Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
About CREMS
The Centre
The Centre's Director is Kevin Killeen, Professor of English and Related Literature.
Founded in 2005, the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies is a thriving interdisciplinary community devoted to the study of the long sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It brings together more than 40 academics and more than 60 PhD students from 9 leading departments: English and Related Literature, History, History of Art, Archaeology, Philosophy, Politics, Education, and the School of Arts and Creative Technologies, making it one of the largest and liveliest centres of its kind in the world.
CREMS' parent departments performed superbly in the most recent national research assessment, confirming York's status as the leading UK university for interdisciplinary study and research in the Arts and Humanities.
Where to find us
CREMS is based on Campus West and close to the beautiful, historic City of York. We offer a hub for collaboration between scholars of different disciplines and provides unrivalled facilities for postgraduate study with dedicated space for research students, seminar and meeting rooms.
On our doorstep, you will find:
- York Minster Library, the largest Cathedral library in the UK, with extensive early modern holdings.
- the Borthwick Institute for Archives, the largest Records Office outside London.
- the National Centre for Early Music.
- some of the UK's finest surviving early modern houses, including Hardwick Hall, Bolsover Castle, Haddon Hall and Burton Agnes.
Teaching and research
CREMS hosts and collaborates on a number of major funded research projects, including Remembering the Reformation; Virtual St Stephens; The Oxford Edition of the Works of Sir Thomas Browne; Cathedral Libraries and Archives Network, Rethinking Civil Society: history, theory, critique, Neapolitan Network and Soundscapes in the Early Modern World.
The Centre runs a stimulating programme of research seminars, conferences, public lectures and symposia. Recent high-profile speakers have included Professor Debora K. Shuger (Distinguished Professor, University of California at Los Angeles), Dr Katrin Ettenhuber (Pembroke College, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge), Professor Tiffany Stern (Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham), Professor Michael Braddick (History, University of Sheffield) and Professor Christine Stevenson (Courtauld Institute of Art).
Our postgraduate-led Cabinet of Curiosities organise activities that range from academic speed-dating to graduate conferences and workshops, and from early modern cooking to themed film nights.
CREMS provides a stimulating interdisciplinary environment for students taking postgraduate research degrees within the period. We welcome visiting academics, and are delighted to support applications for doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships, Fulbright scholarships, Levehulme visiting professorships, Marie Curie funding, and other researcher mobility schemes.
We are a member of the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH), and our members have ready access to training, events, expertise and resources at our partner universities, Leeds and Sheffield, as well as here at York.
CREMS collaborates actively with the Centres for Medieval Studies (CMS), Eighteenth Century Studies (CECS) and Modern Studies (CModS) at York, and enjoys close connections with the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Britain, the National Gallery, the National Archives, the Palace of Westminster, the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past, and the Yorkshire Country House Partnership.