The Humanities Institute's fellowship lecture and seminar called "Trauma, Time, and Writing: How Historical Narrative Radicalized Huguenot Resistance Theory," presented assistant professor Amy Graves' theory linking methods used to record early-modern history to modern-day propaganda in journalism in the Center for the Arts screening room this past Monday.
The talk featured Graves, a member of the department of romance languages and literatures, and her recent research on the subject.
"My project seeks to capture the spirit of a history that sticks close to public tastes and circles of politico-religious activism during the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598). To support their cause, Calvinists published collections of documents that they called m?(c)moires," Graves said. "What they were, in fact, was nothing more than recently published pamphlets and political tracts that compilers recycled, placed in chronological order, and annotated with extensive commentary on current events."
Graves studied two collections of m?(c)moires - one published in the mid-1570s and the other in the 1590s. Supposed unbiased accounts of the violence of the French Wars, both were written with the purpose of furthering the cause of the Huguenots in their struggle for legitimacy.
Huguenots, who during the French Renaissance and Wars defied the Catholic Church, struggled in the 16th century to gain independence and escape persecution.
"M?(c)moires promised to tell the story of the present day contemporaries and to serve as a resource for posterity and future historians. They are contemporary history, but they are also propaganda," Graves said. "What my research will make clear is that the tension between contemporary history and journalism, as well as the problem of bias and engagement that still plagues them both."
Graves' paper is the first to examine the relevance of historical documentation of the mid-to-late 16th Century France to the current issue of bias in reporting events.
"No one has yet formulated the modalities of how the early modern period conceived of contemporary history - the history of the present - and traced the problems it poses to the advent of the journalistic press," Graves said. "Certainly religious intolerance, propaganda and the ethics of political and religious engagement are not issues that are only relevant to yesterday."
In attendance as respondent to Graves' lecture was UB Distinguished Professor Jonathan S. Dewald of the department of history, who specializes in French social and cultural history in early modern Europe. The event moderator was English assistant professor Randy P. Schiff.
"I have always been fascinated by the way people argue and what they argue about. For me... they are a window onto the mindset, the expectations and the reasons for an uncompromising stance on issues during the early modern period," Graves said.
She is currently working with Dario Brancato, an assistant UB professor of Italian, to transcribe manuscript annotations contained in a copy of Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), which is held at the Grovesnor room of the Erie County Public Library.
Additionally, Graves is preparing a conference on Christian stoicism and devotional literature at Paris IV-Sorbonne. A book on "Cookery and Controversy" that examines food metaphors in Renaissance satire is also in the making.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
