honor and Hospitality in Late Medieval Irish Medical Colophons"

Andrew Perry, "'For the love of God, try to look pleased': The Problematic Marriage of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain"

Alex Frey, "Resistence and Reflection: Richard Rumbold's Scaffold Speech and Radical Whiggism"

Madeline Grimm, "Ancient Precedents and Early Modern Interpretations: English Histories of America, 1500-1700

Presentations from the 2014 Symposium:

Jack Middough: “Unlicensed Exorcisms in Early Modern Navarre”
Morgan Silvers: “Canine Crime: Litigation over Dogs in 16^th and 17^th Century Navarre”
Sagra Alvarado: “You Are What You Read: Book Printing and Distribution in Early Modern Navarre”
Jesse Barkin & Maureen Harrison: "Land of the Lost: Stories of Exile from Navarre's Underbelly"
Zachary Hardy: “God’s Control over Nature in the Pearl-Poet’s Patience”
Miles Drawdy: "Providence on Stage: The Theatrum Mundi in English Renaissance Drama"
John Mulhall: "Forgotten Verse: The Discovery of a 16^th-Century Poet Laureate's Daybook"
Jacey Smith, “’Deus Omnipotens’: The Rediscovery of St. James’s Relics”
Erin Gregory: "Sculpture in Context: The Double Pulpits in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
Josie Drury: "From Religious Image to Secular Object: Dolce & Gabbana's Appropriation of Byzantine Icons"
Isabel Steven: “Margins and Marginalia in the Hours of Mary of Burgundy”
Rachel Daley: “Holbein’s Queen of Sheba: A Reformation Subject”
Larissa Franklin: “Rembrandt as Interpreter of Ovid: Andromeda Chained to the Rock”

Presentations from the 2013 Symposium:

Graham Bryant: “What Was King Arthur? Illuminating the Origins & Nationalistic Implications of the Welsh Pre-Chivalric Arthur"
Emily Loney: “"Liminal Agency: Texts, Textiles, & Gendered Performance in the Courtship Narrative of The Two Gentlemen of Verona"
Taylor Ashlock: “New Music to the Very Ears of God: Heloise the Composer”
Wesley Meyer: “Titian's Portraits of Charles V”
Erin Gregory: “Ghiberti's North Doors: the Beginnings of Paradise”
Claire Kilgore: “Leonardo's Adoration of the Magi and London Cartoon: More than a Sketch, Less than a Painting”
Miranda Reichhardt: “Michelangelo's Drawings: Exploration versus Presentation”
Robin Crigler, “My Pal, St. James: Postmodern Pilgrimage in Sociohistoric Context”
Jack Middough: “Clouds, Worms, and Booze: Conjuring in Seventeenth-Century Spain”
Tracey Johnson: “Sheep, Money, and Holidays: The Perks of Marriage in 17th Century Spain”
Crosby Enright: “Dancing in the Streets and Other Disruptive Pastimes: Clerical Misdemeanors in 17th Century Navarre”
Jessie Dzura: “Seventeenth-Century Scandals: Broken Dishes and Window Pushes”
Sagra Alvarado: “A Loathsome Custom: Tobacco and its Female Smugglers in Early Modern Navarre”

Presentations from the 2012 Symposium:

John Mulhall, “Encomiastic Origins: Atypical Praise in the Suda’s Article on Adam.”
Andrew Budiansky, “The Iona Chronicle and Irish Politico-Ecclesiastical Links: Abbots and Potentates in Early Medieval Ireland and Britain.”
Emily Loney, “The Clothes Make the Man: the Performance of a Mutable Gender in Shakespeare’s Plays.”
Julie Silverman, “Clerics and Infanticide: Social Tragedy in Early Modern Spain”
Ashley Hughes, “Moriscos: This Means War.”
Crosby Enright, “‘Get thee back to the nunnery’: Power Struggles and Convent Reform in Sixteenth-Century Spain.”
Alexandra Endres, “The Witches of Hans Baldung Grien”
Anna Glendening, “An Ideal Woman: Pieter de Hooch’s Portrayal of Domestic Beauty.”
Erik Harrington, “National Pride on Ice: the Patriotic Dutch Reading of Hendrick Avercamp’s Winter Scenes”

Presentations from the 2011 Symposium:

John Mulhall: Inglorious Lexicographers: Obscentity in the Suda
Christy Mitchell: "Scottish Chaucerians: Reclaiming a Discarded Category"
Meredith Howard: "Modes of Queenship: the Six Wives of Henry VIII"
Zoe Weinstein: "Priting and Polemics under Mary, Bloody Mary: Whether the Marian Regime's Propaganda and Censorship were Successful, 1553-1558"
Kathleen Danner: "Fra Angelico's Public Crucifixion Frescoes at the San Marco Monastery"
James Fletcher: "Paolo Uccello's John Hawkwood Fresco and the Revival of the Classical Equestrian Monument"
Ashley Hughes: "Giovanni Bellini: Madonna of the Meadow"
Erica Liss: "Lorenzo Ghiberti's 'Gates of Paradise''"
Katie Brown: "The Sacrifice of Isaac and The Adoration of the Kings: The Role of Missionary Theater in the Evangelization of New Spain"
Jody Green: "Andean Artists in Colonial Quito: The Case of Nicolas Pauca and Francisco Monga"
Kate O'Brien: "Parchment, Patronage, and Plateria: Pedro de Adrián's Commission for the Cathedral of Quito"
Erin Sexton: "The Art of the Fontanero: Antonio Caballero and the Commission for the San Agustín Fountain in Colonial Quito"

Presentations from the 2010 Symposium:

Cassie Prena, “Le Parement de Narbonne in the Reign of Charles V”
Myles O’Kelly, “St. Chapelle: an Object of Capetian Monarchy”
Evan Callaway and members of the Early Music Ensemble
James Staples, “Dangerous Sanctity: John Capgrave's The Life of St. Norbert & its Literary and Cultural Significance."
Kimberly Bassett, “Fighting for their Rights: Catholic Nuns in Protestant Germany
Aaron Gregory, “Clerics as Clockmakers: an Unusual Vocation”
Hanna Langstein, “Murder for Dummies: Attempted Homicide in the Sixteenth Century”
Meredith Howard, “Striving for Proof: Inquisitors and the Case against Witches in 1612.”
Jody Green, “History of the Tapado & its Depiction in the Art of the Spanish Golden Age”
Kate O'Brien, “Propaganda & the Perfect Horseman: Equestrian Portraiture in the Hall of Realms of Philip IV”

Presentations from the 2009 symposium:

Sonya Hood, Med-Ren and Religious Studies, “Al-Ghazali and the Incoherence of Resurrection”
Beth Sutherland, English and History. “Chaucer's Monstrous Divine and the Postmodern Void: Negative Theology as a Linguistic Trope in The Clerk's, Pardoner's, and Nuns' Priest's Tale”
Jaime Lewis, Med-Ren and History. Humanizing the Supernatural: Demons andSaints in Thirteenth-Century Exempla
Laila Selim, Med-Ren and History. “The Continental Grooming of Anne Boylen”
Aaron Gregory, History. “Thomas More and the Heresy of Tyndale’s Bible”
James Staples, English. “Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love in the Middle Ages”
Peter Zimmerman, Art History. The Tomb of Margaret of Austria at the Chapel of Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse, France
Kimberly Bassett, History. “Witnessing Witches: Children in Witchcraft Trials from Navarre, 1570-76"
Amanda Scott, History and Hispanic Studies. “With a Dance in Their Step and a Song on their Lips: Clerical Misbehavior in Navarre.”