The Governance of Texts. Bad Books Revisited
This one-day workshop explores early modern textuality as a field of scrutiny, regulation, and intervention. Moving beyond a restrictive focus on prohibition, it examines the diverse practices through which meaning was managed, negotiated, and transformed in early modern Europe. The contributions examine how texts were classified as dangerous or virtuous, how circulation was monitored in bookshops and private collections, how reading was regulated through permissions and interpretative frameworks, and how content was reshaped through rewriting, translation, or expurgation. Far from static, these practices reveal textuality as a mutable, contested, and performative field. Participants are invited to reflect on the mechanisms, techniques, and tensions that shaped what could be read, heard, or believed—and how the meaning of texts and textual objects was continually negotiated across time, space, and context.
This workshop is organized by the Seminario de Estudios sobre el Renacimiento (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and Universität Trier, within the framework of the HAERESIS projet (PID2022-140615).
