Thursday Reading and Research is intended as an academic free-for-all, for the discussion of all issues historical, or tangentially so. Suggested topics include, but are by no means limited to:
New developments or discoveries in the field
Recent book releases, old book reviews, reading recommendations, or just talking about what you're reading now
Historiographical discussions, debates, and disputes
Your current research interests or projects
The goings on within the academy
...And so on!
Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion only of matters historical discussion, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.
Current research is in the way humour is used in early modern writing, especially as the flair suggests, black humour. I've been finding Erin Sullivan's 'Beyond Melancholy: Sadness and Selfhood in Renaissance England' a really interesting read to provide background on the other side of humour - sadness - but there's WAY LESS written about comedy in this period. [as an aside, my favourite bit of information from this book is that melancholy is actually registered as an independent cause of death in this period - not suicide, not death by misadventure or some other euphemism, since they have their own categories. Just 'melancholy'].
Anyone got any interesting reads to send my way? My remit is fairly broad (poetry/prose/drama/personal writings/religious thought, the works) as long as it's early modern and preferably focused on England though that's not so essential since there's a lot of cultural borrowing in Europe through printed books at this time.