P. Renée Baernstein

Contact

• baernspr@muohio.edu
• Office: Room 264 Upham Hall, Oxford Campus
• 513-529-5224
• Office hours: T R 11-12, W 2-3

Titles

• Associate Professor of History

Education

• PhD 1993, Harvard University
• AB, Cornell University

Teaching and Research Interests

• Early Modern Italy
• Women and family
• Cultural history of religion
• World history

Recently taught courses

• HST 198 World History since 1500
• HST 206 Introduction to Historical Inquiry
• HST 315 The Renaissance
• HST 400.V Senior Capstone: Machievelli
• HST 452/552 Florence in the Time of the Republic, 1250-1550
• HST 794 History and Theories

Selected Publications

• A Convent Tale: A Century of Sisterhood in Spanish Milan, Routledge, 2002
• “Reprobates and Courtiers: Lay Masculinities in the Colonna Family, 1520-1584” in Florence and Beyond: Culture, Society and Politics in Renaissance Italy, ed. David S. Peterson with Daniel E. Bornstein, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2008
• “Tullia d’Aragona: Two New Sonnets,” with Julia Hairston, Modern Language Notes, 2007

Selected Grants and Awards

• Visiting Professorship, The Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti, 2009

Work in Progress

Dr. Baernstein teaches the history of Renaissance, Reformation, and Counter-Reformation Europe. Her current book project, Gender and Marriage in Baroque Rome: The Colonna Family, argues that the unique characteristics of the Papal political system, particularly clerical celibacy, created in the ruling class a family environment conducive to women holding powerful but hidden and mistrusted positions of influence.