Diversity in Italian Studies

Catherine Shepard Bloomer, PhD, is the Florence Levy Kay Fellow in Premodern Disability Studies with a joint appointment in the Department of English and Classical and Early Mediterranean Studies. Bloomer is a scholar of medieval Italian literature and of premodern disability studies in the Mediterranean world with specialization in gender and the body. She is Associate Director for The New School arts education program WriteOn NYC and Assistant Editor for Digital Dante, an online repository for original research and ideas on Dante and his work. Bloomer’s work combines textual analysis, material culture, and disability theory to examine the history, representation, and treatment of disability in premodern texts.