Lecture Title: "Recycling the Sacred: Material Cultural and Cultural Memory in Post-Reformation England"
Abstract: This talk will focus on ecclesiastical recycling - on how medieval Catholic objects negotiated the passage to the Reformation by being remodelled and repurposed for alternative, often profane use - and explores the significance of this process in the realm of memory.
Bio: Alexandra Walsham is Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests fall within the field of the religious and cultural history of early modern Britain and focus on the immediate impact and long-term repercussions of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations set within their European context. She has published extensively on a range of themes, including post-Reformation Roman Catholicism; religious tolerance and intolerance between 1500 and 1700; providence, miracles and the supernatural in post-Reformation society and culture; the history of the book, the advent of printing, and the interconnections between oral, visual and written culture; religion and the landscape; the memory of the Reformation; age, ancestry and the relationship between religious and generational change. She is co-editor, with Matthew Hilton, of the journal Past and Present, and has served as General Editor of the Past and Present Book Series and Past and Present Supplements (OUP). She is one the Series Editors of Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History (CUP) and also serves on the editorial boards of a number of other journals, including Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and British Catholic History. She is currently Chair of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Historical Research.
