Courtney Thomas
I am a student in the History and Renaissance Studies joint degree program working with Keith Wrightson on early modern British history. I received my BA (honors) degree in history from the University of Alberta and in 2005 I received an MA in history from the same institution.
I am the holder of a four year doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. An article based on my MA thesis was recently published in the journal Quidditas and I am currently working on two pieces about bestiality in England 1558-1625 and the social networks of Lady Honor Lisle at the court of Henry VIII. I have also published reviews in several historical journals and am currently writing a series on entries that will be published in a forthcoming encyclopedia of Elizabethan England.
My main areas of interest are the social and political history of the Tudor and Jacobean courts, gender construction and role maintenance at the social level in early modern England more broadly, the political and cultural roles of early modern queens (both consort and regnant) and elite women, ceremony and the symbolics of display at early modern European courts, and the honor culture of early modern England. My MA thesis focused on the political and cultural involvements of elite women at the Jacobean court and was entitled "Queen Anna of Denmark: Social Roles, Political Agency and Gender Expectations at the Jacobean Court, 1603-1619." My dissertation project ("Honor and Reputation Among the Early Modern English Elite, 1530-1630") aims to focus on the social ideal of honor in early modern elite society, the manner in which it functioned in both daily interactions and in political debate, and the under-looked role of women in honor culture.
