Prof Emily Michelson
Professor
- Phone
- +44 (0)1334 46 2881
- edm21@st-andrews.ac.uk
- Location
- St Katharine's Lodge
- Office hours
- By appointment
Biography
I am a cultural historian of religion, with a special interest in Italy 1400-1700, religious diversity and encounter, mobility and walking. Before coming to St Andrews in 2009, I taught for three years at the University of Utah, a beautiful place. I earned my undergraduate degree in History and Literature from Harvard University, and my PhD in History and Renaissance Studies from Yale in 2006.
Teaching
I enjoy teaching on all of my research topics topics as well as on the intellectual, social and artistic traditions of Renaissance Italy. I welcome inquiries from students interested all aspects in the Renaissance, the Reformation in Catholic regions, or the social and cultural history of Italy. I currently teach on the first-year survey MO1007, and 'History as a Discipline' (HI2001. At honours level I offer modules on Renaissance Venice, Early Modern Rome, Renaissance Italy, Saints and Sanctity, Walking Early Modern Europe, and Blood, Glory, Judgment: Early Modern Catholicism.
Research areas
I am a cultural and religious historian of early modern Italy. Most of my research addresses two fundamental questions:
- How did early modern people balance their public acts of religion with their private beliefs and other priorities?
- How did close contact affect the way different religious groups interacted and imagined each other?
These questions have inspired all of my research, in various ways. My first book (The Pulpit and the Press in Reformation Italy, Harvard UP 2013), applied these questions to Catholic preachers in Italy as they reacted to the many competing pressures of the Protestant Reformation. My second book (funded by a British Academy mid-career grant and an AHRC early-career fellowship), Catholic Spectacle and Rome's Jews: Early Modern Conversion and Resistance, reconstructs the spectacle of forced conversion sermons to Jews in Rome, held publicly ever week from the 16th through the 18th centuries. The book argues that the spectacle of these sermons became the city’s most powerful platform for promoting both conversion and Catholicism in a changing world, and, more broadly, that these rhetorical and ceremonial uses of Jews reveal Catholic concerns about globalization, Islam, and Protestantism.
I have also co-edited a volume of essays in honor of Prof. Carlos Eire, and another on the varieties of religious minorities in early modern Rome, a book which reveals a surprising level of religious diversity and interaction at the heart of the Eternal City. I'm currently co-editing a volume (with Jan Machielsen and Katrina Olds) that seeks to redefine sanctity in the early modern world.
I am increasingly interested in how space, mobility, and especially the act of walking on foot might change the way we think about interfaith encounters and religious minorities. I am currently Co-Investigator on the ItalianROSE project, which seeks to uncover hidden diversities in the Italian Renaissance by examining objects and spaces of encounter. On this project I work with Professor Mary Laven at Cambridge and a research team at both universities.
I am also a proud co-editor (with Prof. Harald Braun, Liverpool) of the Routledge interdisciplinary book series Renaissance and Early Modern Worlds of Knowledge.
I'm very happy to hear from scholars and potential students on any aspect of early modern Italian religious culture or related topics.
Selected publications
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Open access
Conversionary preaching and the Jews in early modern Rome
Michelson, E., 23 May 2017, In: Past & Present. 235, 1, p. 68-104Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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The Pulpit and the Press in Reformation Italy
Michelson, E. D., 2013, Harvard University Press.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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How to write a conversionary sermon: rhetorical influences and religious identity
Michelson, E., 28 Jan 2016, Religious orders and religious identity formation, ca. 1420-1620: discourses and strategies of observance and pastoral engagement. Roest, B. & Uphoff, J. (eds.). Leiden: Brill, p. 235-251 17 p. (The medieval Franciscans; vol. 13).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Luigi Lippomano, His Vicars, and the Reform of Verona from the Pulpit
Michelson, E. D., Sept 2009, In: Church History. 78, 3, p. 584-605 22 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Evangelista Marcellino: One Preacher, Two Congregations
Michelson, E. D., 2013, In: Archivio Italiano per la storia della pietà. 25, p. 185 202 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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A Linking of Heaven and Earth: Studies in Religious and Cultural History in honor of Carlos M.N. Eire
Michelson, E. D., Taylor, S. K. & Venables, M. N., 2012, Aldershot: Ashgate.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Preaching Scripture under Pressure in Tridentine Italy: A Case Study of Gabriele Fiamma
Michelson, E. D., 2006, The Formation of Clerical and Confessional Identities in the Sixteenth Century: Dutch Review of Church History. Janse, W. & Pitkin, B. (eds.). Leiden: Brill, Vol. 85.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Bernardino of Siena Visualizes the Name of God
Michelson, E. D., 2005, Speculum Sermonis. Donavin, G. (ed.). Brepols Publishers, (Disputatio).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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An Italian explains the English Reformation (with God’s help)
Michelson, E. D., 2012, From Icons to Eternity : Studies in Religious and Cultural History in honor of Carlos M.N. Eire. Michelson, E., Taylor, S. K. & Venables, M. N. (eds.). Aldershot: Ashgate, p. 33 48 p. (St Andrews Studies in Reformation History).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter