Margaret McGowan: Frances Yates: Phantom of Empire in a Season of Violence

Margaret McGowan explores a concept coined by Frances Yates: phantom of empire. Yates ‘explored the tenacity with which the idea of the revival of empire’ captured the minds of early modern artists and poets. However, empire seemed an impossibility in that time - a thing consigned to the past - but as an idea it had a haunting presence. McGowan analyses imperial representations and violent imagery in the light of the period’s religious wars as portrayed in insignia, paintings, engravings and maps. The phantom of empire, McGowan argues, served as tools of persuasion and defence.
Margaret McGowan began teaching at the University of Strasbourg in 1955, moving on to the University of Glasgow in 1957, and then to the University of Sussex in 1964, where she was Professor of French, 1974-97, Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor, 1992-97, and since 1997 has been a Research Professor. She was Vice President of the British Academy, 1996-98 and Chairman of the Review of the Warburg Institute, 2006-07. She was appointed FRSA in 1997, a Freeman of the City of Tours in 1986 and awarded Hon. DLitt Sussex, in 1999. Her publications include L’Art du Ballet de Cour, 1963; Montaigne’s Deceits, 1974; Ideal Forms in the Age of Ronsard, 1985; Louis XIII’s Court Ballets, 1989; Moy qui me voy: studies of the self, 1990; The Vision of Rome in Late Renaissance France, 2000; and Dance in the Renaissance: European fashion, French obsession, 2008 (Wolfson History Prize, 2008). She was appointed CBE in 1998.
The conference Frances Yates: The Art of Memory was held on April 30, 2016 at the Rose Theatre, Kingston. The session was chaired by Peter Mack. Recorded by Anna Rajala and Timo Uotinen.
More at: kingstonshakespeareseminar.wordpress.com/

[@SeekersofUnity]

This is fabulous, thank you

[@ianjones415]

So very sad that Margaret is no longer with us to share her brilliant insight into so many subjects. A much missed scholar and a great friend.