Demographic History and English Culture
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2024-09-01
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<jats:p>In England, the period from the late Middle Ages through early modernity was bookended by demographic change. On one edge, there was the Black Death and subsequent plague pandemics, which halved the population, reshaping English society in their wake. On the other, there was the demographic transition of the mid-eighteenth century, which reduced death rates and led to modern family structures. Between these two epochal events, demographic trends shaped English customs and values, and were in turn shaped by them. The articles in this special issue draw on cutting-edge demographic research to offer new interpretations of the effects of plague, patterns of marriage, evolving forms of labor, and the morality of crime and charity, among other subjects. Together, they illustrate how quantitative studies in historical demography can shed light on key transformations in culture and society—and vice versa.</jats:p>
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Werlin, J (2024). Demographic History and English Culture. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 54(3). pp. 445–456. 10.1215/10829636-11333348 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/31613.
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Julianne Werlin
I am a scholar of the English Renaissance with two major areas of interest: sociological approaches to literary history, and poetry and poetics. I am currently working on a project entitled English Renaissance Authors: A Demographic History, which considers how literary history evolved in response to trends in mortality, nuptiality, education, and economic change over the period from 1500 to 1700. I am also beginning a study of literary generations, from the Black Death to the modern era.
My work also examines connections between economic and literary history. My first book, Writing at the Origin of Capitalism (Oxford) attempted to synthesize book history with the history of the transition to a capitalist economy to show how market centralization shaped the production and circulation of books and manuscripts. I have an ongoing interest in the intersection of literary history and the economy, including the sociology of authorship, the relationship between class and genre, and Marxist and historical materialist approaches to literary history.
In my scholarship and teaching on poetry and poetics, I am currently particularly interested in prosody, rhyme, and metaphor. I also enjoy considering long literary histories, from the ancient world to the present, and welcome conversations with students at any level who share that interest.
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