The Centre for the Study of the Renaissance is a large and broadly-based research community with a high international reputation. The Centre is one of few UK organisations to be a member of F.I.S.I.E.R. (the Fédération internationale des Sociétés et Instituts pour l’Etude de la Renaissance) and of the Consortium of Renaissance Centers associated with the Newberry Library’s Center for the Renaissance (Chicago). Other collaborations involve the universities of Ca’Foscari (Venice), Durham, East Anglia Ruskin, Paris-IV (Sorbonne), Sheffield, and The Warburg Institute London. The Centre has long been involved in the promotion of the Renaissance Society of America’s activities by encouraging its members to attend the RSA Annual Meetings. Since 2011 it has acquired the status of Associate Organization.
The Centre aims to promote learning and research in the history and culture of the Renaissance. It offers a graduate programme, hosts visiting fellows and postdoctoral researchers, and generally provides opportunities to colleagues within the university and in partnership with academic institutions in Britain and abroad to mount research projects and organise seminars and conferences to advance and stimulate our understanding of the Renaissance’s cultural heritage.
The Centre is also delighted to be able to offer a new Postgraduate Venice Programme, a unique initiative by a British University, giving our postgraduate students the opportunity to spend a full university term in Venice studying the city's art, history and culture together with History and Art History students. The Warwick programme is celebrating 40 years in Venice and the University's new base, the Palazzo Pesaro Papafava, provides an excellent focus for our teaching and research activities in the city.
The University of Warwick itself boasts an unusually high concentration of staff with research interests in the Renaissance period, many of whom are recognised international experts in their field. Their joint expertise offers unparalleled opportunities for interdisciplinary study. Staff who teach for the Centre are drawn from the departments of Classics, English, French, History, History of Art and Italian.
Geographically, the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance has particular strengths in Renaissance and Early-Modern England and Britain, Italy, France, and central Europe (especially Germany and Switzerland). Particularly strong topics include:
• History of the Book and Reading Practices
• Religious Art, Polemics, Thought, and Literature
• The Classical Tradition (including neo-Latin and vernacular cultures; Plato; Aristotle)
• The History of Ideas (especially science and medicine, ethics and politics)
• Theatre and Performance (especially in England)
• Gender
• Society and Power
• Court and Civic Culture
• Renaissance Learned Culture (including humanist circles, academies, universities)
• Popular Culture
• Visual Culture and Debates on the Arts
• Venetian Economy, Art and Culture
• Travel, Colonialism and the New World
Warwick is well-placed to offer teaching and research programmes in Renaissance Studies, both because of its own staffing resources and library provisions (which offers excellent electronic resources such as ITER , BIHR, Early English Books Online and The Making of the Modern World), and because of its proximity to major research collections at Oxford, Birmingham, Stratford-upon-Avon and London. In addition, it has well-established links with other prestigious centres of Renaissance excellence, including the Warburg Institute in London and the Newberry Library in Chicago. The Centre also maintains ERASMUS student-exchange programmes with the University of Venice (Cà Foscari) and the Centre V.-L. Saulnier (Sorbonne, Paris).
Warwick's Campus itself provides a pleasant environment both for studying and living, thanks to carefully landscaped grounds, on-campus facilities such as shops, banks and cafés, and an Arts Centre which offers a varied programme of concerts, opera and theatre performances, films, and exhibitions.
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