October 15–17 | Newberry Center for Renaissance Studies
Conference: Cervantes, escritor alegre; regocijo de las musas
A conference exploring Cervantes’s use of alegría as a space where invention, irony, and play redefine the very conditions of human life.
Organized by Mercedes Alcalá Galán et al.
Speakers will include Steven Hutchinson, Chris Livanos, Elizabeth Bearden
Full program here:
Newberry Library | Cervantes, escritor alegre; regocijo de las musas
In Cervantes, alegría is a vital, generous, and hopeful lightness—never frivolous, always profound—that opens spaces of lucidity, conviviality, and shared humanity. It may be evoked through notions such as regocijo, gozo, júbilo, deleite, dicha, contento, ventura, buen ánimo, optimismo: forms of creative, philosophical, and affective energy that ease suffering while affirming community, freedom, and imagination. Beyond humor, Cervantine alegría can be understood as a revolutionary stance, a force at once ethical, aesthetic, and intellectual. It is alegría as ethos, poetics, and community: a lucid, profound, and humane disposition that resists despair and sustains a shared horizon of conviviality.
In Cervantes, this alegría emerges as the capacity to live, create, and think together, as well as a gesture of freedom that unsettles tragedy, violence, and rigid hierarchies. Cervantine alegría is thus both individual and communal: a space where invention, irony, and play redefine the very conditions of human life.
Friday, October 16 | 9-12 CDT: FISIER online seminar
(CEMS is a member institution: The link was distributed through the CEMS mailing list or available from smoedersheim@wisc.edu)
The next session of FISIER’s online international seminar ReNoV / ReNeW
Centre Montaigne, Université de Bordeaux
The seminar is reserved for the members of the societies, research groups, labs and institutions that are associated with FISIER.
Friday, November 6 | 3:00-5:00 pm – Van Hise 1312 (Madsen Room)
New Faculty Affiliate Lecture by Matthew Johnson (German, Nordic and Slavic+)
Glikl’s Melancholia: Gender, Affect, and the Afterlives of Early Modern Yiddish Literature
This talk will offer a brief introduction to early modern or “old” Yiddish literature, with a focus on the work of Glikl bas Judah Leib, who, between 1691-1719, wrote a series of complex and enduring texts about the personal, social, and ethical problems that both animated and unsettled her life. The talk will center on a close and contextual reading of Glikl’s claim that her writings’ “sole purpose […] was to stave off melancholy thoughts in the evenings and long nights” and trace how later translators, scholars/editors, and critics have thought about and refigured how she wrote about and through her melancholic inwardness.
Hamel Music Center, Collins Recital Hall, 740 University Ave.
From Near Obscurity to Iconic Works: Bach’s Cello Suites – German, Nordic, and Slavic+ – UW–Madison
A Focus on the Humanities Lecture and Performance with Edward Klorman with Matthew Zalkind.
The six suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach—once dismissed as mere curiosities—are now revered as iconic works. They are performed worldwide by cellists of all ages, and they are moreover prominently used in pop culture such as film and television as well as in expressions of humanitarian advocacy. In this special Focus on the Humanities talk, Edward Klorman illustrates how and why Bach conceptualized this highly innovative music and tells the unlikely story of how the Cello Suites went from near obscurity to becoming the celebrated works that define the sound of the instrument. Matthew Zalkind performs selections from the Cello Suites, showing how Bach created rich harmonies and counterpoint using a single instrument.
2026 Fall Semester — Past Events
Tuesday, September 29 | 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Papermaking on Library Mall with Robert Possehl
Holding History is hosting our annual Papermaking on Library Mall event on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. This hands-on public humanities event welcomes passersby to think about a writing technology that has changed the world while making paper by hand.
Come join local artist and collaborative arts specialist Robert Possehl to learn how to make paper! Participants will create handmade paper using pulp made from recycled rags, local plants (from Possehl’s family farm in Portage), and water from Lake Mendota. After the event, Possehl plans to curate a collaborative art exhibit from participant-made paper.
____________________________________________________________
Friday, October 9 | 3:00-5:00 pm – Van Hise 1312 (Madsen Room)
CEMS affiliates get-together and exchange current research and teaching.
____________________________________________________________