Research

My PhD project, 'Contours of Womanhood: Women’s Beauty, Emotion, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England', is supervised by Dr Naomi Pullin and Professor Peter Marshall.

It seeks to explore the interplay between women's physical appearance and their lived experience during the early modern period. Specifically, it concentrates on women's interpersonal relationships and the emotional processes inherent in these connections. My central argument posits that, for early modern English women, beauty transcended mere physical attributes. Instead, it functioned as a cultural construct that played an integral role in shaping women's social identity. By delving into the multifaceted dimensions of beauty, my research aims to unravel the broader socio-cultural implications and significance attached to the concept of womanhood.

Broader Research Interests

• Renaissance art

• 16th- and 17th-century print culture

• Republic of Letters

• Women's correspondence and life-writing

• Early modern courtship, marriage and family

Education