Scholar - Women Also Know History

Participant Info

About Me: Now in my twenty-sixth year at Cleveland State University, I am the founding Dean of the Jack, Joseph & Morton Mandel Honors College, Mandel Professor in Humanities, and Professor of History.

I am a historian of late medieval and early modern convents and nuns (1400-1700). I have given invited presentations at the University of York and the Attending to Early Modern Women conference. My work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Historical Association.

As a historian with an active research agenda, I am particularly committed to the vital role of the humanities in higher ed.

I blog about issues in higher ed administration and teaching at Tales Told Out of School and write regularly for Inside Higher Ed.

My teaching interests cover late medieval and early modern Europe and gender history and my courses include History of Bubonic Plague, European Women (1300-1700) and Golden Age Spain.

Recent Publications: Why Study History?, Inside Higher Ed, January 9, 2019

#metoo in the Meantime, Inside Higher Ed, May 18, 2018

“Uneven Conversions: How Did Laywomen Become Nuns in the Early Modern World?,” in Conversions: Gender and Religious Change in Early Modern Europe, ed. Simon Ditchfield and Helen Smith (Manchester University Press, 2017): 127-143.

“Baby Jesus in a Box: Commerce and Enclosure in an Early Modern Convent,” in Mapping Gendered Routes and Spaces in the Early Modern World, ed. Merry Wiesner-Hanks (Ashgate, 2015): 203-211.