The 2024 John N. King Lecture in Medieval and Renaissance Studies will feature Dr. Susannah Monta, Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana), presenting "John Donne's 'A Litanie' and the Work of Liturgy."
Modern literary scholarship has often labored under impoverished notions about the nature of liturgy. Donne’s "A Litanie" engages deeply with liturgy, but not necessarily in the ways literary scholars sometimes understand liturgy – as set verbal content for public worship which devotees endorse wholeheartedly, partially, or, worst, unthinkingly. In this lecture, I’ll situate sixteenth and seventeenth century litanies in contexts both historical and theological. I’ll then propose that Donne’s “A Litanie” thinks and works liturgically in light of those contexts.
This event is free and open to the public.
Susannah Brietz Monta is Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. Her research involves devotional lyric, religion and literature, hagiography, devotional prose and early modern Catholicism. Her books include Martyrdom and Literature in Early Modern England, Teaching Early Modern English Prose and A Catholic Reads The Faerie Queene: Anthony Copley’s A Fig for Fortune. She was the editor of Religion and Literature from 2008 to 2015, and is currently a co-editor of Spenser Studies. She is a founding co-editor of the series Catholicisms, ca. 1450-1800 for Durham University's Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies and has served as vice-president and president of the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference. She has published over thirty articles on topics including martyrology, hagiography, devotional poetry and prose, and religion and literature methodology. Current projects include a co-edited scholarly edition of the Lives of St. Philip Howard and Anne Dacre Howard, earl and countess of Arundel, for the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies (with Elizabeth Patton and Earle Havens), a five-volume complete works of Robert Southwell for Oxford University Press (with Peter Davidson and Emily Ransom), and a monograph on prayer, poetry and repetition in the Reformation era.
The Humanities Institute and its related centers host a wide range of events, from intense discussions of works in progress to cutting-edge presentations from world-known scholars, artists, activists and everything in between.
We value in-person engagement at our events as we strive to amplify the energy in the room. To submit an accommodation request, please send your request to Megan Moriarty: moriarty.8@osu.edu.
