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Small Things That 'Cleave': Hannah Allen's Scissors and her Religious Melancholy

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Venue: Online

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A Birkbeck Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Worlds Research Event. Chaired by Isabel Davis (English, Theatre and Creative Writing).

Laura Seymour's paper concerns the non-conformist religious melancholic Hannah Allen’s pair(s) of scissors, which she uses as instruments of self-harm and tools for communication. These scissors feature in the only text we know Allen to have written: a 1683 autobiographical pamphlet entitled Satan: His Methods and Malice Baffled, describing her experience of religious melancholy and subsequent ‘cure’ at the hands of a parson and physician.

Please use this link to join the event. 'Doors' will be open from 12.15 for you to test your tech settings.

This is a COVID event: i.e. contributors may have the unmutable sounds of their household in the background and will depend on internet connectivity and technology.

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