[Antiquitas] CfP: Ironic Encomia and Paradoxical Humour in the Early Modern Period, Frankfurt, Sept 2025

[Sari Kivistö (TAU)]

Hei,

varhaisen uuden ajan alun retoriikasta ja huumorista kiinnostuneille konferenssi - minulta saa täydemmän CfP:n ja lisätietoja. yt sari

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CfP: International Conference on Ironic Encomia and Paradoxical Humour
in the Early Modern Period at Frankfurt am Main, September 2025



A mock encomium is a text in verse or in prose which, in a positive manner, pays tribute to an object that is commonly considered ludicrous or harmful. Most early modern mock encomia are about diseases (e.g. plague, podagra, blindness), human vices (drunkenness, debts; also wicked men and women, like Nero or Julian the Apostate) or insignificant or harmful animals (fleas, lice, flies, and the like). The spectrum of genres in which ironic praise manifests itself ranges from the panegyric speech or treatise to the anti-Petrarchist sonnet, the French contre-blason or the ironical capitolo of the Italian tradition. In Italy, France, and England ironic praises and mock encomia were often also written in the vernacular.

Until now, only a few of these texts that often fascinate with their originality and humour have been examined more closely. We would like to encourage researchers from different countries and disciplinary backgrounds to identify and analyze such little-known texts. We invite papers that address individual texts or offer comparative analyses as well as papers that approach the genre of the mock encomium from a more theoretical perspective. We would further like to encourage you to present texts written by women or to examine aspects of ironic praise in the visual arts.

The conference will take place at the beginning of September 2025 at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main. The conference will be held in English. The revised papers will be published in the Intersections series (Brill: Leiden). We are confident that the conference will be funded by external donors (travel expenses, accommodation).

We kindly ask you to submit a title and a short synopsis of your current ideas on the topic (150–250 words) by 31st May 2024. To receive a full call for papers with text examples and a selected bibliography, please contact us.



Sari Kivistö: sari.kivisto at tuni.fi<mailto:sari.kivisto at tuni.fi>

Katharina-Maria Schön: katharina-maria.schoen at univie.ac.at<mailto:katharina-maria.schoen at univie.ac.at>

Robert Seidel: robertcseidel at lingua.uni-frankfurt.de<mailto:robertcseidel at lingua.uni-frankfurt.de>






Sari Kivistö

Professor of Comparative Literature

Tampere University, Finland


https://projects.tuni.fi/kirjallinensukupuutto/

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