Jeanne Dufresne

Research

My project explores the lives and representations of mobile non-elite women in early modern England and France through several lenses such as agency, space and resettlement. Although women are often thought to be less mobile than men, recent research has shown that their lives were far from being as settled as previously thought. Rather than focusing on perpetually mobile women, my project focuses on the numerous women who resettled miles away from the place of their birth, allowing me to explore what the process of déménagement – of moving one’s household from a place to another – implied and meant for mobile women. Why did they choose to do it? How did they proceed? How did mobility affect their ability to form and/or retain professional, familial, and communal ties? I hope to rethink the different spaces – both physical and symbolic – women occupied, sometimes simultaneously, as well as their ability to transition between them. I seek to better understand the interactions between early modern communities and people on the move, and especially how the latter shaped, changed and challenged the former. Far from being static, communities were ever-changing organisms, not only accepting their members' movement but benefiting from it.

I am supervised by Professor Beat KüminLink opens in a new window, Doctor Angela McShaneLink opens in a new window and Professor Penny RobertsLink opens in a new window; and my project is funded by the Chancellor’s International Scholarship.

My research interests include, but are not limited to, social history, the early modern world and the history of margins.

They/she | Contact: jeanne.dufresne@warwick.ac.uk

Office hours: Thursdays 14-15h FAB3.45

2026-Onward: Co-organiser of the Renaissance Work in Progress sessions.

2026: co-organiser of the Parish Data Symposium with Beat Kümin, Lynn Marriott & Dan Meldon (Warwick); and Arthur Karpacz & Marek Słoń (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin).

2023-2024: Organisation of several events as part of the Association des Étudiants en Patrimoine (ADEEP), and especially of two students' research conventions.