The Ray Smith Symposium in 黑料不打烊鈥檚 continues its yearlong examination of 鈥淪ex and Power from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment鈥 with a mini residency by Italian Renaissance scholar Michael Rocke.
Rocke鈥攖he Nicky Mariano Librarian and director of the Berenson Library at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy鈥攚ill present a keynote lecture titled 鈥淪odo and His Friends: 鈥楲鈥檃more masculino鈥 and Male Friendship in Early Modern Italy鈥 on Thursday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. in the Kilian Room (500) in the Hall of Languages. The following day, he will participate in a Ray Smith-HC Mini-Seminar from 9:30-11:30 a.m. (with breakfast served at 9 a.m.) in the SU Humanities Center Seminar Room (304) of the Tolley Humanities Building. Both events are free and open to the public; however, the seminar requires registration.
For more information about the keynote lecture, contact Cassidy Perrault in the college鈥檚 Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Programs at (315)443-1414. For more information about the HC Mini-Seminars, contact Karen Ortega in the SU Humanities Center at (315)443-5708. More information about 鈥淪ex and Power鈥 is available at .
This year鈥檚 Ray Smith Symposium is organized and presented by the Renaissance and Medieval Studies Working Group, composed of interdisciplinary scholars from across campus. Dympna Callaghan, the college鈥檚 newly appointed William Safire Professor of Modern Letters, has taken a leadership role in the planning.
鈥淩ocke鈥檚 lecture will explore some of the ways in which friendship, love and sex among males overlapped and interacted within the intensely homosocial environment of early modern Italy,鈥 says Callaghan. 鈥淚n this milieu, relations of male friendship and love were idealized, and were considered a basic element of social cohesion. Same-sex eroticism, however, was officially reviled as sodomy, and was outlawed as a threat to the survival of human society.鈥
Callaghan goes on to say that despite these apparently irreconcilable perspectives, boundaries between friendship and desire were not easily distinguished or delineated. 鈥淎s a result, a variety of male relationships flourished,鈥 she adds.
A social historian of early modern Italy, Rocke studies gender and sexuality, with emphasis on homosexuality and male sociability. He is the author of 鈥淔orbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence鈥 (Oxford University Press, 1996), and is co-editor of 鈥淭he Italian Renaissance in the Twentieth Century: Acts of an International Conference Florence, Villa I Tatti, June 9-11, 1999鈥 (L.S. Olschki, 2002) and 鈥淧ower, Gender, and Ritual in Europe and the Americas: Essays in Memory of Richard C. Trexler鈥 (Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2008). During the 鈥90s, Rocke taught at several institutional programs in Florence, including SU鈥檚.
鈥淪ex and Power鈥 is enabled by a bequest from the estate of Ray W. Smith 鈥21. Additional support for this year鈥檚 programming comes from the Office of the Chancellor; the departments of art and music histories; English; history; languages, literatures and linguistics; women鈥檚 and gender studies; the LGBT Studies Program; and the SU Humanities Center, which sponsors the mini seminars.
The next visiting scholar is James M. Saslow, professor of Renaissance art and theater at the CUNY Graduate Center, Nov. 10-11.
This winter, 鈥淪ex and Power鈥 partners with 黑料不打烊 Library for an exhibition titled 鈥淭he Power and the Piety: The World of Medieval and Renaissance Europe.鈥 The exhibition showcases a variety of rare books and manuscripts, including illuminated prayer books decorated in gold leaf, a page from the Gutenberg Bible and an antiphonal Elephant Folio, from the Special Collections Research Center. For more information, contact Sean Quimby, librarian and director of the SCRC, at (315)443-9759.
The Ray Smith Symposium is named for the Auburn, N.Y., native who, after graduating from SU in 1921, was a highly respected teacher and administrator.
