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Summary

Research Network on the Notion of Obscenity in Renaissance France

This AHRC-funded network brings together 30 researchers from the UK, France, USA, Switzerland and the Netherlands to study the notion of obscenity in Renaissance France.

The French Renaissance is all too easily thought of as one of ‘Rabelaisian’ debauchery. The reality is more complex and more interesting.

Obscenity is an emergent concept at this time. Before official structures of censorship and control were really put in place, writers and artists in the most diverse fields were constantly worrying about the acceptability or otherwise of their work.

Our interdisciplinary network will study a series of questions that emerge from the history of obscenity.

Our programme for the two years of funding includes three main meetings, in Cambridge, Exeter and in Oxford, as well as a panel at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Chicago in April 2008.