An interdisciplinary workshop to be held at Goldsmiths, University of London, invites proposals on the topic of ‘The Architecture of Conversion in Early Modern Europe’. The event is sponsored by the Society of Renaissance Studies and will be free to attend. Participants may be asked to contribute to a special issue of the journal Reformation scheduled for publication in Fall 2026.
Plenary speaker
- Antonio Urquizar Herrer (UNED Madrid). Author of Admiration and Awe: Morisco Buildings and Identity Negotiations in Early Modern Spanish Historiography (OUP, 2017).
Confirmed speakers
- Harriet Lyon (Cambridge University)
- Callan Davies (University of Southampton)
- Stewart Mottram (University of Hull)
- Matthew Augustine (University of St Andrews)
- John Schofield (Archaeologist, Secretary of the City of London Archaeological Trust)
- Jaap Geraerts (Mainz University)
- Abigail Shinn (Goldsmiths, University of London)
- Róisín Watson (Open University)
The workshop aims to bring together leading and emerging scholars in the fields of archaeology, literary studies, theatre studies, history and art history to explore the architecture of conversion in early modern Europe.
Scholars working in early modern studies recognise that the conversion of religious buildings had a powerful impact on communities, identities, and art in the period, but these dynamic areas of research have not been bought together in an interdisciplinary forum before. As such, this will be a valuable opportunity for knowledge sharing and collaboration which has the potential to reframe our understanding of how architecture, religion, literature and community intersect following religious transformation and rupture.
Topics of interest might include:
- What effect did the Reformation have on the use and meaning of places of worship in Europe?
- How did architectural conversions inform attitudes to Morisco communities in Catholic Spain?
- What was the effect of the Henrician dissolution on church architecture; ecclesiastical space; urban planning; leisure and entertainment culture (including theatres); elite housing and trade.
- How did communities assimilate or resist the visible and tangible remnants of the religious past?
- How did literary and artistic culture respond to the conversion of religious architecture?
- What effect did architectural conversions have on memory culture?
- The relationship between ruination and conversion.
- Attitudes to the remains of the Islamic past in the Catholic present.
- The role of converted buildings in stories of iconoclasm and desecration.
- The reuse of ecclesiastical buildings and spaces for secular purposes.
- The relationship between architectural conversion and wider systems of recycling and reuse.
Please send proposals of up to 300 words for 20-minute papers, along with a short biographical note (c. 50 words), to a.shinn@gold.ac.uk by Friday 28th February 2025. We particularly welcome submissions from graduate students and ECRs. Please get in touch with any questions.