Conference Favourites from ‘Revisiting Early Modern Prophecies’

This year’s conference season was brief but intense for me, with conferences back to back in London and Görlitz. Instead of writing about my own talks, I’ve decided to highlight a few papers by other scholars that I particularly enjoyed. This post will give you a glimpse of some of the debates on prophecy and astrology and, particularly, more or less sane prophets I learnt about while participating in the ‘Revisiting Early Modern Prophecies’ conference at Goldsmiths, University of London, convened by Ariel Hessayon and Lionel Laborie. My selection is, of course, highly subjective, and my hazy memory and notes might sometimes blur the line between the actual talks and the thought processes they sparked off. But that should rather be seen as a compliment to the speaker, shouldn’t it?

Riotous Violence: Early-Modern Football

And now for something completely different: football. Admittedly, I have but the most tenuous of excuses for this excursion, provided in a roundabout manner by the ‘Revisiting Early Modern Prophecies’ conference (26-28 June). It also feel like something of a coming-out, to be honest: until two years ago, I did not give an elitist fiddler’s fart about football.