The social, medical and environmental history of early modern Italy.
Research interests
Dr Stevens Crawshaw is fascinated by the relationship between people and the places in which they live. She loves exploring architecture and urban settings, past and present. Her research interests are broad and include material culture, urban planning, concepts of cleanliness and public health, the perceptions and treatment of 'marginal' social groups and the relationship between urban space and the environment in early modern Europe, particularly Italy.
Current research projects
'Cleaning Up Renaissance Italy: environment, space and society in Venice and Genoa'. This project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellowship between 2012 and 2017, broadens our understanding of Renaissance public health. It demonstrates the ways in which ideas about cleanliness and health were expressed in the social policies, religious language and cultural production of the period. It also moves beyond the walls of Renaissance cities to trace the ways in which interventions in the environment were considered inseparable from urban public health measures. A focus on the important ports of Venice and Genoa enables these ideas to be explored in the context of cities which were also the centres of territorial states. The book of this project, 'Cleaning Up Renaissance Italy: Environmental Ideals and Urban Practice in Genoa and Venice' is under contract with Oxford University Press.
History of Quarantine
Dr Stevens Crawshaw's first research project explored the development of permanent, preventative quarantine structures against the plague in fifteenth-century Venice. She has spoken about this for a variety of podcasts, including The History of Now and the European University Institute project, Experiencing Epidemics. She has also written and contributed to discussions of the history of quarantine including History and Policy, the New York Times and BBC Bitesize. She has contributed to BBC Radio 3 (Free Thinking) and 4 (Beyond Belief). In 2016, she was short-listed for the AHRC/BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers scheme.
Research group membership
Dr Stevens Crawshaw leads the Early Modern History research group in the School of History, Philosophy and Culture and is a member of the Space and Temporalities Research Cluster.
Research grants and awards
I have received a number of significant awards and grants for my research including an Early Career Research Fellowship, Leverhulme Trust (£79,080, 2012-17); Conference Grant, Wellcome Trust (£5,888, 2015) with additional funding from the Society for the Social History of Medicine and Economic History Society; Small Research Grant, British Academy (£6,813, 2012); Publication award (2011) and award for independent research (£3,000 2008-9), Gladys Krieble Delmas foundation.