Jutta Gisela Sperling

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

2002-
Associate Professor of History, Hampshire College
1995-2002
Assistant Professor of History, Hampshire College

EDUCATION

1990-95
Stanford University: Ph.D. in Early Modern European History with a minor field in Italian Literature
1988-89
University of California, Los Angeles: graduate studies in European History
1984-85
Università degli Studi di Venezia: undergraduate studies in Italian History, Literature, and Philosophy
1981-87
Universität Göttingen: M.A. in Modern and Early Modern History with minor fields in Italian Literature and Ancient History

Languages

German (native language), Italian, French, Portuguese, Latin.

PUBLICATIONS

Books

Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (University of Chicago Press, 1999); Winner of the Marraro Prize of the Society for Italian Historical Studies, 2000; Honorable Mention of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women, 2000.

Articles

“Dowry or Inheritance? Kinship, Property, and Women's Agency in Lisbon, Venice, Florence (1572)”, Journal of Early Modern History, vol. 11 no. 3 (2007): 197-238.

“Women's Property Rights in Portugal under Dom João I (1385-1433).  A Comparison with Renaissance Italy,” Portuguese Studies Review, vol. 13, no. 1 (2005): 1-33.

“Marriage at the Time of the Council of Trent (1560-70): Clandestine Marriages, Kinship Prohibitions, and Dowry Exchange in European Comparison,” Journal of Early Modern History, vol. 8, no. 1-2 (2004): 67-108

“The Paradox of Perfection: Reproducing the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 41, no. 1 (1999): 3-32

“Das Unmögliche oder die Reform der Frauen? – Elisabetta Caminer: Eine Wegbereiterin der französischen Aufklärung im Veneto,” Journal für Geschichte, 2/3 (1991): 6-17.

“Elisabetta Caminer Turra: eine Publizistin in Venedig und Vicenza in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts,” Braunschweiger Beiträge zur Erziehungs- und Sozialarbeitswissenschaft,  27 (1990): 11-32.

Book Reviews

Monica Chojnacka, Working Class Women of Early Modern Venice (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).  Renaissance Quarterly, 55, no. 2 (2002): 708-09.

Anna Bellavitis, Identité, mariage, mobilité sociale: citoyennes et citoyens à Venise au XVIe siècle (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2001).  Journal of Modern History, 75 (2003): 704-05.

Anne Jacobson Schutte, Aspiring Saints: Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition, and Gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618-1750 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).  American Historical Review, 107, no. 4 (2002): 1317.

Timothy J. Coates, Convicts and Orphans: Forced and State-Sponsored Colonizers in the Portuguese Empire, 1550-1755 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001).  Journal of Early Modern History, 7, no. 1-2 (2003): 180-181.

Daniela Lombardi, Matrimoni di antico regime; Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento; vol 34 (Bologna, Società editrice il Mulino, 2001).  Journal of Modern History, Volume 77, no. 1 (2005): 203-04.

Caroline Walker Bynum, Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007); Renaissance Quarterly, 60, no. 4 (2007): 1364-66.

John Henderson, The Renaissance Hospital. Healing the Body and Healing the Soul (Yale University Press, 2006); Journal of Social History, forthcoming.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Books

Across the Religious Divide: Womens' Properties in the Wider Mediterranean (1300-1800); with Shona K. Wray; (Routledge, to be published 2009).

Iconographies of Lactation in Renaissance and Baroque Art.; (research in progress).

Articles

“Breastfeeding as Anti-Rape: Tropes of Lactation in the French Colonial Imaginary (ca. 1770-1810),” currently under review at Eighteenth-Century Studies.

“'Divenni madre e figlia di mio padre.' Queer Lactations in Renaissance and Baroque Art,” Sex Acts, ed. by Allison Levy, (Casa Editrice delle Lettere, Florence, forthcoming 2008; Ashgate, 2009).

“Marriage, Kinship, Property in Portuguese Testaments (1649-50),” in: Across the Religious Divide: Womens' Properties in the Wider Mediterranean (1300-1800).

“Consuming Daughters: Reciprocities, Reversals, and Resistance in the 'Roman Charity,'” in: Don et Contre-Don, ed. by Lucien Faggion; forthcoming.

LECTURES, SEMINAR PAPERS, AND CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

“Dowries in Renaissance Italy,” invited talk at the Kahn Institute, Seminar on Marriage and Divorce, Smith College, March 2, 2007.

“Iconographies of Lactation,” Women and Gender in the Renaissance, Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, High School Teachers' Institute, Feb. 11, 2007.

“Colonial Lactations: Las Casas' Miraculous Cure,” Five-College History Seminar, Amherst College, Nov. 9, 2007.

“Queer Lactations in Renaissance and Baroque Art,” New England Renaissance Conference, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Oct. 7, 2006 (invited talk).

“Dowry or Inheritance? Women’s Property Rights in Comparison: Lisbon, Venice, Florence (1572),” Conference on Gender, Family, and Property in Legal Theory and Practice: the European Perspective (10th-20th Centuries), Institute of Mediterranean Studies, Rethymno, Crete, Greece, September 21-23, 2006.

