In brief
Dates - 19 to 20 October 2024
Venue - 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh, with visits to nearby collections
Speakers - Dr Georgianna Ziegler (Folger Shakespeare Library); Dr Jamie Reid-Baxter; 10 panellists
Title - Esther Inglis in Contexts and Culture
Format - two-day international conference with two keynote plenaries, four panel sessions, exhibition visits, reception, and concert
About the conference
Esther Inglis (1570-1624) is a uniquely important writer and artist. A refugee from religious persecution, she and her family moved initially to England before settling in Edinburgh during her childhood; here she acquired the skills in calligraphy, drawing, and embroidery that combined to create the extraordinary manuscript books for which she is still famed, and which grace the collections of some of the finest libraries in the world.
In her own day, she was known to be one of the finest calligraphers then working, sometimes called the 'mistress of the golden pen', and the regard in which her skills were held made her books valuable components in the pursuit of personal, religious and political interests. But while Inglis’s life and work are far from unfamiliar to both academic and wider audiences today, and she continues to inspire contemporary writers and artists, there is still much to be done to understand the multiple forces and contexts which shaped her activity and her own singular place within the culture of her time.
Support and speakers
In the quatercentenary of her death, the University of Edinburgh, with the generous support of the FEATHERS project at the University of Leiden, is hosting a two-day conference to bring together researchers working on different aspects of Esther Inglis’s life and work, and on the crafts, media and cultural contexts in which she worked.
The event is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 864635, FEATHERS).
Key speakers include leading Inglis specialists Georgianna Ziegler and Jamie Reid-Baxter.
Collections and concert
The conference will feature visits to the Edinburgh University Library Centre for Research Collections and the exhibitions of the National Library of Scotland to see and explore their rich holdings of Inglis manuscripts, and will also see the launch of an online exhibition about Inglis’s life and work.
An Esther Inglis Quatercentenary Concert will be held at St Cecilia’s Hall on Sunday 20 October, featuring early modern music and contemporary compositions. St Cecilia’s Hall is one of the oldest purpose-built concert halls in Britain, and home to the University of Edinburgh’s music museum.
Registration
Registration for both days costs £50; one day registration is £25. The fee includes refreshments and lunch.
Registration for both days (£50), or for Saturday 19 October (£25), includes a ticket for the conference reception.
Registration for both days (£50), or for Sunday 20 October (£25), includes a ticket for the Quatercentenary Concert.
Register to attend (fees apply)
Provisional programme
This programme was updated on 1 October, but may be subject to further change.
9:15am to 9:45am - Registration
9:45am to 10:00am - Welcome and Introduction
10:00am to 11:30am - Session 1 (panel)
Kate Chedgzoy, Newcastle University
Textual gifts and the cultural production of early modern girls
Anna-Nadine Pike, University of Kent and Edinburgh University Library
“I am content not to ad more fulnes to the sea”: Esther Inglis’ miniature Psalters, 1612-1624
Annalisa Nicholson, University of Oxford
Huguenot Women’s Textual and Material Translation
11:30am to 11:45am - Break
11:45am to 1:15pm - Session 2 (panel)
Erin Harvey Moody and Christy Gordon Baty, Visiting Fellows, Harvard University
Not The Needle Itself But The Skill In Using It: An Examination Of Esther Inglis’s Unique Embroidery Style
Liz Rose, British Library
New storage solutions for embroidered and textile bookbindings
Alexandra Plane, Newcastle University
Identifying the Scottish workshop of the gold-tooled binding on Esther Inglis’s 1591 Discours de la Foy
1:15pm to 2pm - Lunch
2pm to 4pm - Encountering the Books
Visits to Edinburgh University Centre for Research Collections and to National Library of Scotland exhibitions to explore their holdings of Esther Inglis manuscripts
4:30pm to 5pm - Launch of Esther Inglis Online exhibition
Anna-Nadine Pike
5pm to 6:15pm - Session 3 (keynote)
Georgianna Ziegler (Folger Shakespeare Library)
Esther Inglis: Recreating a Renaissance Life
6:30pm to 7.30pm - Conference reception
9:45am to 10:45am - Session 4 (panel)
Michele Osherow, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Stranger Grace: 17th-century Needlework Representations of the Book of Ruth
Andrew Bull, University of Glasgow
Inglis and her musical self-portraits
10:45am to 11am - Break
11am to 12.30pm - Session 5 (panel)
Karen Nelson, University of Maryland
Polyglot Emblems and Networks of Vernacular Transmediation
Anne-Valérie Dulac, Sorbonne Université
« plus vn peintre est prez de quelque corps, & tant mieux il le voit »: Georges de la Motthe’s Hymn to Elizabeth
Lotte Fikkers, Clodagh Murphy, Jonathan Powell, and Holly Riach, University of Leiden
Collaboration, Attribution, and Authorship in Early Modern English Manuscripts: The FEATHERS Project
12:30pm to 1:15pm - Lunch
1:15pm to 2.15pm - Session 6 (keynote)
Jamie Reid-Baxter
"My very special good mecoenas”: Esther Inglis, Sir David Murray and Prince Henry Frederick Stuart
2:45pm to 4:15pm - Esther Inglis Quatercentenary Concert
St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh EH1 1LG
