Dr. Jennifer Binczewski specializes in early modern European history (c.1400-1800) with a research interest in post-Reformation England. She publishes on the role of Catholic widows in supporting the clandestine English Catholic community amidst anti-Catholic laws that emerged in the late sixteenth century that declared it treasonous to be a practicing Catholic on English shores. In response to these laws, some Catholic widows manipulated the relative invisibility provided by their gender and marital status in the context of early modern England to hide priests, host secret Mass, and send children away to Catholic institutions on the European continent. For more, see Dr. Binczewski’s blog post with Cambridge University Press,
Widows Behaving Badly.
Dr. Binczewski’s teaching and research interests include cultural history, religious history, gender history, and studies of the daily lived experience of the people of early modern Europe. Outside of teaching and research, Dr. B enjoys boating, wake surfing, gardening, spending time with her family, and drinking iced coffee.
Journal Articles:
“Finding the Witch: Imaginative Role-Play in the Classroom,” Fides et Historia Journal 55,1/2 (Winter/Spring-Summer/Fall 2023-24): 155-161.
“Power in Vulnerability: Widows and Priest Holes in the Early Modern English Catholic Community,” British Catholic History 35, 1 (2020): 1-24.
Book Reviews:
“Women of Fortune: Money, Marriage, and Murder in Early Modern England. By Linda Levy Peck.” Sixteenth Century Journal 50, 3 (2019): 872-874.
“Divided Loyalties? Pushing the Boundaries of Gender and Lay Roles in the Catholic Church, 1534-1829, by Lisa McClain.” British Catholic History 34, 3 (2019): 506-509.
“A History of Early Modern Women’s Writing. By Patricia Phillippy (ed.).” Sixteenth Century Journal 49, 4 (2018): 1280-1282.
Monographs in Production:
Solitary Sparrows: Widowhood and the English Catholic Community [book manuscript under revision,following peer review with Brill. Under contract]
