Committee on Degrees in History and Literature at Harvard: Individual Biography

Bio

NAME: Elizabeth Mellyn (Will not be teaching 2008-09)
FIELD IN HISTORY AND LITERATURE: Europe from 1300 to 1750
GRADUATE DEPARTMENT OR Ph.D. AND GRANTING INSTITUTION: Harvard University, Department of History
AREAS OF INTEREST:
- History of medicine and law
- Intellectual, cultural, and political history
- Travel, communication, and cross-cultural exchange in Europe and the Mediterranean (including pilgrimage, missionary expeditions, trade, diplomatic travels, geography, cartography, and imaginary travels)
- Relations between East and West
- Cultural history of madness from antiquity to the present; reception and appropriation of ancient and Arabic learning in Europe
- History of universities
- Italian and Northern Renaissance
- Humanism
- Rise of vernacular literatures
- Cosmopolitanism, consumerism, and consumption of luxury goods
- Utopias and utopian thinking
- Emergence of the New Science
- Tensions between rationalistic and fideistic thinking (reason vs. faith in the West)
- Magic and the occult
- Religious reform and sectarian movements
- Republicanism and Absolutism
- Court culture
- The use and abuse of history in film
- The Middle Ages and modern pop culture
DISSERTATION TOPIC OR TITLE: Madness, Medicine, and the Law in Italy, 1350 - 1650
E-MAIL ADDRESS: ewrussel@fas
OFFICE: Robinson Hall L-23