Courting Power: Persuasion and Politics in the Early Thirteenth Century. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1999.
Laurie Shepard
Associate Professor of Italian
Associate Professor of Italian
romance languages and literatures
Academic Degrees
Ph.D., Boston College; B.A., Wesleyan University
Research Areas
Acquiring authority and gaining access to the public forum in medieval and early modern Italy; Italian Renaissance comedy as a reflection of urban society.
Books
Songs of the Women Troubadours. Co-editors, Matilda Bruckner, Laurie Shepard, and Sarah White. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1995 (paperback 2000).
Recent Articles and Book Chapters
“The Power of the Word: Pasquinades and Other Voices of Dissent.” The Pamphilj and the Arts: Patronage and Consumption in Baroque Rome. Ed. Stephanie C. Leone. Chestnut Hill: McMullen Museum of Art, 2011, pp. 199-209.
"Marking Time: The Lives of the Young in Fifteenth-Century Tuscany" in Secular/Sacred, 11th-16th Century. Boston College, Chestnut Hill: McMullen Art Museum, 2006, pp. 74-80.
"Siena 1531: Genesis of a European Heroine." Quaderni d'italianistica 25.2 (2004): 3-19.
Recent Papers and Presentations
“Compromised Utopia: The Comedies of Gli Intronati of Siena.” Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, Seattle, January 5-8, 2012.
“Father v. Son in Renaissance Florentine Comedy: ‘Se le fortezze e moltre altre cose che ogni giorno si fanno da’ principi, per conservazione del loro stato, sono utili o non’ (Machiavelli, Il principe XX).” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, March 24-26, 2011.
"The Power of the Word." Conference on The Pamphilj and the Arts: Patronage and Consumption in Baroque Rome. Boston College, October 15-16, 2010.
"Guido Cavalcanti among the Tombstones." 2010 First Triennial International Boccaccio Conference. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, April 30-May 1, 2010.;
"The Poetics of Authority in the Vita Nova." The Eighteenth Annual Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Interdisciplinary Symposium on "Authorship," University of Miami, Coral Gables, February 19-20, 2010.
"Paradiso VIII," A Public Reading of the Divine Comedy at Boston College, January 2010.
"Purgatorio XXIX," A Public Reading of the Divine Comedy at Boston College, May 2008.
"Children in the Middle Ages." Five College Medieval Studies Seminar; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; October 26, 2006.
"Gender Markers in Childhood Sacraments." Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (sponsor), Renaissance Society of America; San Francisco; March 23-25, 2006.
"Laughing in the Face of Tragedy." American Association of Italian Studies; Chapel Hill; April 14-17, 2005.
"Dante's Commentators & the Ecclesiological Vision: Paradiso XI." Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University; Kalamazoo; May 2004.
"Conversation and the City." Renaissance Society of America; New York City; March 2004.
Boston College
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Lyons Hall 311C
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3804
Phone: 617-552-8269
FAX: 617-552-2064
Email: laurie.shepard@bc.edu
Current Courses
To view current courses taught, please access the Boston College Course Schedule and enter appropriate data.