Education

PhD, Northwestern University, 2006

Fields of Interest

Early-modern Europe (especially the cultural and intellectual history of Renaissance Italy and England); women and gender; humanism

Academic Profile

Professor Ross comes to Boston College from the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at Princeton University, where she taught a range of courses on European cultural, intellectual, women’s, and gender history while preparing her book, The Birth of Feminism: Woman as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England, for publication.

An admirer of early-modern men and women who aspired to master each of the seven liberal arts, Ross invites students to draw history from divergent sources, including literature, music, and art.  She teaches surveys of Western civilization and Renaissance/Reformation history, as well as seminars on classical mythology and the classical tradition, early-modern women writers, the emergence of feminism as a critical category, the history of the family, and the role of sexuality in shaping human identity. 

Representative Publications

• The Birth of Feminism: Woman as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009)
• "Sofonisba Anguissola," "Lavinia Fontana," "Moderata Fonte," "Barbara Strozzi," and "Costanza Varano"  in Diana Robin et al., eds., Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio, Inc., 2007)
• "Esther Inglis: Calligrapher, Linguist, Miniaturist and Christian Humanist,” in Early Modern Women and Transnational Communities of Letters; eds., Julie Campbell and Anne Larsen (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2010)