Ritual and Ceremony from Late-Medieval Europe to Early America

FAIN: EH-50198-09

Folger Shakespeare Library admin by Trustees of Amherst College (Washington, DC 20003-1004)
Kathleen Lynch (Project Director: March 2009 to September 2009)
Claire Sponsler (Project Director: October 2009 to January 2012)

Funding details:
Original grant (2009) $184,463.00
Supplement (2010) $10,000.00

A five-week college and university teacher institute for twenty participants, offering a comparative study of ritual and ceremony in local, national, and transatlantic contexts from 1300 to 1700.

This five-week institute for college faculty offers a comparative study of ritual and ceremony across the related cultures of Europe and America from 1300 to 1700. It builds on anthropological theories of the ubiquitous role of ritual and ceremony and the impact of that work in performance studies. Testing assumptions about influence and exchange among national traditions and local contexts, it seeks a new understanding of the processes and effects of cultural hybridity and assimilation. Its distinguished international faculty represents the fields of literature, history, art history, and music in national traditions and periods of study. Each will introduce case studies drawn from the Folger collections and their own research, illuminated by current scholarship, and opening up larger interpretative issues. Participants will examine lines of continuity and change. They will collaborate on a web project and discuss ways to revise courses.