Summary
During the past 25 years, Ken Stevens has had the great pleasure of teaching a variety of courses on early modern Europe and Renaissance Italy, including such "boutique" courses as, "The History of the Book in Europe, 1450-1800," "The Worlds of Leonard Da Vinci" and "Venice: A Cultural History." He finds teaching both demanding and rewarding. Stevens researches the history of printing and publishing in 16th-century Italy, with an emphasis on Milan. To date, he has published more than 20 scholarly articles/book chapters, most recently, "Sanctity as Cheap Print: Production, Markets, and Consumers in Early Modern Milan" (University of Toronto Press) and is completing a manuscript, The Business of Print: Publishing, Politics, and Society in Early Modern Milan. Recently he took part in an Aldine Quincentennial Symposium (in honor of Aldus Manutius, the famous Venetian Printer) at the Newberry Library in Chicago, where he gave paper news-sheets in 16th-Century Italy on, "Did you Read about the Gentleman in Padua who killed his Servant and poisoned his Wife...?"
Specialties
- Renaissance Europe
- Italy
- history of the book
Courses Taught
- HIST 105: European Civilization
- HIST 371: Ancient Civilization I
- HIST 372: Ancient Civilization II
- HIST 377: European Social History
- HIST 384: The Italian Renaissance
- HIST 482/682: The Age of Discovery, 1300-1600
- HIST 484a/684a: History of the Book, 1450-1800
- HIST 498/698: Venice: A Cultural History
- CH 201: Ancient and Medieval Culture
Education
- Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1992