Throughout 2022, MEMOs will be running a series in partnership with the Society for Renaissance Studies where we will host leading scholars of colour in our field, pair them with a suitable member of our MEMOs research team, and they will have a live chat show style discussion on a specific theme. This will be followed by an attendee question and answer session.

The first event in our series entitled ‘The MEMO On’ will feature a discussion between Professor Jyotsna Singh and Dr. Amrita Sen on ‘The Global Renaissance and the Islamic Worlds’. We would love if you could join us to listen to and engage with what we are sure will be a fascinating conversation!

Professor Jyotsna G. Singh teaches and researches early modern literature and culture, including Shakespeare, travel writing, postcolonial theory, early modern histories of Islam, and gender and race studies, often exploring the intersections of these different fields and periods.

Her published work includes: The Weyward Sisters: Shakespeare and Feminist Politics(Blackwell), (co-authored); Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues: ‘Discovery’ of India in the Language of Colonialism(Routledge); and Travel Knowledge: European ‘Discoveries’ in the Early Modern Period (Palgrave), (co-ed. Ivo Kamps), and A Companion to the Global Renaissance: English Literature and Culture in the Era of Expansion, 1559–1660. Ed. (Blackwell); The Postcolonial World (co-ed, David D. Kim), Routledge; and most recently, Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory (Arden 2019).

Her latest book, A Companion to the Global Renaissance: Literature and Culture in the Era of Expansion, 1500-1700 Second Edition. (Wiley Blackwell, 2021). This issue includes a collection of original essays that provide an expansive picture of globalization across the early modern world.

Dr. Amrita Sen is Associate Professor and Deputy Director, UGC-HRDC, University of Calcutta, and affiliated member of the Department of English. She is co-editor of Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge 2020), and has also co-edited a special issue of the Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies on “Alternative Histories of the East India Company” (2017). Her research focuses on the early activities of the East India Company, early modern drama, and Shakespeare adaptations. She has also published essays and book chapters on East India Company women, Bollywood Shakespeares, and early modern ethnography. Her current project looks at representations of the East Indies on the English stage.