Whitehead, Barbara J., Ph.D.
History
A.W. Crandall Professor of History
Research Interests I am a French historian with a focus on intellectual movements in eighteenth-century France. My primary research focus has been on recovering the voices that have long been relegated to the second tier of Enlightenment writers and thinkers. These figures include such names as the historian Louis-Pierre Anquetil, the scientist and essayist Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet, the Italian adventurer Giacomo de Casanova, and most recently, the feminist writer and political playwright, Olympe de Gouges.
While my research interests shape how I approach my classes, my teaching interests extend more broadly throughout European history from medieval to early modern times.
Courses Regularly Taught:
Hist 111: European Civilization I—1300-1800
Hist 197: The History of Happiness
Hist 221: France from Charlemagne to Napoleon
Hist 222: The Crusades
Hist 223: The Vikings
Hist 225: European Women’s History
Hist 336: The Witchcraze in Early Modern Europe
Hist 337: The Age of Louis XIV
Hist 338: The Enlightenment
Select Publications
Women’s Education in Early Modern European: A History, 1500-1800. New York: Garland Press, 1999. Edited anthology.
“The Singularity of Madame de Châtelet: An Analysis of the Discours sur le Bonheur.” In Émilie du Châtelet, Philosophe. Julie Hayes and Judith Zinsser, editors. Oxford: SVEC at Oxford University Press, 2006.
“Revising the Revisionists: Louis-Pierre Anquetil and the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.” In Politics, Ideology and the Law in Early Modern Europe. Adrianna Bakos, editor. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1994.
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