Justine Walden

Biography

I study the intellectual, social, cultural, and religious history of early modern Europe, with a particular focus on Italy and the Mediterranean and on the volatile religious and political climate in Laurentian Florence in the 1460s through the 1490s just prior to the rise of Savonarola. My dissertation focuses on how a particular monastic order, the Vallombrosans, negotiated this climate by positioning themselves as experts in exorcism. I am also interested in issues of orthodoxy and reform, social history, microhistory, the history of the book, and all things archival. I study the intellectual, social, cultural, and religious history of early modern Europe, with a particular focus on Italy and the Mediterranean and on the volatile religious and political climate in Laurentian Florence in the 1460s through the 1490s just prior to the rise of Savonarola. My dissertation focuses on how a particular monastic order, the Vallombrosans, negotiated this climate by positioning themselves as experts in exorcism. I am also interested in issues of orthodoxy and reform, social history, microhistory, the history of the book, and all things archival.

Research Interest

My background is in the History of Philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley and American Civilization at the University of Pennsylvania.