Anna Wainwright

Anna Wainwright

Associate Professor
Office: Classics, Humanities, & Italian Studies, Murkland Hall, Durham, NH 03824
Websites:

<p>I am an Associate Professor of Italian Studies and Core Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies and currently serve as the coordinator for the Italian Studies program. My research and teaching interests include gender, race, politics, community and emotion in medieval and early modern Italy, as well as the intersection of AI, machine learning, and the future of humanities education. My first book, “Widow City: Gender, Emotion, and Community in Medieval and Renaissance Italy” (University of Delaware Press, 2025) investigates the cultural and political significance of widowhood in early modern Italy, stretching from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio to the women poets of the Counter-Reformation; I have published articles in journals such as The Italianist, Religions, and Spenser Studies. I am also the translator of Leonora Bernardi’s pastoral tragicomedy “Clorilli” (University College London Press, 2023) and co-editor of the volumes “Innovation in the Italian Counter-Reformation” (Delaware, 2020), “Teaching Race in the European Renaissance: A Classroom Guide” (ACMRS, 2023), and “The Legacy of Birgitta of Sweden: Women, Politics and Reform in Renaissance Italy” (Brill, 2023). My research has been supported by awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Research Council of Norway, the Renaissance Society of America, and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.</p>

Courses Taught

  • HUMA 511B: Medieval Humanities
  • ITAL 401: Elementary Italian I
  • ITAL 402: Elementary Italian II
  • ITAL 425: Intro to Italian Studies
  • ITAL 444B: Mamma Mia! Italian Motherhood
  • ITAL 444C: Honors/Feelings
  • ITAL 504: Intermediate Italian II
  • ITAL 521: Mediev/Renaiss Italian Culture
  • ITAL 595: Practicum

Education

  • Ph.D., New York University
  • M.A., New York University
  • B.A., University of Chicago

Research Interests

  • Gender and race studies
  • History of emotions
  • Italian women writers
  • Pastoral
  • Religious Studies
  • Renaissance History
  • Renaissance literature
  • Renaissance transnationalism
  • The Counter-Reformation
  • Early Modern rhetoric/literature

Selected Publications

  • Wainwright, A. (2025). Widow City: Gender, Emotion, and Community in the Italian Renaissance. Early Modern Exchange Series, University of Delaware Press. Retrieved from https://udpress.udel.edu/book-series/the-early-modern-exchange/

  • Wainwright, A. (2022). Race in the European Renaissance: A Classroom Guide. A. Wainwright, & M. Chapman (Eds.), Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Retrieved from https://acmrspress.com/9780866988360/race-in-the-european-renaissance/

  • Wainwright, A. (2021). Outdoing Colonna: Widowhood Poetry in the Late Cinquecento. In V. Cox, & S. McHugh (Eds.), Vittoria Colonna: Poetry, Religion, Art, Impact (pp. 95-113). Amsterdam University Press.

  • Wainwright, A. (2021). “Tied Up in Chains of Adamant”: Recovering Race in Tasso’s Armida Before, and After, Acrasia. Spenser Studies, 35, 181-212. doi:10.1086/711936

  • McHugh, S., & Wainwright, A. (2020). Innovation in the Italian Counter-Reformation. University of Virginia Press.

  • Wainwright, A. (2020). "The Fair Warrior in the City of Florence: Maddalena Salvetti's Poems to Christine of Lorraine". In A. Wainwright, & S. McHugh (Eds.), Innovation in the Italian Counter-Reformation. University of Virginia Press.

  • Wainwright, A. (2018). Teaching Widowed Women, Community, and Devotion in Quattrocento Florence with Lucrezia Tornabuoni and Antonia Tanini Pulci. Religions, 9(3), 76. doi:10.3390/rel9030076

  • Wainwright, A. (2017). A Simple Virgin Speaks: Authorial Identity and Persuasion in Isabella Cervoni's Oration to Pope Clement VIII. The Italianist, 37(1), 1-19. doi:10.1080/02614340.2016.1258877

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