Dr. Brian Cowan

Biography

Brian Cowan is a historian specializing in early modern Britain and Europe. He has been a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Durham University and the Institute of Historical Studies at the University of Texas-Austin, as well as at the Yale Center for British Art. He previously taught at the University of Sussex and Yale University. Cowan is the author of 'Social Life of Coffee: Emergence of the British Coffeehouse,' published by Yale University Press in 2005, which won the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize from the Canadian Historical Association in 2006. His book 'State Trial of Doctor Henry Sacheverell' (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) utilizes book history to provide a new understanding of an important political trial in the eighteenth century. He is a member of the Multigraph Collective and has contributed to studies on eighteenth and nineteenth-century print culture. Cowan has edited volumes including 'Cultural History of Fame in the Age of Enlightenment' and 'State Trials Politics and Justice in Stuart England.' He also edits the monograph series 'Cultures of Early Modern Europe' with Professor Beat Kümin. Additionally, he is a founding member of the international research group Sociabilités/Sociability du long dix-huitième siècle (1650-1850) and is affiliated with the Quebec-based Groupe de Recherche en Histoire des Sociabilités. Currently, Cowan is working on a handbook of the history of the European Enlightenment, contributing to a multi-volume collection of essays on the history of sociability in the early modern world. His research interests include early modern British and western European history with a focus on political, intellectual, and cultural history.

Research Interests