Eleanor Webb

My research focuses on intellectual communities in early modern Italy. I am currently working on a dissertation, tentatively entitled: “Between Studium and Accademia: Education in Early Modern Italy.” I investigate how university professors and their students used learned academies to experiment with new ideas, research methods, and modes of expression that crossed disciplinary boundaries. This project, and my research more generally, focuses on the history of scientific thought, academic freedoms, and the linguistic and literary cultures of education.

My research has been supported by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Folger Institute, UPenn Center for Italian Studies, the Haldane Fund, the Harry Ransom Center (University of Texas, Austin), and the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry. 

At Penn, I have organized the Global Medieval and Renaissance Studies Colloquium (AYs 21/22, 22/23, 23/4) and co-organized the History Department's Graduate Colloquium. In AY 22-23 I was Curatorial Assistant at the Kislak Center for Rare Books and Manuscripts. I currently act as Graduate Fellow for Global Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and Assistant Editor for Bibliotheca Dantesca, an international peer-reviewed journal dedicated to Dante studies. 

Before Penn, I earned a Bachelors degree (with honors) in History from the University of Warwick, for which I achieved the Best Overall Performance Award (2016-17). I published my undergraduate thesis in Comitatus. I then completed a Masters degree in Cultures of the European Renaissance from the University of Warwick’s Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, and was awarded the Martin Lowry Prize for Highest Overall Achievement.

Committee: Ann Moyer (advisor), Eva Del Soldato, Ada Kuskowski, David Lines (University of Warwick).