Dr Elizabeth Reid
Research Fellow
Gender and Women’s History Research Centre, IHSS
Elizabeth Reid is an historian of gender and early modern Italy, specializing in the social implications of allegory. She is currently a Research Fellow with the Gender and Women’s History Research Centre in the Institute for Humanities and Social sciences. Her first book Naturalising Social Hierarchies in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia: Personified Perceptions of Gender, Class, and Race has been accepted for publication with Brepols’ IKON series. This book provides a wholly new perspective on personification in Early Modern Europe. It argues that in appropriating socialised bodies to contextualise and codify allegorical expression, Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia naturalised and perpetuated historically impactful hierarchies of gender, class and race. Reid has recent articles and a book chapter that expose the gendered violence implied by the personifications created to adorn or reflect on Ceremonial Entries during the Italian Wars. Her current research includes analysing the cultural context and gendered social meaning of Tuscan Marian iconography that hinged on Mary’s identity as a nursing mother; a study of how early modern natural philosophy concerning the physical and emotional power of olfactory experience was translated into material culture, with a particular interest in the correlation of fragrance, fertility, femininity, and flowers conveyed through the key figures of Venus and the Virgin Mary; and an investigation into the cultural connotations and experiences of the helmet (from a suit of armour) its implications of 'readiness', virtue, violence, as a guard against displays of emotion, and its allusions to monstrosity or fashion. She is also a sought-after research assistant, project manager, and copyeditor, and has worked in this capacity across various disciplines including history, sociology, musicology, and pedagogy. In this capacity she is currently working as a research fellow, with the ARC Linkage project ‘Mobilising Dutch East India Company Collections for New Global Stories.’
Publications
- Reid, Elizabeth Naturalising Social Hierarchies in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia: Personified Perceptions of Gender, Class, and Race, This monograph is forthcoming with Brepols for their IKON Studies series.
- Reid, Elizabeth “Love in Politics” in A Cultural History of Love in the Early Modern Age, eds. Katherine Ibbett and Katie Barclay, Bloomsbury, 2024.
- Reid, Elizabeth, “Female Representation and Violence in the Ceremonial Entries of the Italian Wars” Renaissance Studies, (6 May 2022) https://doi.org/10.1111/rest.12801
- Reid, Elizabeth, “Gendering Political Relationships in Genoese Ceremonial Entries” Sixteenth-Century Journal Vol. 52 no.1 (2021): 79-110.
Published Reviews
- Reid, Elizabeth, Moral Combat: Women, Gender, and War in Italian Renaissance Literature by Gerry Milligan (review), Parergon, 2019, Vol.36 (2), p.234-236.
- Reid, Elizabeth, The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-Waiting across Early Modern Europe ed. by Nadine Akkerman, and Brigit Houben (review), Parergon, 2018, Vol.35(1), pp. 141-142.
- Reid, Elizabeth, Sexualities, Textualities, Art and Music in Early Modern Italy: Playing with Boundaries ed. by Marshall, Melanie L., Linda L. Carrole and Catherine A. McIver (review), Parergon, 2017, vol. 34(1), pp. 182-183.
Projects
- Research Specialist with the Premodern Beliefs and their Reception research program.
- Research Assistant with the ARC Linkage project ‘Mobilising Dutch East India Company Collections for New Global Stories.’(fixed term mid2025-mid2026)
- Research Associate with ARC Discovery Research project ‘A History of Natural Resource Management’ (2021-2023)
- Project manager/Copyeditor for the edited collection Creative Research in Music: Informed Practice, Innovation, and Transcendence, for the Routledge series “Social Justice In and Through Music,” Project based at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (2019-2020).
- Post-Doctoral Research Assistant for the ARC Discovery project: “Gendering the Italian Wars, 1494-1559” (2018 & 2020)
- Research Officer with the Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions’ Zest Project (2016-2018)
Accolades or awards
- Reid’s article ‘Female Representation, Gender, and Violence in the Ceremonial Entries of the Italian Wars’ was recognized by Wiley as a Top Downloaded Article – in the top 10% most downloaded articles from Renaissance Studies of all works published between Jan. 2022 and Dec. 2022.
- Post-Graduate Research Fund Grant, recipient Macquarie University, 2013
- Humanities in the European Research Area Bursary recipient, to attend the final Fashioning the Early Modern, conference, London, 2012
- Network for Early European Research Travel Grant recipient to attend the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies conference, Otago 2011
- Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar Bursary recipient to attend the workshop Editing Medieval and Early Modern Texts: Principles and Practice in Otago 2011
- Cassamarca Scholarship, Australasian Centre for Italian Studies, 2011
- Australian Postgraduate Award, 2010 – 2014
