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About Me

I’m a cultural and literary historian who works on the early modern, pan-European tradition of balladry and singing the news. I’m also a specialist on the Western European history of crime and punishment, especially public torture and execution, and I’ve just finished writing a book on execution ballads. I regularly perform the ballads I talk about. I am also an expert on early modern court studies, and on early modern social and cultural history more generally.

Recent Publications

Books

Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900 (in press, Oxford University Press series ‘The New Cultural History of Music’, 2022)

Scandal and Reputation at the Court of Catherine de Medici, Series: ‘Women and Gender in the Early Modern World’ (New York: Ashgate/Routledge, 2016)

Refereed Journal Articles

‘Chanteurs de rues, or Street Singers in Early Modern France’, Renaissance Studies 33/1 (2019), Special Issue: Street Singers in Renaissance Europe

‘When the News Was Sung: Ballads as News Media in Early Modern Europe’, Media History 22/3-4 (2016) Special Issue: ‘Managing the News in Early Modern Europe’, eds. Helmer Helmers and Michiel van Groesen: 1-17

‘The Rich Merchant Man, or, What the Punishment of Greed Sounded Like in Early Modern English Ballads’, Huntington Library Quarterly 79, no. 2 (Summer 2016) Special Issue: ‘Living English Broadside Ballads, 1550-1750: Song, Art, Dance, Culture’, eds. Patricia Fumerton and Megan Palmer-Browne: 279-299

‘The Power of Music: the Significance of Contrafactum in Execution Ballads’, Past & Present 229/1 (November 2015): 47-89

‘Medieval and Early Modern Emotional Responses to Death and Dying’, Parergon 31/2 (2014): 1-10, with Rebecca McNamara

‘Word versus Honor: the Case of Françoise de Rohan vs. Jacques de Savoie’, Journal of Early Modern History 16/4-5, special issue: ‘Speech and Oral Culture in Early Modern Europe and Beyond’ (October 2012): 315-334

Special Journal Issues

Parergon 31/2 (2014), Special Issue: ‘Medieval and Early Modern Emotional Responses to Death and Dying’, co-edited with Rebecca McNamara

Book Chapters

‘Emotions in Public: Crowds, mobs, and communities in early modern Europe’ in Routledge History Handbook to Emotions in Europe, 1100-1700, eds. Susan Broomhall and Andrew Lynch, in press, 2019.

‘Punishment’, in Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction, ed. Susan Broomhall (Routledge, 2017), 195-198

‘Singing Songs of Execution in Early Modern Italy’ in Voice and Texts in Early Modern Italian Society, eds. Stefano Dall’Aglio, Brian Richardson and Massimo Rospocher (New York: Routledge, 2017), 52-68.

‘Ballads of Death and Disaster: The Role of Song in Early Modern News Transmission’ in Disaster, Death and the Emotions in the Shadow of the Apocalypse, eds. Jenny Spinks and Charles Zika (London: Palgrave, 2016), 277-296.

‘Poison, Pregnancy and Protestants: Gossip and Scandal at the Early Modern French Court’ in Fama and her Sisters: Gossip and Rumour in Early Modern Europe, eds. Claire Walker and Heather Kerr (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 137-160.

‘A Stable of Whores? The “Flying Squadron” of Catherine de Medici’ in The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-Waiting across Early Modern Europe, eds. Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 181-208.

Media Coverage

ABC Radio National, History.com, Independent, Aeon, Pursuit, The Conversation

Social Media

@UnaMcIlvenna

Country Focus

Expertise by Geography

British Isles, England, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Western Europe

Expertise by Chronology

Pre-17th century, 17th century, 18th century, 19th century, Early Modern

Expertise by Topic

Gender, Literary History, Public History, Religion, Sexuality, Sexual Violence, Urban History, Women