Dr. Susan Gaylard

Biography

Susan Gaylard is an Associate Professor in the Department of French & Italian Studies at the University of Washington. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, completed in 2004. Her research primarily focuses on the early modern period, specifically examining the intersection of literature and material culture. Gaylard's notable work, "Hollow Men: Writing, Objects, Public Identity in Renaissance Italy," published by Fordham University Press in 2013, investigates the connections between literary identity and physical objects, addressing themes of gender and the literary canon. Currently, her projects explore the gendering of popular historiography and visual-verbal interactions in 16th-century illustrated books, while examining race and fashion in the Italian middle ages. Gaylard has presented her research internationally across various countries and has received multiple fellowships, including the Speroni Visiting Associate Professor position at UCLA and the Andrew W. Mellon/Audrey Lumsden-Kouvel Long-Term Fellowship at the Newberry Library in Chicago. Her teaching encompasses a wide range of topics, including Italian literature, nationalism, and the visual culture of the early modern world. She seeks to interrogate the relationships between language, politics, and material culture in her academic pursuits.

Research Interests

Courses