Seminar: Conversions in early modern drama

Posted on by Yan Brailowsky in Courses

Fall 2025-2026

Descriptif

This seminar will look at conversion scenes in English and French plays from the 16th to the 18th centuries, along with contemporary works (from the 20th and 21st centuries). These scenes flourished with the spread of the Reformation in the 16th century, which rekindled religious tensions, in both canonical texts (Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice‘ and ‘As You Like It‘) as well as in less-well known plays. Conversion scenes, which are eminently theatrical, are based on a rich iconographic history and raise their own dramaturgical issues. The seminar will look at the dramatic theory underlying scenes of conversion, from Aristotle to proto-sociological and medical texts, where conversion is either an infectious or a blinding experience. We will look at what distinguishes moral conversion, religious conversion, political conversion and moral conversion. We will try to isolate some formal characteristics of ‘conversion scenes’, and distinguish conversion scenes from similar models, such as recognition scenes. The seminar will also explore the extent to which the model of the conversion scene can be extended to other fields: ‘secular’ conversions, sexual conversions, political conversions, pictorial conversions, etc. The seminar will look at issues of reception, literary theory and performance in conjunction with contemporary phenomena such as ‘radicalisation’ and manipulation.

Course objectives

This course teaches students to combine different approaches, such as performance studies and contextual analysis, to offer in-depth readings of canonical plays and lesser-known works from English and French drama from the 16th and 18th centuries, and its contemporary afterlives.

Compétences visées

– Mettre en relation les productions d’une aire linguistique et culturelle donnée à différentes époques avec celles d’autres aires culturelles
– Mobiliser des connaissances historiques, des références culturelles et artistiques afin d’opérer des transferts entre les aires géographiques, politiques et culturelles
– Juxtaposer et comparer des concepts et cadres théoriques dans le domaine de l’étude d’une ou de plusieurs langues étrangères en lien avec les aires socio-culturelles correspondantes.

Evaluation

SESSION 1 et 2 : Commentaire de texte ou dissertation sur table (3h).

Bibliographie indicative

  • Boisson, Didier, and Élisabeth Pinto-Mathieu, eds., La conversion : Textes et réalités (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014) <https://books.openedition.org/pur/49978>
  • Ditchfield, Simon, and Helen Smith, eds., Conversions: Gender and Religious Change in Early Modern Europe, Conversions (Manchester University Press, 2017) <http://www.manchesterhive.com/view/9781526107046/9781526107046.xml>
  • Gugelot, Frédéric, ‘Les enjeux du récit de conversion au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles’, in La conversion : Textes et réalités, ed. by Didier Boisson and Élisabeth Pinto-Mathieu, Histoire (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014), pp. 113–21, doi:10.4000/books.pur.49995
  • Martin, José R. Jouve, and Stephen Wittek, eds., Performing Conversion: Cities, Theatre and Early Modern Transformations (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), doi:10.1515/9781474482745
  • Pickett, Holly Crawford, The Drama of Serial Conversion in Early Modern England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024)
  • Stelling, Lieke, Religious Conversion in Early Modern English Drama (Cambridge University Press, 2019)
  • Stelling, Lieke, Harald Hendrix, and Todd M. Richardson, eds., The Turn of the Soul: Representations of Religious Conversion in Early Modern Art and Literature, Intersections, 23 (Brill, 2012)

Planning

  1. Session 1 : Introduction
  2. Session 2 : invité : Mark Robson (U. of Dundee)
    • MOUAWAD Wajdi-Tous des oiseaux
  3. The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare
    • Video: The Merchant of Venice, Movision, Avenue Pictures, UK Film Council, 2004. Featuring Al Pacino (Shylock), Jeremy Irons (Antonio), et al.
    • VIDEO : The Merchant of Venice (Globe theater, 2015). Mise en scène : Jonathan Munby. Avec : Jonathan Pryce (Shylock), Dominic Mafham (Antonio), etc.
    • SHAKESPEARE William, M. M. Mahood ed., The Merchant of Venice, New Cambridge ed.
  4. The Jew of Malta, Marlowe
    • MARLOWE Christopher, ed. James R. Siemon, Jew of Malta
  5. Session 5: St Paul and Augustine
    • PODCAST on St Paul (BBC 4 In Our Time)
    • TEXT : Extract from the Bible on St Paul’s conversion
    • TEXT : AUGUSTINE Confessions – book 2 (text)
    • TEXT: AUGUSTINE Confessions – book 8 (text)
    • TEXT : AUGUSTINE Confessions – books 2 and 8 (audiobook)
    • PODCAST on Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ (BBC 4 In Our Time)
    • ARTICLE : Hermetet, Anne-Rachel. « La conversion de saint Paul dans le roman contemporain ». In La conversion, édité par Didier Boisson et Élisabeth Pinto-Mathieu. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014.
  6. Session 6 : From Lewis Wager to Elizabeth Cary : Feminine conversions and martyrdom
    • TEXT : WAGER Lewis, The life and repentaunce of Marie Magdalene 7.1 Mo Icône Fichier
    • TEXT : CARY Elizabeth, ed. Karen Britland, The Tragedy of Mariam (New Mermaids)
    • AUDIO : Tragedy of Mariam, E CARY
  7. Session 7 : The Honest Whore, Thomas Middleton & Thomas Dekker
    • TEXT (html) : Th. DEKKER & Th. MIDDLETON : The Honest Whore (part 1)
    • AUDIOBOOK : MIDDLETON & DEKKER 1979, The Honest Whore (BBC Drama) – 2h [note, this version conflates parts 1 and 2 of the play)
  8. Session 8 : La conversion politique (I) : Cinna, Corneille
    • TEXTE : CORNEILLE, Cinna
    • AUDIOBOOK : CORNEILLE, Cinna, Theatre national Populaire 1955, mes Jean Vilar
    • PODCAST : Cinna, lu par Denis Podalydès
    • TEXTE (bonus) – Polyeucte, Corneille
  9. Session 9 : Critical readings (Merchant of Venice ; Mary Magdalen)
    • NOVY Marianne, ‘Forced conversion and Merchant of Venice‘
    • HIRSCH Brett-Counterfeit conversion in Merchant of Venice – EMLS Special Issue 19 (2009)
    • ADELMAN Janet, Fathers Blood Race- conversion nation in Merchant of Venice, 2003
    • HIRSCHFELD Heather Anne, Merchant Venice and Psychotheology of Conversion
    • FOUASSIER Frédérique, sur les récits sur Marie Madeleine, THETA7-04
  10. Session 10 : Political conversion (II): From ‘Good‘ by Cecil P. Taylor to Homeland (TV Series)
    • PLAY : TAYLOR CP, Good A tragedy, 1981
    • List of episodes of ‘Homeland’ (1, 2 and 9, season 1)
    • ARTICLE : ELZEN Julien van den, ‘Radicalisation a subtype of religious conversion’, 2018
    • VIDEO BBC recording of a performance of ‘Good‘ by CP Taylor at the National Theatre, feat. David Tennant
  11. EXAMEN

Published by Yan Brailowsky

Professor of early modern British history and literature in the English department of the University of Paris Nanterre (Paris X) in France. I teach courses on early-modern history and literature, among others, at both undergraduate and graduate level.