About the Cluster

The Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies of UBC is home to a research cluster in pre-1800—Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern—languages and literatures in French, Spanish, Italian, and other Romance languages. The cluster is now (2017) in its ninth year. We usually meet approximately monthly during the academic year.

Our meetings are inclusive and informal, and devoted to discussing and sharing our reactions to recent or important publications in the field, primary works or new approaches to them, and teaching methods derived from our research. The cluster also organised the 40th Annual UBC Medieval Workshop (March 2012), and Chantal Phan co-organised the 43rd Workshop (October 2015). Past and projected activities include holding internal workshops in collaboration with Library staff on subjects such as Palaeography and Rare Books; performance; and working in conjunction with the Faculty of Arts’ Medieval Studies Program as well as with Medievalists, Renaissanceurs, and Early Modernists in other departments or programs.

early romance by virtual communicationIf you would like to be kept apprised of ERS goings-on: various options are at your disposal, on the right-hand side of this site, below the list of links and Notre-Dame de Chartres’s flying buttresses:

  • “Follow the ERS Research Cluster by email”
    → enables you to receive automatic immediate notification by email of ERS news, updates, and other information posted here.
    —This is equivalent to being on an email list, but with two improvements: brevity and rapidity
    —You do not have to use a UBC or other institutional email address, any email address is fine: whatever is most convenient for you
    —Here is a handy quick instruction guide (PDF)
  • “Facebook”
    → links directly to our Facebook page, c/o which you can “befriend” and “follow” us over on Facebook.
  • “Entries RSS”
    → offers you further possibilities of receiving ERS news via RSS feed (on which, see here for further explanation), be that to your web-browser of choice, or your email inbox, or both.

If you are interested in joining the cluster and actively participating in it: please do contact us c/o any of the current Committee: Raúl Alvarez-Moreno, Nancy Frelick, Juliet O’Brien, Chantal Phan.

We also provide a VIRTUAL COMMENTS FORM for general feedback.

Image: “Las Meninas,” Diego Velázquez (ca. 1656).
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons