Dr. Gretchen Starr-LeBeau

"I love helping students develop their skills as readers and writers and sharing knowledge about different religious traditions."

Dr. Gretchen Starr-LeBeau worked for several years in the History Department at the University of Kentucky before joining the Religion Department at Principia. Her teaching focuses on comparative religion and the history of religion; she teaches courses covering world religions, religion in America, and Islam. Starr-LeBeau's research addresses Christian–Jewish relations and popular piety. She has also published work on Jewish converts tried by inquisitorial courts in Spain, Portugal, and Venice, and on penance in the early modern world.

Scholarly Interests

• Jewish–Christian relations, 1450–1700
• Comparative history of the Inquisition
• Popular piety in the early modern world

Contributions to Field

Starr-LeBeau furthered the understanding of relations between Christians, Jews, and Jews forcibly converted to Christianity. She has also helped clarify the similarities and differences between Catholic and Calvinist forms of discipline (inquisitions and consistories).

Awards

• Awarded the Jeanne and George Todd Professor of Religious Studies
• American Philosophical Society Sabbatical Fellowship, 2010
• American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 2010, declined
• Participant, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute, "Venice, Jews, and Italian Culture," Venice, Italy, 2008
• Finalist, National Jewish Book Awards, History category, 2004
• NEH Summer Stipend, 2001
• Chancellor's Outstanding Teaching Award, University of Kentucky, 2001
• Fulbright Fellowship, 1993–1994

Publications and Presentations

• Spanish translation, Fe y Castigo en el Mundo Moderno. Una Historia Comparada, Barcelona: Catedra, forthcoming.
• In the Shadow of the Virgin: Inquisitors, Friars, and Conversos in Guadalupe, Spain, Princeton University Press, 2003.
• Judging Faith, Punishing Sin: Inquisitions and Consistories in the Early Modern World, co-edited with Charles H. Parker, Cambridge University Press, 2017.
• Guest Editor, Nashim, "Women, Jews, Venetians," 2013.