Renaissance Papers 2022

Renaissance Papers publishes the finest academic essays presented annually at the Southeastern Renaissance Conference, with this year's theme being sacred places and secular spaces. The volume explores the sacred and profane through Raphael's portraits, Holbein's The Dead Christ, race in Northern European churches, and the Greek community's struggle in 16th-century Venice. The essays then shift to the secular, with ecocriticism and Spenser's The Faerie Queene as examples.

Format: Hardback
Length: 140 pages
Publication date: 28 November 2023
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

The Southeastern Renaissance Conference annually accepts the finest academic essays for publication in Renaissance Papers. This year's theme, "Sacred Places, Secular Spaces," explores the interplay between the sacred and the profane through a series of thought-provoking essays.

The volume begins with an intriguing mystery, examining two portraits by Raphael that represent the sacred and the profane, respectively. The next essay delves into the sacred and pictorial innovations in Holbein's predella, The Dead Christ, while the following one examines the sacred through the critical lens of race, arguing that Northern European churchmen normalized views on race by strategically placing racialized artifacts in their churches.

The scene then shifts to 16th-century Venice, where the Greek community engaged in a contentious battle with local authorities over the right to establish a sacred site for interring their dead. The pendulum swings towards the secular in the next two essays. An essay on ecocriticism suggests that the early modern period expelled the sacred from nature and presents a Rabelaisian antidote, while an essay on Spenser's The Faerie Queene presents it as a blueprint for colonization.

The volume concludes with a list of Contributors: Julie Fox-Horton, Lorenz A. Hindrichsen, Heather Hirschfeld, Elizabeth Lisot-Nelson, Jesse Russell, Victor Velázquez, John N. Wall, and Jennifer Wu. Renaissance Papers is edited by Jim Pearce of North Carolina Central University and Ward Risvold of Georgia College and State University.

Dimension: 216 x 140 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781640141643