The Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (University of Kent) and the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters (QMUL) are pleased to co-sponsor a 3-day conference to be held at the University of Kent on 17-19th September 2008. Speakers from across the disciplines will consider early modern agency and the transfer of knowledge between states, agents, travellers and spies in the period 1500-1700. Whilst recent scholarship in this area has focussed on early modern interactions and questions of policy, polity and politics, the negotiations and encounters of intelligencers, diplomats and spies remain relatively unexplored. Considering the relationship between agents and information we seek to address some of the following questions: how did intelligencers retrieve, transmit, and present information? What was the value of this information and how was it received? How were networks of influence constructed and maintained?

New Download the Conference programme Updated 16/9/08

New Download the Conference flyer

Download the Conference registration form

For directions to the University of Kent campus, click here. The event is in the Grimond Lecture Theatre.

We are grateful to the Society for Renaissance Studies who have generously awarded a number of postgraduate bursaries to cover travel and conference registration. If you are eligible to apply for one of these awards, please indicate this on your conference registration form. Awards will be made retrospectively.

For more information or enquiries, contact Dr Robyn Adams (Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, Queen Mary, University of London): r.adams [at] qmul [dot] ac [dot] uk or Dr Rosanna Cox (School of English, University of Kent): r.cox [at] kent [dot] ac [dot] uk.