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Staff Profiles

Dr Emily Price

Leverhulme Early Career Fellow

Background

I am a historian of early modern Europe who studies the impact of the Reformation on travel and travel writing. In a broader sense, I’m interested in pilgrimage and pilgrimage souvenirs; the material culture of hospitality; conversion, persuasion, and personal devotion; Jesuit-Puritan encounters in early America; and Europeans’ physical and emotional engagement with the Levant after the Crusades. Having worked in museums before and during my graduate studies, I’m also interested in how public history can be used to explore the devotional practices of the past.

I currently hold a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship at Newcastle. My project, “Conversation, Consumption, and Conversion in Early Modern Europe, c. 1580-1700”, looks at how British Protestants defended their confessional stances while traveling through Catholic Europe, with a particular focus on conversations held over meals.


Academic Background

  • PhD, History, University of Michigan
  • MA, Medieval Archaeology, University of York
  • BA, Anthropology, Grinnell College


    Twitter: @DrEmilyPrice


    Research

    My current project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, is “Conversation, Consumption, and Conversion in Early Modern Europe, c. 1580-1700” (CCaCEME). It offers a new perspective on how the Reformation affected identity, exploring how British Protestants defended their confessional stances while traveling abroad. It focusses on cross-confessional debates held over meals, encounters that juxtaposed the tradition of affording hospitality to strangers, along with the Eucharistic overtones of sharing food and drink, with fraught, even dangerous, discussions of religious difference. CCaCEME employs a variety of written and material sources, including pilgrimage narratives, etiquette books, conversion stories, and decorated tableware, to illuminate the intersections between travel, foodways, and religious identity.

    I received my doctorate in 2020 from the University of Michigan. My research concerned the cult of the Holy House of the Virgin in the decades surrounding the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in England, Scotland, and Italy. I used contemporary histories of the shrines but also their material culture, particularly badges, prints, and buildings, to reveal how concepts of authenticity and proof changed in the early modern period. Further, I argued that Europeans continued to use the physicality of the sacred sites of the Levant-- their measurements, their position in the landscape, and their fabric-- to authenticate the newer shrines even as the practice of Holy Land pilgrimage was reformed.

    For past projects, I’ve explored how a Scottish Protestant made his way through Catholic Europe in the early seventeenth century, how pilgrimage souvenirs functioned in private devotion, and how English guides to the Jerusalem pilgrimage reinforced proto-national identity in the people who read them at home. 

    The study of devotion and its materials, especially how objects elicit powerful emotions and forge meaningful connections to the past, also informs my teaching and my work in public history. I have designed exhibits on, amongst other things, early 20th century college scrapbooks, women’s political expression through quilt-making, and what 19th century steamboat passengers packed for their journeys. Please feel free to contact me to discuss my past and current projects, or if you’ve collected an unusual souvenir you think I’d enjoy.


    Publications