International Margaret Cavendish Society

18th to 21st June 2015

 

We are delighted to announce the the 2015 Margaret Cavendish Society Conference will be held at the Cornaro Institute in Larnaca, Cyprus.

 

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623 – 1673) was an English aristocrat, a prolific writer, and a scientist.

 

Born Margaret Lucas, she was the youngest sister of prominent royalists Sir John Lucas and Sir Charles Lucas. She became an attendant of Queen Henrietta Maria and travelled with her into exile in France, living for a time at the court of the young King Louis XIV. She became the second wife of William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1645, when he was a marquess.

 

Cavendish was a poet, philosopher, writer of prose romances, essayist, and playwright who published under her own name at a time when most women writers published anonymously. Her writing addressed a number of topics, including gender, power, manners, scientific method, and philosophy. Her utopian romance, The Blazing World, is one of the earliest examples of science fiction.

 

The Margaret Cavendish Society was launched as an international non-profit organization at the June 1997 Cavendish conference in Oxford (UK) to provide a means of communication between scholars worldwide and to increase awareness of Margaret Cavendish and her writings.Members work in such disciplines as English Literature, Cultural Studies, History, Philosophy and the History of Science and reside in the UK, Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, India, Israel and Japan.

 

A Call for Papers will be made nearer the event dates, when researchers from all disciplines (e.g. art history, social history, history of science, literature, ecofeminism, political theory etc) will be invited to submit proposals for papers related to the theme of the conference.

 

If you have any questions in the meantime please contact Dr Lisa Walters (Vice President of the Margaret Cavendish Society at  Elizabeth.Walters@ugent.be

 

You can also visit the Margaret Cavendish Society website by clicking here.