FACULTY & STAFF
Dr. Jodi Bilinkoff
Contact Information
Email: jodi_bilinkoff@uncg.edu
Office: MHRA 2127
Office Phone: 336-334-5992
Education
Ph.D., Princeton University, 1983
M.A., Princeton University, 1979
B.A., University of Michigan, 1976
Teaching Experience
Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2005-
Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1989-2005
Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1983-1989
Instructor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1982-83
Visiting Lecturer, Harvard Divinity School, 1985-86
Assistant in Instruction, Princeton University, 1979-1980
Listen to an interview with Dr. Bilinkoff:
Research Interests
I am interested in religion, gender, life-writing, and the construction of memory in early modern Europe, particularly Spain. After working for many years on women in Catholic culture, more recently I have turned my attention to masculine identity, especially male clerical identity.
In my current research project, I engage all these issues by examining the life, afterlife, and legacy of (St.) John of the Cross (1542-1591). Today he is renowned as a mystic, spiritual guide, and one of the finest poets in the Spanish language, but his assessment by others has changed dramatically over the centuries. My book-in-progress, John of the Cross: The History, Mystery, and Memory of a Spanish Saint, will not be a conventional biography, but rather, a critical study of the manifold, at times, conflicting meanings this intriguing figure has held for individuals and communities, both during and after his lifetime.
Courses Taught
- HIS 222: Europe 1350-1789 - A survey of European history from the Renaissance to the French Revolution, based on selected primary sources.
- HIS 315: Witchcraft and Magic in European History - An examination of the religious, cultural, political, and social underpinnings of the "witch craze" of 1500-1700, based on selected primary sources.
- HIS 369: History of Spain - Spain and its Empire in the Golden Age - A survey of Spanish history, from its earliest inhabitants to the end of the Habsburg dynasty in 1700, based on selected primary sources.
- HIS 391: Historical Skills and Methods - A research-intensive course on The Age of Reformations (1450-1700) in which students use secondary and primary sources to pursue individual projects.
- HIS 511B: Seminar in Historical Research and Writing - Self and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1350-1700 - A research seminar examining biographical and autobiographical texts and the construction of identities during the early modern period.
- HIS 544: Early Modern Europe: Selected Topics - An examination of major themes in the history of Europe and its colonies between 1400 and 1800. Topics may include Italy in the Long Renaissance, The Age of Reformations, Microhistory, or History from the Bottom Up, and Reason and Religion in the Eighteenth Century.
Selected Publications
 |
 |
 |
 |
- Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450-1750 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).
- Colonial Saints: Discovering the Holy in the Americas, 1500-1800, Allan Greer and Jodi Bilinkoff, eds. (New York: Routledge, 2003).
- The Avila of Saint Teresa: Religious Reform in a Sixteenth-Century City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989; paperback edition, 1992; updated edition, 2014; Spanish edition, Madrid: Editorial de Espiritualidad, 1993).
- Introduction to Teresa of Avila, The Book of Her Life, Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodríguez, trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2008): xi-xxxix.
- "First Friar, Problematic Founder: John of the Cross in His Earliest Biographies," in Reforming Reformation, Thomas F. Mayer, ed. (Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2012):103-118.
- Other publications listed on CV.
Grants and Awards
- Mellon Fellow, National Humanities Center, 1999-2000
- American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellow, American Association of University Women, 1999-2000
- National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Research Stipend, 1992 (deferred to 1993).
- Fellow, Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, 1989-90
- Research Associate and Visiting Lecturer in Women's Studies in Religion, Harvard Divinity School, 1985-86
Curriculum Vitae
