Economics and Politics in the Early Modern Epic
A Symposium at University of Sussex, Falmer
ARTS A, Room 108
June 19th 2026
9am-7pm
ATTENDEE SIGN-UP: https://forms.gle/u3XnYzP5wqfHpnif6
9am: arrivals, coffee, tea and cake.
9.30-11.30am: The Politics of Labour, Form and Resource
Chair: Katie Walter (University of Sussex)
Idil Tekin (University of Cambridge), 'Human Resources: Slaves as a Resource in Utopia'
Hannah Crawforth (King’s College London), ‘Epic Form and Political Forms: Aristotle, Milton and C.L.R. James’
Simon Knight (University of Bristol), 'Working in Heaven and Hell in John Milton's Paradise Lost'
Kat Addis (University of Sussex), ‘The Public Good in Iberian Epics’
12-1.30pm: Dramatic and Imperial Origins
Chair: TBC
Carla Suthren (University of Cambridge), ‘Caesar and Virgil shall differ but in sound’: Sounding Epic in Early Modern Drama’
Chloe Porter (University of Sussex), 'Staging Beginnings Before Paradise Lost’
Stuart Gillespie (University of Glasgow), 'Dryden's Aeneid and Empire'
1.30-2.30pm: LUNCH catered by ‘The Cardamom Pod’
2.30-4.30pm: Oceanic, Dynastic, and Classical Connections
Chair: Joe Moshenska (University of Oxford)
Archie Cornish (Independent), ‘Shrines to Ananke: Scale and Mechanism in Early Modern Maritime Epic’
Lorna Hutson (University of Oxford), ‘Milton’s Sabrina: Chastity and the Freedom of the Seas’
Sarah Van der Laan (University of Kansas), ‘Circe’s Daughters: Gender, Authority, and the Politics of Mercantile Empire in Venetian Epic’
Susanne Wofford (New York University), ‘Epic Erosion: Island Politics and the Property of the Sea in Spenser's Faerie Queene and Plautus’s Rudens (The Rope)’ (online presentation)
4.40-5pm: TEA and COFFEE
5-5.30pm: Panel Closing Remarks
Andrew Hadfield (University of Sussex)
6-7pm: KEYNOTE LECTURE
‘Epic Curses and Epic Relations in Paradise Lost: A Theologico-Political Reading’
Mary Nyquist (University of Toronto)
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By: Kat Addis
Last updated: Tuesday, 2 June 2026
