MEMS is pleased to announce the symposium on Christopher Marlowe and the Huguenots of Canterbury which will take place on 22nd March 2024. It is the latest in a series of events which reflect MEMS’s strong association with one of Canterbury’s best-known sons, the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. It is organised by MEMS PhD student, Laura Romain, with two MEMS-based editors of the Oxford edition of Marlowe’s works, Dr Rory Loughnane and Prof. Catherine Richardson; it is supported by the University of Kent’s Centre for Heritage.
The symposium will involve a morning of papers and discussion at the University of Kent’s campus, to be followed by an afternoon in Canterbury Cathedral. We are delighted to be hosting the following external speakers:
- Lisa Hopkins (Sheffield Hallam)
- Anne-Marie Miller-Blaise (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle)
- Penny Roberts (Warwick)
- Andrew Spicer (Oxford Brookes)
- Christine Sukic (Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne)
- Alexandra Walsham (Cambridge)
A major theme of this symposium will be to consider the aftermath to the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre which ravaged France in 1572 and which played a part in the refugee crisis caused by the French Wars of Religion. For Marlowe, growing up in Canterbury, he would have been aware of the mass immigration of Huguenot (French Calvinist) communities to Canterbury and its surrounding regions.
This event follows on the Marlowe Festival which took place in Rheims and Paris in 2022. During the symposium, we will be launching a special journal issue of The Journal of Marlowe Studies and showcasing a new video documentary about the Marlowe Festival. Delegates will visit the Huguenot chapel in Canterbury Cathedral and look at some of the evidence for the Huguenot community living in Canterbury during Marlowe’s youth.
You can download the programme and poster. For further information, do contact Dr Rory Loughnane.