Wednesday 10th December, 5PM, Faculty of Arts Building (FAB0.03)

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Celtiberian Oppida: Centres of Power by Andrea De La Fuente Fernández

Called poleis by Greek sources and civitas or urbs by Roman ones, the oppida formed the core of Celtiberian territories. They served as centers of political, religious, social and productive power. Around them other types of settlement, like castellae (smaller villages), grouped. This oppida controlled areas of between 300 and 850km², depending on the geography of the territory. They were autonomous and independent city-states, but they were also part of larger networks between oppida and ethnic groups. The relationships connecting these groups vary in typology: some were of collaboration and solidarity, others of domination or hostility. 

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This talk will briefly explain who the Celtiberians were, focusing on the Arevaci, before following the formation and evolution of their cities from the 10th century B.C. till Roman conquest in the 1st century B.C. As well as their functions and role in the Celtiberian world. The chronology is divided into Protoceltiberian (10th-8th centuries B.C.), Early Celtiberian (7th century-450/425 B.C.), Middle Celtiberian (450/425-330/300 B.C.) and Late Celtiberian (330/300-98/97 B.C.).  

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How Faith and Power interplay in Renaissance Florence and The Divine Comedy by Sammi Rakkar

This talk examines the profound role that religion played in shaping life in Renaissance Florence. Far from being limited to worship, faith influenced social norms, civic identity, and the political rivalries that defined the city. By looking at the religious culture of Florence, its institutions, its rituals, and its tensions, we can better understand how belief structured everyday experience and public power.

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The talk also explores how these same dynamics appear in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Written against the backdrop of Florence’s turbulent politics, the poem blends spiritual vision with sharp commentary on factional conflict. Through this combination of historical context and literary analysis, the session highlights how faith and politics interacted not only in the lived world of Renaissance Florence, but also in the imaginative world that its most famous writer created.

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'Enchanted Forests and Common Lands': Shakespeare's Warwickshire and the Making of the Early Modern Landscape by William Raven

'Enchanted Forests and Common Lands' explores the environmental world of Shakespeare’s Warwickshire (1564 to 1592). It examines the landscapes, customs and rural communities that shaped the early life of the “Bard of Avon”. The talk reconsiders the significance of mental geographies and the environmental politics of place, showing how land use, common rights and local traditions formed a cultural backdrop that influenced both individuals and broader communal identities.

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Drawing on Shakespeare’s life and writings, as well as maps, manorial records and the physical geographies of the region, the session investigates how the natural world informed belief systems, social structures and everyday practices in early modern England. Inspired by microhistorical approaches such as Carlo Ginzburg’s study of Menocchio, the talk uses Shakespeare as a lens to reconstruct an early modern perspective on the environment. His position as an “exceptional normal”, meaning an individual rooted in local life yet unusually well documented, provides a rare opportunity to understand how ordinary people in Warwickshire perceived the world around them.

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Protestant Emotional Regimes and Communities and their association with Prayer in Early Modern England by Tom Walker

This talk develops the insights of an article by Warwick’s own Sophie Mann, titled “A Double Care”: Prayer as Therapy in Early Modern England and published in 2020. Mann’s research examines prayer as a form of emotional therapy in the early modern period, focusing on how individuals used prayer to regulate, control and express their feelings. Her work highlights the somatisation of prayer, its connection to contemporary understandings of the body and soul, and its foundations in Galenic theories of the four humours.

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Building on these ideas, the talk investigates the emotional regimes that underpinned early modern practices of prayer. It considers how structured forms of devotion allowed emotions to be externalised, managed and ultimately dissipated. The argument presented is that the perceived irrationality of emotion was widely accepted in early modern England, and that prayer functioned as a culturally legitimate space for those emotions to be processed.

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Voice, Authority, and Genocide: Media, Language, and Literature in Narrating the Nanjing Massacre by Amy Zheng

This talk examines how narratives and representations of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre reflect the power of voice in shaping political authority. It explores the different ways power is expressed in both primary and secondary accounts, including global interpretations and victim-centred narratives. By combining historical analysis with literary sources such as educational textbooks and poetry, the session adopts an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the influence of language in constructing memory of the massacre.

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The talk considers how Chinese governments have censored and sensationalised the events of Nanjing in the decades following the so-called Century of Humiliation. These strategies have played a key role in rebuilding China’s national image and promoting specific social and cultural ideologies. The discussion highlights how state-driven historical memory becomes embedded as collective memory, a process often described as collective amnesia.

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Thursday 11th December, 5:15PM, Oculus Building (OC0.02)

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Cato: Stoic or Fake? by Jasmine Rickwood

This talk examines the legacy of Cato the Younger, whose reputation has long extended beyond Ancient Rome and become a symbol of resistance to tyranny. His political and philosophical influence grew significantly in the final years of the Republic, particularly through Cicero’s For Cato and Julius Caesar’s direct response, Anti-Cato. These contrasting portrayals elevated Cato’s status during the rise of Caesar’s dictatorship and helped shape how subsequent generations understood him.

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Drawing inspiration from his ancestor Cato the Elder, Cato the Younger was celebrated for his commitment to Stoic principles, especially the pursuit of virtue and a life guided by nature and integrity. These ideals contributed to his strict, often uncompromising approach to politics, which frustrated figures such as Pompey and members of the populares.

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Normans in Anatolia: The Principality of Roussel de Bailleul by Noah Parsons

This talk discusses how the kingdom might have operated despite the limited primary evidence available. It considers the political, social and economic structures that may have shaped its development and explores broader themes of empire and power. The analysis suggests that the kingdom probably followed a Norman model, drawing on comparative frameworks to reconstruct its possible organisation.

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Piety, Patronage, and Passing: Reconstructing Medieval Guton by Jakob Reid

This talk explores research conducted since 2021 into the “lost” medieval settlement of Guton in Norfolk. Recorded in the Domesday Book as Gutheketuna, the settlement once contained a market, meadowland and at least forty households. The session aims to outline the history of this community, presenting what is currently known, what recent research has revealed and several possible explanations for its subsequent disappearance.

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Alongside reconstructing Guton’s past, the talk also introduces wider methods for researching deserted medieval villages. It highlights valuable source types, discusses the importance of spatial and temporal context in reconstructing settlement histories and considers how piety, patronage and local power shaped rural communities in the Middle Ages.

 

The Religious Reformation and the Act of Eating by Issy Eley

This talk examines how the rise of Protestantism in Europe led to a growing emphasis on morality within the practices of dining and the domestic kitchen. Evidence for this shift can be seen in a range of material and cultural sources, including religiously inspired designs on posy trenchers, the repurposing of objects from dissolved Catholic institutions as tableware and the increasing importance of ritual acts such as saying grace before meals.

 

Together, these examples highlight how everyday domestic spaces became sites for expressing and reinforcing Protestant values. The session expands on recent research into the moral and religious dimensions of early modern dining culture, offering new insights into how faith shaped the material world and social behaviour at the table.

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