Biography
I completed my History BA (2016) and MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History (2017) at Peterhouse, Cambridge. Research projects included work on blasphemy legislation in 1690s England, the use of Augustine to legitimise early Florentine humanism and the significance of Catherine of Siena as a political thinker.
From January to July 2019 I was based at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, for archival research. I will return to Venice in 2020, for further research funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. I will also visit Marsh's Library, Dublin, on a Maddock Research Fellowship.
Research
Thesis title: The Venetian connection in early seventeenth-century England
Supervisor: Dr Richard Serjeantson
My PhD research investigates intellectual connections between England and Venice in the seventeenth century, with a particular focus on the circles of three-times ambassador to Venice, Sir Henry Wotton, and his chaplain, William Bedell.
Research interests: Paolo Sarpi, early modern ideas of sovereignty, the Jacobean Church of England, civil and common law.
Publications
Eloise Davies, 'Catherine of Siena: a Dominican political thinker in fourteenth-century Italy', Renaissance Studies (forthcoming, 2020) – now available on Early View
Eloise Davies, 'English Politics and the Blasphemy Act of 1698', The English Historical Review (forthcoming, August 2020)
Pieces for a broader audience include
- 'Honest Men Lying Abroad', London Review of Books blog
- 'Blasphemy: a very modern crime', Ecclesiastical History Society blog
Teaching and Supervisions
- Supervision for Part I: Paper 19/POL 7 – History of Political Thought to c.1700
- Lecturer and seminar leader, 'Time', Part II: Historical Argument and Practice
- I have also taught a Methods class on essay writing (MPhil Political Thought and Intellectual History), a Source class on Religion (Part I: Paper 5 – British political history 1688-1886) and classes of 16–17 year olds at the Sutton Trust Summer School (August 2019)
Co-supervised an HSPS third-year dissertation on surveillance and the Venetian Council of Ten, 2018–19.
Other Professional Activities
- Seminar Assistant, Cambridge Political Thought and Intellectual History Seminar, 2017-18
- Convenor, Theories and Methods Graduate Workshop, 2017-18
- Founder and convenor of the Cambridge Spoken Latin Circle (AHRC-funded reading group), 2018-19
- Convenor of a series of Women's History Lunches, to encourage female participation in the history of political thought, 2018–19
- Convenor, 'The Body and Politics', 2019 Cambridge Political Thought Graduate Conference, held 18 March 2019
- Convenor, 'The Patristic Legacy in Early Modern Culture', held 30 September 2019
