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About Jana Byars
Jana holds a PhD in history from Penn State University. She also attended Western Michigan University and Hope College. She is the author of Informal Marriages in Early Modern Venice (Routledge, 2018), the editor of Monsters and Borders in the Early Modern Imagination (Routledge, 2018), and the translator of Girolamo Benzoni’s 1565 travel narrative History of the New World (Penn State Press, 2017). She has also written several reviews and articles about sexuality and gender in Europe. She retired to Amsterdam after twenty years in American higher education, teaching at Iowa State, Whitman College, Marquette, Penn State, and Western Michigan. Her current research centers on the intersection of gender, sexuality, aging, and disability in early modern Europe. Jana is a native Michigander happily living in Amsterdam. She loves yoga, is learning to cycle fearlessly, and cherishes every moment she can spend with Alice, the world’s sweetest basset hound.NBN Episodes hosted by Jana:
September 9, 2024
Trafficking with Demons
Martha Rampton's book Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000 (Cornell University Press, 2021) explores how mag…
August 30, 2024
The Teutonic Knights
Aleksander Pluskowski of the University of Reading joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, The Teutonic Knights: Rise and Fall of a Religious Cor…
August 16, 2024
Fragments of a World
Lesley Smith of Oxford University joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Fragments of a World: William of Auvergne and His Medieval Life (Univer…
August 8, 2024
Symbolic Reproduction in Early Medieval England
Katharine Sykes joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Symbolic Representation in Early Medieval England (Oxford University Press, 2024). In the…
July 6, 2024
Non-Elite Women's Networks Across the Early Modern World
Elizabeth Cohen, Professor Emerita at York University, joins Jana Byars to talk about her new volume, Non-Elite Women's Networks Across the Early Mode…
June 8, 2024
First Impressions
Joseph A. Skloot joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, First Impressions: Sefer hasimdim and Early Modern Hebrew Printing (Brandeis UP, 2023). …
June 3, 2024
Unsuitable
Eleanor Medhurst joins us today to talk about Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion (Hurst & Company, 2024). Clothes are integral to lesbian histor…
June 1, 2024
The Enlightenment and Original Sin
Matthew Kadane, Professor of History at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, talks about his just new book, The Enlightenment and Original Sin (Universi…
May 24, 2024
A Thirst for Wine and War
Adam Zientek, Assistant Professor of History at UC Davis joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, A Thirst for Wine and War: The Intoxication of F…
May 7, 2024
Hospitals in Communities of the Late Medieval Rhineland
Lucy Barnhouse of Arkansas State University talks with Jana Byars about her new book, Hospitals in Communities of the Late Medieval Rhineland: Houses …
April 17, 2024
The Works and Times of Johan Huizinga (1872-1945)
Thor Rydin joins to talk about his new book, The Works and Times of Johan Huizinga (1872- 1945): Writing History in the Age of Collapse (Amsterdam UP,…
March 4, 2024
Humans and Aquatic Animals in Early Modern America and Africa
Cristina Brito's book Humans and Aquatic Animals in Early Modern America and Africa (Amsterdam University Press, 2024) deals with peoples' practices, …
February 19, 2024
A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion
Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanc…
February 14, 2024
The French Invention of Menopause and the Medicalisation of Women's Ageing
In The French Invention of Menopause and the Medicalisation of Women's Ageing (Oxford University Press, 2022), Alison Downham Moore discusses her cont…
January 23, 2024
Speculum Lapidum
First published in Venice in 1502, Camillo Leonardi’s Speculum Lapidum is an encyclopedic summary of all classical and medieval sources of lithotherap…
January 22, 2024
Gender and Self-Fashioning at the Intersection of Art and Science
Jana Byars speaks with Catherine Powell-Warren about Gender and Self-Fashioning at the Intersection of Art and Science: Agnes Block, Botany, and Netwo…
January 1, 2024
Abortion in Early Modern Italy
Today we have John Christopoulos, Assistant Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, to talk about his new book, Abortion in Early …
December 25, 2023
Making the Renaissance Man
Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood. Timo…
December 21, 2023
Early Modern Europe
Today I talked to Brian Maxson about his new book Early Modern Europe: Facts and Fictions (Bloomsbury, 2023). Through the exploration of nine common…
December 13, 2023
Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany
Suicide by Proxy became a major societal problem after 1650. Suicidal people committed capital crimes with the explicit goal of “earning” their execut…
October 30, 2023
A Culture of Curiosity
Leonie Hannan's book Culture of Curiosity: Science in the Eighteenth Century Home (Manchester University Press, 2023) explores the practice of scienti…
October 23, 2023
Cultural Representations of Piracy in England, Spain, and the Caribbean
Mariana-Cecilia Velazquez's book Cultural Representations of Piracy in England, Spain, and the Caribbean: Travelers, Traders, and Traitors, 1570 to 16…
October 20, 2023
Petrarch and the Making of Gender in Renaissance Italy
Shannon McHugh's book Petrarch and the Making of Gender in Renaissance Italy (Amsterdam University Press, 2023) is a new history of early modern gende…
October 16, 2023
The Stolen Bones of St. John of Matha
On the night of March 18, 1655, two Spanish friars broke into a church to steal the bones of the founder of their religious institution, the Order of …