This three-day, interdisciplinary research symposium will focus on Lucy Hutchinson (1620-81), an accomplished but understudied writer, as it explores how women writers participated in the intellectual debates of the English Civil War. Papers will address Hutchinson’s literary, philosophical, and artistic interests; her interactions with local and national politics; and her connections to contemporary women writers. The symposium is timed to coincide with Hutchinson’s 400th birthday, and with the reopening of Nottingham Castle, where Hutchinson lived during the Civil War.
Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681), an English poet, translator, and biographer, is best known for her Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson. A response to her husband’s death as a political prisoner, her Memoirs combines a moving personal narrative with probing analysis of the English Civil War and detailed accounts of local and national politics. Hutchinson also completed the first full English translation of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, the Biblical epic Order and Disorder, passionate elegies, and independent-minded theological treatises.
The Conference is hosted at the Trent Building on University Park Campus, at the University of Nottingham. University Park is The University of Nottingham’s largest campus at 300 acres. Part of the University since 1929, the campus is widely regarded as one of the largest and most attractive in the country.
Set in extensive greenery and around a lake, University Park is the focus of life for students, staff and visitors. It is conveniently located only two miles from the city centre.
For more than 50 years, the Friends of Lydiard Park have been acquiring, aggregating, writing and storing research connected with Lydiard House and Park, the contents of the museum and the history of the St. John family, other families connected with the St. Johns, and the parish of Lydiard Tregoze. We are delighted to support students and academics in their ongoing research and exploration of the life of Lucy Hutchinson, her work, and her family.
Dr. Alison Bumke
Assistant Professor in Seventeenth-Century Literature and Drama
University of Nottingham
Alison.Bumke@nottingham.ac.uk
Professor David Norbrook
Emeritus Merton Professor of English Literature
University of Oxford
david.norbrook@ell.ox.ac.uk
The University of NottinghamUniversity ParkNottinghamNG7 2RD
telephone: +44 (0) 115 951 5151