Bronwen McShea
Hailing from the beautiful Hudson Valley in upstate New York, I arrived at Yale in 2005, having completed my BA in History at Harvard College and a Masters in Theological Studies degree at Harvard Divinity School. I advanced to candidacy in the spring of 2008 with a major field in European Christianity and Culture, 1450-1750 and minor fields in Old Regime France and Colonial Spanish America. My teaching experiences so far have covered the history of Western Christianity from 500-1500, Reformation Europe, Old Regime France, and Revolutionary France through the period of the Paris Commune.
Under the direction of Prof. Carlos Eire, my dissertation project, "Cultivating a New World: The Cramoisy Relations of 1632-1673 and the Parisian Jesuit Vision for France and North America," will offer a new interpretation of the famous missionary sources from French Canada, the Jesuit Relations, in light of social and cultural dynamics connected to the rise of absolutism in France. It should be completed by the spring of 2011.
