Social History Portal IALHI

Call for Papers, deadline 30 June 2026
This issue will examine theories and practices of emancipation in early modern England, as well as the parallels and transpositions that can be made with our experience in the 21st century in the domestic, educational, socio-economic, political, and religious spheres. We will therefore ask the following questions: emancipation from what or from whom, why, and how? Several areas of focus may be addressed, including:
Political and Religious Emancipation
The 1534 Schism
The rise of Anglicanism
The broader question of emancipation: atheism and
the School of Night
The theatre as a site of contestation of monarchical power (
King Lear
,
Richard II
)
Breaking free from censorship: political allegories and coded messages
Emancipation from Patriarchal Structures
Prominent female political figures: Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, and Mary Stuart (attempts, achievements, and failures of political emancipation)
Female authors such as Lady Mary Wroth (literary emancipation)
Representations of female emancipation on stage: Shakespeare’s
The Taming of the Shrew
(reasserting patriarchal control?); Webster’s heroines; Moll Cutpurse in Dekker and Middleton’s
The Roaring Girl
Gender and Sexual Emancipation
The power of seduction (
Measure for Measure
,
Othello
)
Disruptions of female sexuality within dynastic strategies
Non-normative models on stage (homoerotic tensions, cross-dressing)
The cross-dressed bodies of boy actors (and anti-theatrical discourses)
Social and sexual transgressions (interclass or forbidden unions)
Social Emancipation and Self-Fashioning
The rise of the bourgeoisie and the
city comedies
The “upstart crow” controversy
Staging the tensions between individual and society
Economic Emancipation and the Discovery of the New World
The question of monopolies
Detachment from feudal structures
The role of the guilds
The diversification and emancipation of the economy
Economic emancipation and the rise of maritime capitalism (
East India Company
)
John Cabot, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the role of piracy
Emancipation vs. Subjugation / Emancipation vs. Colonisation
The master–slave dialectic under strain
The Tempest
: the relationship between Prospero and Caliban
Emancipation versus imperialism (travel narratives, letters)
Artistic Emancipation
Contemporary theatrical and film adaptations: emancipating the Shakespearean canon
Imaginary Emancipation
Utopias (Thomas More)
Submission guidelines
Deadline for papers (5000-7000 words, written in English or French): 30 June 2026
Abstracts (in both French and English) should not exceed 200 words.
Please include a short biographical note (max. 100 words) and 5 or 6 keywords.
Please follow the
stylesheet
Papers should be sent to: Louis André (
louis.andre01@univ-poitiers.fr
), John Delsinne (
johndelsinne75@gmail.com
),
before 30 June 2026.
Anonymised proposals will be subject to double-blind peer review.
Publication : December 2026
Co-editors
Louis André (Université de Poitiers)
John Delsinne (Paris Sorbonne Université)
Dates
30 June 2026
Keywords
early modern england, emancipation, self-fashioning, gender, patriarcal structure, Shakespeare, schism, elizabethan drama
Contact
Louis ANDRÉ
courriel :
louis [dot] andre01 [at] univ-poitiers [dot] fr
John DELSINNE
courriel :
johndelsinne75 [at] gmail [dot] com