Emily O'Brien
Associate Professor
Office: AQ 6240
Telephone: 778-782-3150
Email: eobrien@sfu.ca
Areas of Study: EUROPE - MEDIEVAL, RENAISSANCE, EARLY MODERN
Courses
Spring 2025
Future courses may be subject to change.
Biography
I came to 間眅埶AV in the fall of 2005 as a lifelong easterner. I grew up in Toronto, did my B.A. at the University of Toronto and then headed south to Brown University in Rhode Island for my graduate work. My research interests in Renaissance Italy took me still further east to Rome and Florence, where I spent almost three years. While finishing my thesis, I taught for several years in Harvard's Expository Writing Program. I received my Ph.D. in History in the spring of 2005.
Research Interests
Though Canadian born, I consider Italy to be my true intellectual home. My central field of research is the Italian Renaissance, and my particular focus is fifteenth-century humanism, politics and the papacy. My work so far has centred on the writings of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II, 1458-64). I recently published a book on his autobiographical account of his pontificate, and I am currently working on a Latin-English edition of his (and other humanists') novelle. While continuing to study Piccolominis writings, my current projects also include the Renaissance reception of Cicero and the politics of Neo-Latin historical epic.
Books
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The Commentaries of Pope Pius II (1458-1464) and the Crisis of the Fifteenth-Century Papacy
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015
The Two Lovers: The Goodly History of Lady Lucrece and Her Lover Eurialus. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1999. Edited with Kenneth Bartlett.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
- Letters of Alliance and an Alliance of Letters: Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Juan de Carvajal and the Conciliar Crisis. Renaissance and Reformation 42, no. 3 (2019): 73-103.
- Piccolomini, Enea Silvio, in The Oxford Guide to the HistoricalReception of Augustine. Oxford University Press, 2013
- Arms and Letters: Julius Caesar, the Commentaries of Pope Pius II, and the Politicization of Papal Imagery. Renaissance Quarterly 62 (2009): 1057-1097.
- Aeneas Silvius Piccolominis Chrysis: Prurient Pastime or Something More? Modern Language Notes 124 (2009): 111-136.
- T堯梗 Politics of Painting: Cardinal Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini, Pope Pius II, and the Frescoes of the Piccolomini Library. In From Florence to the Mediterranean and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Anthony Molho, edited by Diogo Ramada Curto, Eric R. Dursteler, Julius Kirshner, and Francesca Trivellato. Florence: Olschki, 2009, 1: 427-444.
- T堯梗 Conciliar Histories of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini. In Councils and Reform: a Fifteenth-Century Legacy Revisited, edited by Gerald Christianson, Thomas M. Izbicki, and Christopher Bellitto. Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press, 2008, 60-81.
Works in Progress
- Poggio Bracciolini, Facetiae. Renaissance and Reformation Texts in Translation (projected publication: 2021). Co-translated with Steven Killings.
Selected Academic Conference Papers
- "Ladislaus Posthumous in the Writings of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini. Delivered at the Renaissance Society of America annual virtual conference, April 2021.
- Defending the Res Publica Christiana in the Fifteenth Century: Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Cicero and the Crusades. Delivered at the Renaissance Society of America annual conference, Toronto; March 2019.
- Private Property, Civic Humanism, and Ciceros De officiis. Delivered at the Renaissance Society of America annual conference, New Orleans; March 2017.
- T堯梗 Politics of Memory: The Malatesta Family in the Commentarii of Pope Pius II. Delivered at the New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Sarasota; March 2017.
- Reading and Rewriting Cicero: Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini and Ciceros De Officiis. Delivered at the Renaissance Society of America annual conference, Boston; March 2016.
- Braccio da Montone in De Vita et Gestis Bracii by Giannantonio Campano. Delivered at the Renaissance Society of America annual conference,New York; March 2014.
- T堯梗 Epaenetica of Pope Pius II. Delivered at the Renaissance Society of America annual conference, San Diego; April 2013.
Areas of Graduate Supervision
Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy intellectual, Church, political history
Accepting new graduate students: yes
Teaching Interests
Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe; Medieval and Renaissance Italy; the history of historical writing; the city of Rome, antiquity to the present day
Awards
- Small SSHRC Research Grant, 2016
- Small SSHRC Research Grant, 2009
- Best Unpublished Manuscript Prize, Society for Italian Historical Studies, 2006
- 間眅埶AV Presidents Research Grant, 2005
- 間眅埶AV Endowed Research Fellowship, 2005
- Graduate awards: SSHRC doctoral fellowship; Fulbright Fellowship to Italy; Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, 1991-93