“Colonial Lactations: Las Casas’ Miraculous Cure,” Tepoztlán Institute for the Transnational History of the Americas, Tepoztlán, Mexico, July 26 – August 2, 2006.

“Gender, Property, and Agency in Lisbon, Venice, Florence (1572).  A Study of Women's Property Transactions in Notarial Documents,” Conference on Early Modern Women, Massachusetts Center for Renassaince Studies,Amherst, April 8, 2006.

“Carità Romana: Blood Kinship and Milk Kinship in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art,” Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, San Francisco, March 24, 2006.

“Dowry or Inheritance: A Comparative Perspective on Gender, Kinship, and Property in Italy and Portugal (ca. 1400-1600),” invited talk at the Luso-Afro-Brazilian Faculty Seminar at Smith College, November 3, 2005.

“Gender, Marriage, and Kinship in Early Modern Porgutal: Domestic Partnerships, Joint Ownership, Equal Inheritance,” Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, June 2-5, 2005.

“The Absent Mother: Images of Breastfeeding Women in Italian Art,” History Workshop, Harvard University, Oct. 2004

“The Absent Mother: Images of Breastfeeding Women in Italian Art,” Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, April 2004. Talk sponsord by the Lila Wallace Readers’ Digest Fund.

“Kinship Prohibitions, Clandestine Marriages, and Dowry Exchange in Catholic Europe at the Time of the Council of Trent (1560-70),” Department of History, Cornell University, Nov. 17, 2003.

“Women Without Dowries? A Comparative Perspective on Kinship, Gender, and the Law in Sixteenth-Century Venice and Portugal,” Renaissance Seminar, Wesleyan University, April 15, 2002.

“Free-choice Marriages and Joint Ownership of Marital Assets in Late Renaissance Portugal?  A Comparison with France, Flanders, and Italy,” Sixteenth-Century Studies Conference, Denver, Oct. 25-28, 2001.

“Dowries and Discontent.  Marriage and Women’s Property Rights in Sixteenth-Century Venice and Portugal,” Department of History, College of Charleston, March 30, 2001 (invited talk).

“Clandestine Marriages, Kinship Prohibitions, and the Dowry System in Europe at the Time of the Council of Trent,” Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Florence, Italy, March 21-24, 2000.

“Potlatch alla veneziana: Coerced Monachizations and Conspicuous Consumption in Late-Renaissance Venice,” Arcangela Tarabotti: A Literary Nun in Baroque Venice, Chicago Humanities Institute, University of Chicago; April 18-19, 1997 (invited lecture).

“The Paradox of Perfection: Reproducing the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice,” Gendering the Renaissance, SUNY Buffalo; April 11, 1997 (invited lecture).

“‘I have seen the impossible in the impossible.’  The Paradoxical Construction of Patrician Identity in Late Renaissance Venice,” Five-College History Seminar, Amherst College; 13 March, 1997.

“The Crisis of Marriage as a Crisis of State?” Venice Reflected, University of Michigan; 11-13 October, 1996 (invited lecture).

“Potlatch alla veneziana: Patrician Women in Venetian Convents,” Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, 1995.

“Convents and the Body Politic in Venice,” Workshop on Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Department of History; Stanford University, 1993.

“The Reform of the Convents in Venice,” European History Workshop, Department of History, Stanford University, 1991.

“La riforma dei conventi à Venezia,” Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani/Deutsches  Studienzentrum in Venedig; 1990.

“Elisabetta Caminer Turra: eine Journalistin und Publizistin in Venedig und Vicenza in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts,” Annual Conference of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft zur Neueren Geschichte Italiens, Universität Trier; 9-10 November, 1989.

AWARDS

2000
Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize for Best Book in Italian History, Society of Italian Historical Studies.
1999
Honorable Mention for the Outstanding Book of 1999, Society for the Study of Early Modern Women.

GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS

2008
Gladys-Krieble Delmas grant for research in Venice.
2008
Hewlett-Mellon Foundation, travel grant for research in Venice.
2006
Hewlett-Mellon Foundation, travel grant for research in Venice.
2005
Hewlett–Mellon Foundation, travel grant for research in Florence.
2004
Hewlett–Mellon Foundation, travel grant for research in Venice.
2004
Culture, Brain, Development Program, grant for interdisciplinary course development.
2003
Whiting Foundation, travel grant for research in Portugal.
2002-03
Villa I Tatti, research fellowship.
2000
Hewlett–Mellon Foundation, travel grant for research in Portugal.
2000
Renaissance Society of America, two-month travel grant.
1998-99
Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom, five-month research grant.
1996-97
Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom, two-month research grant.
1996
Hewlett-Mellon Foundation, summer travel grant.
1994-95
Hewlett-Mellon Foundation, dissertation write-up grant.
1993
Hewlett-Mellon Foundation, pre-doctoral travel and research grant.
1992-93
Stanford Humanities Center, one-year fellowship.
1992
Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom, one-month research grant.
1991
Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venedig, summer research grant.
1990-94
Stanford University, department fellowship.
1989-90
Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venedig, one-year research grant.
1988-89
University of California and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Education Abroad Program), one-year grant for graduate studies.
1988
Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venedig, two-month research grant.
1986
DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), six-month grant for undergraduate studies at the Università degli Studi di Venezia.