I participated in the 2013 Sixteenth Century Society and Conference (SCSC) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, last weekend. The stunning bastioned fortifications of San Juan provided a fantastic setting for a conference on early modern history.

I presented a paper on the “Massacre of the Innocents: Gender and Martyrdom in the French Wars of Religion,” in panel 20 on Gender and the Wars of Religion in France, along with Amanda Eurich, who organized the session and gave a paper on “The Woman behind Jean de Coras: Jacquette de Bussy and the Role of Women in the French Wars of Religion.”

I also chaired panel 153 on Early Modern Political Gestures and commented on the papers by Cassandra Auble, Jonathan Vallerius, and Matthew Vester.

I also attended sessions 23, 104, 127, and 230, as well as panel-hopping between sessions 250 and 252.

The conference was fabulous, with numerous sessions on early modern French, Italian, and Mediterranean history. I absorbed the latest research on women in the French Wars of Religion, perceptions of natural disasters, understandings of blushing, commemorations of the English Civil Wars, French siege narratives, Huguenot identities, confessional boundaries, political gestures, Italian religious heterodoxy, and early football (soccer) in Florence.

The sessions were generally well attended, despite the temptations of Puerto Rico, in part because the coastal location allowed for spending ample time at the beach in the early mornings and late afternoons, before and after the conference sessions.

I was able to visit Viejo San Juan (Old San Juan), the bastioned fortifications, the art museums, and the Condado and Santurce neighborhoods.

The 2013 SCSC conference program is available online. The SCSC website provides additional information on early modern historical research and resources.