DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Interests

Geographic Field(s):  Medieval and Early Modern European History

Thematic Field(s):  Religious History; Urban History; Legal and Criminal History

Principal Research Interest(s):  Italian Renaissance, Ritual, Violence

Biography

Edward Muir (Ph.D., Rutgers, 1975) is the Clarence L. Ver Steeg Professor in the Arts and Sciences and holds a Charles Deering McCormick Professorship of Teaching Excellence. He works in Italian social and cultural history, especially during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, with a special interest in the history of ritual and violence. He is the past president of the two principal academic societies in his specialty: The Sixteenth Century Society and Conference and The Renaissance Society of America. Beginning in 2023, he will serve as the President of the American Historical Association. In 2023, he served as president of the American Historical Association.

Besides receiving Guggenheim and NEH fellowships, he has been a fellow at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the National Humanities Center, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and the Newberry Library. He is a co-editor of the book series "Early Modern History: Culture and Society" (Palgrave-Macmillan) and was the founding editor for the “I Tatti Italian Renaissance History” series (Harvard University Press). He has served on the Board of Editors of The American Historical Review, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Microhistories, Renaissance, Annales: Annals for Istran and Mediterranean Studies, and California Italian Studies. 

Affiliated Programs

• Department of French and Italian

Principal Publications

• Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice. Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1981.
• The Leopold von Ranke Manuscript Collection of Syracuse University:  The Complete Catalogue.  Syracuse:  Syracuse University Press, 1983.
• Sex and Gender in Historical Perspective.  Co-edited with Guido Ruggiero.  Selections from Quaderni Storici, no. 1.  Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.
• Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe.  Co-edited with Guido Ruggiero.  Selections from Quaderni Storici, no. 2.  Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
• Mad Blood Stirring:  Vendetta and Factions in Friuli during the Renaissance.  Baltimore:  The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, 390pp. Reader's edition under title, Mad Blood Stirring:  Vendetta in Renaissance Italy.  Baltimore:  The Johns Hopkins University Press.
• History from Crime.  Co-edited with Guido Ruggiero.  Selections from Quaderni Storici, no. 3.  Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
• Ritual in Early Modern Europe.  New Approaches in European History series.  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1997. 2^nd edition, 2005.
• Co-author with Brian Levack and Meredith Veldman, The West: Encounters and Transformations.  New York:  Longman-Pearson, 2004. 5^th edition, 2016.
• The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance: Skeptics, Libertines, and Opera.  Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.
• Current book project, The Delicate Sinews of Trust: The Italian Renaissance, 1350-1650.

Teaching Interests

Undergraduate

• The Age of the Renaissance.
• The Age of the Reformation.
• Modern Italy.
• Microhistory.
• Freshman seminars on the Great Trials of Western History. 

Graduate

• Italian and continental European history from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries.

Recent Awards and Honors

• Herbert Baxter Adams Prize from the American Historical Association for the best first book on European History by an American citizen, 1982.
• Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History from the American Catholic Historical Association for the best book dealing with either Italian culture or Italian-American relations, 1982.
• Harold J. Grimm Memorial Prize from the Center for Reformation Research for the best article in Reformation history, 1989.
• Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History from the American Historical Association for the best book in Italian history, 1993.
• Excellence in Teaching Award, from the Northwestern University Alumni Association, 1999.
• E. Leroy Hall Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University, 2000-2001.
• Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence, Northwestern University, 2006-09.
• Distinguished Achievement Award, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2010.
• Academia Europaea, elected member, 2011.
• Citation for Career Achievement, Society for Italian Historical Studies, 2014.
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected member, 2014.