The Eisenberg Institute continues its fall programming on Thursday, October 1, 4:00 p.m., in 1014 Tisch Hall, with Carol Symes's lecture, "The 'Desire of Deeds': Sensuality, Nostalgia, and the Affective Effects of Medieval Documentation." The talk continues the Institute's 2015-17 theme, "Senses and Longings." Link for a lecture abstract. Free and open to the public.

Carol Symes is the Lynn M. Martin Professorial Scholar at the University of Illinois, where she is an associate professor of history with appointments in theatre and medieval studies. Educated at Yale and Oxford, she trained for an acting career at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (in England) and continued to work professionally while earning the Ph.D. at Harvard. Her first book, A Common Stage: Theatre and Public Life in Medieval Arras (2007), won four national awards in three different fields of study. Her current book project is “Bodies of Text: Acts of Writing and the Work of Documentation in Northwestern Europe, 1000-1215,” a study of the embodied, affective, and material conditions in which written records were negotiated and created.

On Friday, October 2, 12:00 p.m., in 1014 Tisch Hall, the Institute presents the graduate student workshop, "Artifacts of Emotion: Historical Documents and Their Affective Contexts." Link for workshop details, including a short description of the proceedings. Panelists include:

  • Carol Symes, Associate Professor, History, Theatre, and Medieval Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Scott De Orio, Ph.D. Candidate, History and Women's Studies, University of Michigan
  • Pascal Massinon, Ph.D. Candidate, History, University of Michigan
  • Emily Price, Ph.D. Candidate, History, University of Michigan
  • Paolo Squatriti (chair), Professor, History and Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan

Lunch is provided at the workshop. Free and open to the public.

These events are made possible by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.