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Areas of research

• Early Modern European art and material culture, including cross-cultural connections 
• Home and the material culture of the Early Modern Italian domestic interior
• Cultural representations of the life stages and old age 
• Gender and aging
• Aging and aesthetics
• Materiality and object studies that explore interconnections between art history, anthropology, and sociology
• Word & Image
• Art theory and Criticism of Early Modern Europe

Brief biography

Erin fell in love with Europe and the art of Titian, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt while studying art history at the University of Toronto. She spent part of her MA program at Kommos, Crete, under the direction of Joseph Shaw, excavating a Minoan road and cataloguing pottery and was determined to pursue a career in Bronze Age archaeology. However, her keen interest in European art was rekindled during the PhD program by Philip Sohm, and while doing research in Venice, Florence, and Rome for her PhD dissertation on Italian art theory and criticism, she developed a passion for Italy that continues unabated. Today, her research takes her to museums, libraries, and conferences in Britain, Europe and North America, where she has been fortunate to meet scholars and students from around the world.

An award-winning teacher and researcher, Erin’s current research, on the Early Modern domestic interior, allows her to revive her love of archaeology and material culture by studying the objects that surrounded families during one of the most tumultuous periods in European history. Her research appears in a number of journals and essay collections, including Renaissance Quarterly, Sixteenth Century Journal, Word & Image, Journal of Art Historiography, The Cultural Aesthetics of Eighteenth-Century Porcelain (Ashgate: 2010), To Have and To Hold: Marriage in Premodern Europe 1200-1700 (Toronto, Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies: 2012), The Senses in Interior Design (Manchester University Press: forthcoming); Patriarchy, Honour, and Violence: Masculinities in Premodern Europe (Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies: forthcoming),  Making Space in Early Modern Europe (Bard Graduate Center: forthcoming). She is editor and contributing author of Erin J. Campbell, Stephanie R. Miller, and Elizabeth Carroll Consavari, The Early Modern Italian Domestic Interior, 1400-1700: Objects, Spaces, Domesticities (Ashgate: 2013) and Growing Old in Early Modern Europe: Cultural Representations (Ashgate: 2006). Old Women and Art in the Early Modern Domestic Interior, which was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, was published by Ashgate in 2015 and Routledge in 2016. She is also co-editor of A Cultural History of Furniture (General Editor, Christina Anderson), vol. II, The Middle Ages And Renaissance, 500-1500, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022. She is especially proud of the recent exhibition Life Stories, at the Legacy Art Gallery and the co-edited special issue of RACAR: Approaching Home: New Perspectives on the Domestic Interior, RACAR  45.2 (Fall 2020). Her current SSHRC-supported project focuses on art and the stages of life in the early modern domestic interior in Bologna.

Selected professional achievements

Awards, grants, and fellowships

2016-2024 — SSHRC Insight Grant
2013-2014 — ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø Internal Research Grant
2013 — Learning and Teaching Curriculum Development Grant
2011— Nelson Prize: Best ms submitted to Renaissance Quarterly in 2010
2010 — Faculty of Fine Arts Excellence in Teaching Award 
2009-2012 — SSHRC Standard Research Grant                                        
2009 — Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, Faculty Fellowship

Books

A Cultural History of Furniture. General Editor, Christina Anderson, vol. II, The Middle Ages and Renaissance 500-1500. Co-editor. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022. 

Old Women and Art in the Early Modern Domestic Interiors. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2015; Routledge, 2016.

The Early Modern Italian Domestic Interior, 1400-1700: Objects, Spaces, Domesticities. Editor and contributing author. .

Growing Old in Early Modern Europe: Cultural Representations. Editor and contributing author. Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2006.

 

Special Journal Issues

Approaching Home: New Perspectives on the Domestic Interior. Guest editors Erin J. Campbell and Olivier Vallerand. RACAR 45.2 (Fall 2020).

Articles and book chapters

“The Ecology of Devotion in the Early Modern Domestic Interior.” In Making Space in Early Modern Europe. Edited by Colin Murray, Tianna Uchacz, and Sophie Pitman. Bard Graduate Center. Forthcoming.

“Heated Bodies: Fireplaces and the Senses in the Early Modern Italian Domestic Interior.” In The Senses and Interior Design. Edited by John Potvin (Concordia University), Marie-Ève Marchand (Concordia University), and Benoit Beaulieu (Concordia University). Manchester University Press. Forthcoming

“At Home with Men: Place and the Making of Masculinities in the Early Modern Domestic Interior.” In Jacqueline Murray, ed.  Patriarchy, Honour, and Violence: Masculinities in Pre-Modern Europe, 267-295. Toronto: Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, 2022.

“‘Multum in Parvo’: Scale and Agency in the Thorne Miniature Rooms.” In John Potvin and Marie-Ève Marchand, eds, Design and Agency, 83-95. Bloomsbury Visual Arts: 2020.

"Listening to Objects: An Ecological Approach to the Decorative Arts," Journal of Art Historiography. 11 (December 2014): 1-23.

“Art and Family Viewers in the Seventeenth-Century Bolognese Domestic Interior,” in Erin J. Campbell, Stephanie R. Miller, and Elizabeth Carroll Consavari, eds, The Early Modern Italian Domestic Interior, 1400-1700: Objects, Spaces, Domesticities, 107-123. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2013.

