Frances A. Yates: Work and Legacy

Frances A. Yates was one of the most original, influential and controversial Warburg scholars of the twentieth century. This conference brings together former students and colleagues of Yates with scholars who work in the many fields to which she made her distinguished contributions. 

This conference will explore the academic and intellectual legacy of Dame Frances A. Yates in the diverse areas of scholarship and contemporary culture – from esotericism to architecture - which have been influenced, stimulated and transformed by her work. The two-day colloquium will bring together academics who knew and worked with Yates, as well as scholars who work in fields to which she made her important contributions, ranging from Renaissance art history and festivals, Shakespeare studies and Giordano Bruno, to the history of science, Hermeticism and the “Art of Memory”. Drawing on the current state of research, the presentations will offer reappraisals of the various influential theses of Frances Yates and their methodological and interdisciplinary innovations, while also charting new venues of academic inquiry into the construction and transmission of knowledge.

Speakers: Sydney Anglo, Lina Bolzoni, Peter Burke, Mary Carruthers, Stephen Clucas, Wouter Hanegraaff, Deborah Harkness, James Knowles, Dilwyn Knox, Ewa Kociszewska, Margaret McGowan, Elizabeth McGrath, Sophie Page, Margaret Shewring, Charlotte Skene Catling, György Szönyi, Brian Copenhaver and Bill Sherman.

Thursday, 30 May 2019

9.00 Registration: Chancellor's Hall, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

9.30-11.00 Session 1 – Chair: Paul Taylor
Elizabeth McGrath: Frances Yates as Warburgian
Margaret McGowan: The Resilience of Phantom Ideas

11.00-11.30 Tea & Coffee

11.30-13.00Session 2 – Chair: Elizabeth McGrath
Ewa Kociszewska: Antoine Caron’s Paintings for Triumphal Arches. The Egyptian Arch for the Polish entrée
Margaret Shewring: Strands in a legacy: Yates' research and cross-disciplinary instincts as part of a pattern
leading to the founding of the Society for European Festivals Research 

13.00-14.00Lunch 

14.00-15.30Session 3 – Chair: Jill Kraye
Sydney Anglo: From Court Revels to the Cosmos. The 'Flatulent Rhapsodies' of Clement Armstrong
Dilwyn Knox: Frances Yates and Giordano Bruno

15.30-16.00Tea & Coffee

16:00-17.30Session 4 – Chair: Alessandro Scafi
Brian Copenhaver: 'All changed, changed utterly': Renaissance Philosophy and Science after Frances Yates
Peter Burke Between: G. B. Harrison and Aby Warburg: The Intellectual Development of Frances Yates

17.30 Wine reception

18.30 Dinner (for speakers)

Friday, 31 May 2019

9.45-11.15Session 5 – Chair: Charles Burnett 
Wouter Hanegraaff: Frances Yates in Ancient Egypt
György Szönyi: The Discreet Charm of Hermeticism: the work of Frances Yates as seen from
East-Central Europe

11.15-11.45Tea & Coffee

11:45-12:30Sophie Page: Frances Yates and Ritual Magic

12.30-13.30Lunch

13.30-15.30Session 6 – Chair: Claudia Wedepohl
Mary Carruthers: The Medieval Matrix of the Art of Memory
Lina Bolzoni: Personal memories of Frances Yates and the Art of Memory in the Renaissance
Charlotte Skene Catling: The Architecture of Memory

15.30-16.00Tea & Coffee

16.00-17.30Session 7 – Chair: Yuri Stoyanov
Stephen Clucas: Frances Yates's conception of John Dee as a 'Hermetic Magus'
Bill Sherman and Deborah Harkness: Frances Yates and John Dee: A Conversation

17.30 Closing discussion

Organised by Paul Taylor (Warburg Institute) and Yuri Stoyanov (School of Oriental and African Studies). Funded by the Warburg Institute and The University of London John Coffin Memorial Trust.

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF VENUE.