A Boccaccian Renaissance

This interdisciplinary and international conference will explore the figure and works of Giovanni Boccaccio from the point of view of their extraordinary, yet little remarked impact on early modernity. It will have a dual focus on Boccaccio's own understanding of his cultural program and on the direct and indirect impact of his works on the vernacular and Latin culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy and throughout Europe (esp. England, Spain, and France). Not only did Boccaccio's Decameron have a strong influence on Italian and European fiction, theater, and visual arts in the Renaissance, his vernacular romances, pastorals, and dream visions, alongside his Latin mythography, historiography, and bucolic poetry, experienced a lasting success well into the sixteenth century and beyond.  That influence has been consistently underestimated by comparison, for instance, with that of his more famous, and self-promoting contemporary, Francesco Petrarca. European Petrarchism is universally recognized as an early modern literary phenomenon; is there a concomitant European Boccaccism? Is there a Boccaccian brand of Renaissance Humanism? In addition to pointing out how Boccaccio became a privileged source and model in a wide spectrum of genres and modes of discourse, in tandem with or instead of ancient authors such as Vergil or Cicero, or new classics such as Dante or Petrarch, we will attempt to theorize a new model of cultural transmission that accounts for both the generative power and the relative invisibility of Boccaccio’s works in an era of extraordinary cultural change.  Speakers representative of multiple disciplines (art history, intellectual history, history of the book, as well as literature) and national traditions (Italy, Spain, France, England) have agreed to speak.

Plenary speakers: James Hankins (Harvard University), Victoria Kirkham (University of Pennsylvania), Brian Richardson (University of Leeds)

Panelists: Susanna Barsella (Fordham University), Johannes Bartuschat (University of Zurich), Theodore Cachey (University of Notre Dame), James Coleman (Johns Hopkins University), Jonathan Combs-Schilling (Ohio State University), Rhiannon Daniels (University of Bristol), Martin Eisner (Duke University), Susan Gaylard (University of Washington), Simon Gilson (University of Warwick), Heather James (University of Southern California), Timothy Kircher (Guilford College), James Kriesel (Colby College), Ronald Martinez (Brown University), Ignacio Navarrete (University of California Berkeley), Kristin Phillips-Court (University of Wisconsin), Marco Ruffini (Northwestern University), Marc Schachter (University of Oregon), Michael Sherberg (Washington University, St. Louis), Janet Smarr (University of California, San Diego), Justin Steinberg (University of Chicago), Eleonora Stoppino (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

Stanford sponsors: The Research Unit of the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages; Department of French and Italian; Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies; Stanford Humanities Center; and the Departments of Art History, Classics, English, and History

University of California, Berkeley sponsors: Department of Italian Studies; The Gladyce Arata Terrill Distinguished Professorship; The Division of Arts and Humanities in the College of Letters and Science; The Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies; The Department of Spanish and Portuguese; The Townsend Center for the Humanities

With a generous contribution from the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco 

For more information, please contact Linda Louie (linda.louie [at] berkeley.edu (linda[dot]louie[at]berkeley[dot]edu)) or Nicole DeBenedictis (nicoledb [at] stanford.edu (nicoledb[at]stanford[dot]edu)).