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The Seven Deadly Sins as Cultural Constructions in the Middle Ages

An NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers at Darwin College, University of Cambridge (17 July - 18 August 2006 [5 weeks] see web site here.).

This seminar will examine the cultural construction of moral thought in the Middle Ages using the categories of the Seven Deadly Sins, critically review recent scholarship on the sins, and make maximum use of the unique manuscript, research, and human resources available in Cambridge. The seminar will seek to deepen the participants’ appreciation for the ways in which the conception of morality in the Middle Ages was a response to varying cultural factors, and will make the study of the sins available for inclusion in the participants’ regular college instruction. The format of the seminar will combine individual presentations, guest lectures, and excursions to manuscript collections in Cambridge and to illuminations of the sins in St Mary’s Church, Hardwick (Cambridgeshire) and churches in Hessett and Stanningfield (Suffolk).

The Seven Deadly SinsThe seminar will be directed by Richard G. Newhauser, Professor of English and Medieval Studies, Trinity University (San Antonio) and will feature lectures by the following faculty:

• Richard Beadle, Department of English, University of Cambridge
• István Bejczy, Department of History, Katholieke Universiteit, Nijmegen, Holland
• David Ganz, Department of English and Classics, King’s College University of London
• Miriam Gill, Department of Art History, University of Leicester
• Nigel Harris, Department of German Studies, University of Birmingham
• Sylvia Huot, Department of French, University of Cambridge
• Ed Peters, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania
• Siegfried Wenzel (Emer.), Department of English, University of Pennsylvania

This seminar means to attract participants from a wide variety of disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Participants will receive a stipend of $ 3,600. DEADLINE for applications: March 1, 2006. For information and application materials go to the web site.