2022-23 Graduate Student Research Fellow
About
Bethany Donovan is a PhD candidate in the Department of History. She studies late medieval Britain with a particular focus on material culture, consumption, and social identity. Her dissertation, provisionally entitled “‘By Which Roguery and Falsehood the People are Deceived’: Falsity, Fraud, and Material Culture in Late Medieval England, 1275-1527,” looks at counterfeit craft production and fraudulent goods in London. Her research explores the frequently fraught relationships between people and objects in an era of increasing consumption and commercialization.
Research Plan: As an Eisenberg fellow, Donovan will be drafting the initial chapters of her dissertation on fraudulent goods and false objects in late-medieval London. She will be specifically working on chapters dealing with craft guild regulations and the contentious boundary between the categories of “old” and “new."
