STERRITT Laurence

Senior Lecturer

Senior Lecturer

Convener of the research group Experiences of modernity in the transatlantic world, X17th – 18th centuries

Co-convener of the Lived Religion study group.

Research blog : http://britaix.hypotheses.org
Email :

Research

I mainly work on the history of 17th-century English Catholics, at home and in exile. Since 2010 I have focused more particularly on English convents in exile on the Continent . Through the study of the convents printed and manuscript documents, I have explores the role of cloistered contemplative nuns in the Catholic Reformation, but also their spiritual and political networks, their relationships with their homeland, their spiritualities as well as their representations of the body and of emotions.

Most of my publications are online on the French Open Access platform HAL. See  https://cv.archives-ouvertes.fr/laurence-lux-sterritt

I defended my PhD in the History department of the University of Lancaster (UK); my dissertation was entitled ‘Soldiers of God’. Aspects of female involvement in the Catholic Reformation in England and France, 1603-1685 (2001). It presented a comparative analysis of the vocations of French Ursulines and the English Jesuitesses founded by Mary Ward. Since my recruitment at LERMA in 2004, my research has focused more exclusively upon the English-speaking world. Between 2008 and 2013, I was a member of the advisory board for the Who Were the Nuns? A Prosopographical Study of English Convents in Exile project, financed by the AHRC at Queen Mary University of London (led by Caroline Bowden). My participation in this project resulted in several publications.

In 2018-2019, I was a CNRS associated researcher with the IRCL.

I defended my Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (necessary to become Senior lecturer in France) in 2016 under the title Femmes et catholicisme au dix-septième siècle : négociation des normes, anglicité, religion vécue

From 2005 I have convened our early modern seminar known as BRITAIX 17-18. See our blog http://britaix.hypotheses.org and our Twitter account @Britaix17_18, as well as our You Tube channel.

Gender, Catholicism, Spirituality

Laurence Lux-Sterritt & Carmen M. Mangion (eds), Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality (Palgrave Macmillan, December 2010) ISBN Paperback 9780230577619; Hardback 9780230577602.…

War Sermons

Eds, Gilles Teulié & Laurence Lux-Sterritt, War Sermons Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 ISBN (10)1-4438-0546-7, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-0546-9 This collection…

Monographs

  1. English Benedictine Nuns in Exile in the Seventeenth Century. Living Spirituality, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2017. 313p. (finaliste du prix de la recherche SAES / AFEA 2018).
  2. Redefining Female Religious Life: French Ursulines and English Ladies in Seventeenth-Century Catholicism, Ashgate: Aldershot, 2005. 236p.

Edited collections

  1. Avec Anne Dunan-Page, Laurence Lux-Sterritt and Tessa Whitehouse (eds), Reconstructing Early-Modern Religious Lives: the Exemplary and the Mundane, E-rea 18.1 (2020).
  2. Avec Anne Page et Paula Barros, ‘The World of Seventeenth-Century English Dissenters: Piety, Theology, Heterodoxy’. Revue Epistèmé 35 (2019). 
  3. Avec Claire Sorin (dir.), Spirit, Faith and Church. Women’s Experiences in the English-Speaking World, 17th-21st centuries, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. 240 p.
  4. Avec Claire Sorin (dir.), Women, Literature and Spirituality in Twentieth-Century Writing, E-rea 8.2 (mars 2011). http://erea.revues.org/1534
  5. Avec Carmen Mangion (dir.), Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality in Europe, 1200-1900, Londres: Palgrave, 2010. 224 p.
  6. Avec Gilles Teulié (dir.), War Sermons, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. 285 p.

Chapters

  1. ‘Devotional Life in Early Modern Convents in Exile’, in James Kelly and John McCafferty (dir.) The Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism, 6 vols.; vol. 2, Liam Temple and John Morrill (dir.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.
  2. ‘Cloistered yet Militant: Commitment to Englishness in 17th Century Convents in Exile on the Continent’, in Cormac Begadon et James Kelly (dir.), Conventuals in Motion: Religio-Political Developments and British and Irish Religious Orders in Europe, c.1560–1800, Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2022.
  3. « Les religieuses anglaises au dix-septième siècle : un double exil pour la foi », in Selzner, Cyril, et Rémy Bethmont (dir.), Strangers and Pilgrims, Paris : Atlande, 2021.
  4. ‘The Scandalous Nun: Anti-Catholic Representations of English Nuns in Exile in the Seventeenth Century’, in Claire Gheeraert-Grafeuille et Géraldine Vaughan (dir.), Anti-Catholicism in Britain and Ireland since the Reformation, 1600-2000: Practices, Representations and Ideas, Palgrave, 2020.
  5. « Qui est papiste n’est point anglais : identité et altérité dans les pamphlets anticatholiques de l’Angleterre moderne », in Martin Dumont (dir.), Coexistences confessionnelles en Europe à l’époque moderne. Théories et pratiques, XVIe-XVIIe siècles, Paris : Cerf, 2016, pp. 85-104.
  6. ‘Divine Love and the Negotiation of Emotions in Early Modern English Convents’, in Bowden, Caroline et James E. Kelly (dir.), The English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800: Communities, Culture and Identity, Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 229-45.
  7. ‘Clerical Guidance and Lived Spirituality in Early Modern English Convents, in Lux-Sterritt, Laurence et Claire Sorin (dir.) Spirit, Faith and Church. Women’s Experiences in the English-Speaking World, 17th-21st Centuries, pp. 60-91.
  8. Avec Claire Sorin, ‘Suspicious Saints: The Spiritual Paradox of the Daughters of Eve’, in Lux-Sterritt, Laurence et Claire Sorin (dir.) Spirit, Faith and Church. Women’s Experiences in the English-Speaking World, 17th-21st Centuries, pp. 1-27.
  9. Avec Claire Sorin, ‘Foreword, in Women, Literature and Spirituality in Twentieth- Century Writing. E-rea 8.2 (mars 2011).
  10.  ‘Mary Ward’s English Institute and Prescribed Female Roles in the Early Modern Church’, in Lux-Sterritt, Laurence et Carmen Mangion (dir.) Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality, pp. 83-98.
  11. Avec Carmen Mangion, ‘Gender, Catholicism, Women’s Spirituality over the Longue Durée’, in Lux-Sterritt, Laurence et Carmen Mangion (dir.) Gender, Catholicism and Spirituality, pp. 1-18.
  12. Avec Gilles Teulié, « Introduction », in War Sermons, pp. vii-xviii.

