Dr Eli Bernstein

I am a historian of early modern Europe at the University of Oxford. I studied History at the University of Bristol before coming to Oxford for graduate study. My doctoral research examined the literary and philosophical culture of sixteenth-century Europe, with a particular focus on France. This research is currently being revised as a monograph for Oxford University Press. I have taught at various colleges since 2021.

My research focuses on the cultural and intellectual history of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe. My first monograph, accepted by Oxford University Press, explores the transformation of Renaissance humanism and its relationship to the emergence of literature as a distinct mode of thought and self-reflection. My next major project is a cultural and gender history of character and temperament in early modern France. This new project seeks to recover the voices of those who struggled-for-words, the inaction of the timid, and the inglorious characters of war and colonial exploration.

I teach undergraduate students British, European, and Global History 1400-1700, historiography and historical methods, and the history of ideas. I also teach master’s students on the strands for Intellectual History and Early Modern History.