"Good Housekeeping: Objects and Agency Within the Early Modern Italian Domestic Interior," in The Challenge of the Object, 45-48. Congress Proceedings, edited by G. Ulrich Grossmann and Petra Krutisch. Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 2013.

“‘Old Wives’ and Art in Early Modern Bologna,” in Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler, eds, To Have and To Hold: Marriage in Premodern Europe 1200-1700, 257-278. Toronto: The Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, 2012.

“Prophets, Saints, and Matriarchs: Portraits of Old Women in Early Modern Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly. 63.3 (Fall 2010): 807-849. 

“Balancing Act: Displaying Imported Porcelain in Eighteenth-Century Venice,” in Michael Yonan and Alden Cavanaugh, eds, The Cultural Aesthetics of Eighteenth-Century Porcelain, 107-118. Ashgate Publishing Ltd: 2010.

“‘Unenduring’ Beauty: Gender and Old Age in Early Modern Art and Aesthetic Theory,” in Erin Campbell, ed., Growing Old in Early Modern Europe: Cultural Representations, 154-167. Ashgate Publishing Limited: 2006.

“Creativity Across the Lifecourse? Titian, Michelangelo and Older Artist Narratives,” co-authored with Stephen Katz (Professor, Dept. of Sociology, Trent University), in Stephen Katz, Cultural Aging: Essays on Lifestyle, Lifecourse and Senior Worlds, 101-117. Broadview Press: 2005.

“Old Age and the Politics of Judgment in Titian’s Allegory of Prudence.” Word & Image 19 (Oct.-Dec. 2003), 261-270.

“The Art of Aging Gracefully: The Elderly Artist as Courtier in Early Modern Art Theory and Criticism,” Sixteenth Century Studies Journal XXXIII (Summer 2002), 321-331.

“The Gendered Paragone in Late Sixteenth-Century Art Theory: Francesco Bocchi and Pontormo's S. Lorenzo Frescoes,” Word & Image 16 (July-September 2000), 227-238.

 

Exhibitions

Life Stories. Legacy Art Gallery, Dec. 3, 2020 – April 3, 2021. Lead curator, Erin J. Campbell. Co-curators, Jaiya Anka and Holly Cecil. Exhibition of painting, photographs, textiles, ceramics, and furniture from the UVic collections; an installation by artist Elly Heise (MFA Visual Arts); four films with artists, curators, and academics from across UVic; and a website. Included a webinar with Orion Visiting Lecturer filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal, an alumni engagement evening created by the Alumni engagement office, and a program of public engagement and interactive visitor engagement station, created in dialogue with Legacy staff.

Recent conference presentations

“Sensing the Heat: Fireplaces and the Performance of Masculinity in the Early Modern Domestic Interior.” Renaissance Society of America Conference, December, 2022 (virtual).

“Heated Bodies: The Senses, Placemaking, and the Politics of Fire in the Early Modern Domestic Interior.” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, San Diego, October 2021. Virtual presentation.

“Ludovico Carracci’s Portraits of Widows and Placemaking in Early Modern Bologna.” Renaissance Society of America. Virtual Conference, April 2021.

“At Home with Men: Place and the Making of Masculinities in the Early Modern Domestic Interior.” Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium: Masculinities in the Pre-Modern World: Continuity, Change, and Contradictions. Virtual Conference, Nov. 2020.

"Art and Family Patronage in Early Modern Bologna: The Palazzo Fava Revisited.” Renaissance Society of America Conference, New Orleans, March 2018.

“Multum in Parvo: Scale and Agency in the Thorne Miniature Rooms.” The Agents of Design/The Agency of Design Conference, Montreal, March 2018.

"Art and Adolescence in Late-Sixteenth Century Bologna." Renaissance Society of America Conference, Chicago, March 2017.

"Reforming the Family: The Material Culture of Devotion in the Bolognese Domestic Interior." Domestic Devotions Conference, University of Cambridge, UK, July 2015.

"The Mobile Home: Ecology, Materiality, and Meshwork in the Early Modern Domestic Interior." Renaissance Society of America Conference, Berlin, March 2015

"Suitable for Family Viewing: The 'Painted Frieze' and Domestic Ethics in Early Modern Bologna." Renaissance Society of America Conference, New York, March 2014.

"Miniature Worlds: Materiality, Ecology, and Ethics in the Early Modern Domestic Interior." Universities Art Association of Canada Conference, Banff Centre for the Fine Arts, Banff, Alberta, October 2013.

“Sacred Suffering: Pain, Piety and Aging in Early Modern Italian Portraits of Old Women.” Renaissance Society of America Conference, San Diego, April 2013.

“Listening to Objects: An Ecological Approach to the ‘Decorative Arts.’ College Art Association Conference, New York, February 2013.

“Sacred Suffering: Pain, Piety and Aging in Early Modern Italian Portraits of Old Women.” Conference sponsored by the Birkbeck Pain Project: Pain and Old Age: Centuries of Suffering in Silence? Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, London, UK, October 2012.

“Good Housekeeping: Objects and Agency Within the Early Modern Domestic Interior.” CIHA Conference, Nuremberg, Germany, July 2012.

“Objects of Time: Family Portraits and Temporality in the Early Modern Domestic Interior.” Renaissance Society of America Conference, Washington DC, March 2012.