Primary sources: editions and translations

  1. Spirituality, vol. 2, in Caroline Bowden (ed.), English Convents in Exile, 1600-1800, 6 vols, Londres: Pickering & Chatto, 2012. Volume numéro deux sur six publiés à l’issue du projet Who were the Nuns? A Prosopographical Study of Convents in Exile, 1600-1800. Ce volume de 532 pages est constitué d’une introduction (historiographie, contexte et concepts, méthodologie) et de cinq parties illustrant chacune un aspect de la spiritualité des couvents en exil. De nombreux manuscrits inédits y sont transcrits, annotés et commentés.

Articles

  1. Avec Fabio Canas Aghedu et al., ‘Devils or Angels when in Love? An Exploratory Study Investigating Romantic Love among High-Risk Athletes’, International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1177/17479541221086596
  2. Avec Fabio Cannas Aghedu, et al., ‘The Colours of Love: Facial Thermal Reactions of People Thinking about their Lovers,’ Psychology & Sexuality 2020, https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2020.1756392
  3. « Dieu ou les hommes ? Vivre l’obéissance dans les couvents anglais en exil (1598-1688) », in Anne Dunan-Page, Laurence Lux-Sterritt and Tessa Whitehouse (eds), Reconstructing early-modern religious lives: the exemplary and the mundane, E-rea 18.1 (2020), https://doi.org/10.4000/erea.10966
  4. « Appartenance et singularité des couvents anglais en exil sur le continent : l’exception anglaise », Revue de la Société d’Études Anglo-Américaines des XVIIème et XVIIIème Siècles, 76 (2019), https://doi.org/10.4000/1718.3658
  5. « S’approprier les sens pour dépasser la clôture : les religieuses anglaises s’inscrivent dans la mission », Études ÉpistémèRevue de littérature et de civilisation XVIe-XVIIIe siècles, 34 (2018), https://doi.org/10.4000/episteme.3079
  6. ‘“Virgo becomes Virago”: Women in the Accounts of Seventeenth-Century English Catholic Missionaries’, Recusant History 30.4 (2011) 537-53, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034193200013170
  7. « Mary Ward et sa Compagnie de Jésus au féminin dans l’Angleterre de la contre-réforme », Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 225.3 (2008) 393-414, https://doi.org/10.4000/rhr.6873
  8. « La séduction au service de la perfidie : représentation des missionnaires de la contre-réforme en Angleterre », Revue de la Société d’Études Anglo-Américaines des XVIIéme et XVIIIème siècles 65 (2008) 57-75. https://doi.org/10.3406/xvii.2008.2370
  9. ‘Mary Ward’s English Institute: The Apostolate as an Act of Self-Affirmation?’, Recusant History 28.2 (2006) 192-208, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0034193200011249
  10. « Les religieuses en mouvement. Ursulines et Dames anglaises à l’aube du XVIIe siècle », Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 52.4 (2005) 7-23, http://dx.doi.org/10.3917/rhmc.524.0007
  11. « Préserver l’action au sein de la clôture : le compromis des Ursulines de Toulouse, 1604 – 1616 », Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 221.2 (2004) 175-190. https://doi.org/10.3406/rhr.2004.1400
  12.  ‘Between the Cloister and the World: The Successful Compromise of the Ursulines of Toulouse, 1604-1616’, French History 16.3 (2002) 247-68, https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/16.3.247
  13. ‘An Analysis of the Controversy Caused by Mary Ward’s Institute in the 1620s’, Recusant History 25.4 (2001) 636-647, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034193200030521

I co-edit the blog for the research programme Expériences de la modernité dans l’espace transatlantique, XVII-XVIIIèmes siècles on http://britaix.hypotheses.org

Twitter @Britaix17_18

Blog Early Modern English Nuns in Exile https://emen.hypotheses.org/