Birkbeck welcomes new Leverhulme Early Career Fellows Dr Caroline Barron and Dr Matthew Laube
We are delighted to announce that we will be welcoming two new Leverhulme Early Career Fellows in the coming academic year: Dr Caroline Barron and Dr Matthew Laube. Caroline researches the reception of classical inscriptions and Matthew focuses on the history of music in early modern Europe. Both embody the cross-disciplinary traditions of our department, which stretch across history, classics and archaeology.
Dr Caroline Barron writes:
My research interest is in Latin epigraphy and its reception, from antiquity to the present day. My PhD thesis considered the Latin inscriptions that formed part of the Grand Tour collections of eighteenth-century England, which revealed a number of 'fake' inscriptions that appeared to have been manufactured to meet the needs of the art market in Italy at that time. These fake inscriptions will be the subject of my research at Birkbeck. Drawing on the fields of epigraphy, the history of collecting, digital humanities and Classical reception I will examine the role of these forgeries to answer questions about provenance, authorship, and the intent to deceive. Birkbeck is particularly well-suited to this kind of interdisciplinary research; from Frank Trentmann’s ‘Cultures of Consumption’ (AHRC/ESRC) project to Catharine Edwards’ expertise in Classical reception, and Jen Baird’s work on the history of excavations, I’m looking forward to collaborating with colleagues in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, as well as more broadly across the college.
Dr Matthew Laube writes:
My research as a social and cultural historian of music has focused on the place of music – and sound more generally – in the religious and political upheavals of northern Europe 1500–1700. At Birkbeck, I will be embarking on a new project exploring the rich sonic culture of the Low Countries during the Dutch Revolt (c.1520-1648), using sound and sensory history as critical prisms for understanding the physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions of violence and pain. Without a doubt, Birkbeck is the ideal place for me to undertake this project. Exciting work is already being done in the department on religion and the senses in the medieval Low Countries, early modern European urban culture, and the history of intolerance, dissent, violence and pain. I also look forward to building links with the School of Arts and its strong research base in sound studies. This range of expertise – found in no other department in the UK – will help me use my Leverhulme ECF to develop my research profile in innovative ways, and to set new agendas for the study of sound, the senses and violence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Caroline and Matthew will be contributing to a wide range of the department’s activities, including teaching undergraduate and postgraduate classes as well as research seminars. You can follow them on Twitter @Caroline_Barron and @matthewalaube.