Castiglione, Caroline 1962–

(Caroline F. Castiglione)

PERSONAL:

Born December 22, 1962, in San Antonio, TX; married, 1987; children: one. Education: Trinity University, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1985; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1995.

ADDRESSES:

Office—History Department, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912. E-mail—Caroline_Castiglione@brown.edu.

CAREER:

University of Texas at Austin, assistant professor of history, 1995-2005, chair of history conference, 1999; Brown University, Providence, RI, assistant professor of Italian studies and history, 2005—.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Renaissance Society of America, Society for Italian Historical Studies, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

American Council of Learned Societies fellow, 1999; Gladys Krieble Delmas fellow, 1999; grants and fellowships from University of Texas at Austin, 2000, 2001, and 2002; Texas Humanities Institute fellow, 2002; Prize for Excellence in Writing Instruction, University of Texas at Austin, 2003; Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize, Society for Italian Historical Studies, 2005, for Patrons and Adversaries: Nobles and Villagers in Italian Politics, 1640-1760.

WRITINGS:

Patrons and Adversaries: Nobles and Villagers in Italian Politics, 1640-1760, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including American Historical Review, Journal of Family History, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, and Journal of Social History.

SIDELIGHTS:

In Patrons and Adversaries: Nobles and Villagers in Italian Politics, 1640-1760, Caroline Castiglione explores the internal politics of one small Italian state, Monte Libretti, as well as the relations between its residents and the papal family that held sway over it. Reviewing the work for the Historian, David Gentilcore deemed it a "carefully crafted study" and stated that its main achievement is "her focus on the everyday politics of the small town." He termed Castiglione's reconstruction of meetings and appeals "a bit dry at times" and expressed a wish to know more about the town's social and cultural life but acknowledged that "we are nevertheless rewarded with a vivid portrait of how townsfolk in Monte Libretti managed to exercise and maintain power over their own affairs." Wolfgang Drechsler in History had a mixed response to Castiglione's work. Noting that "the book dexterously uses the tools of disciplines other than history," he claimed that it does not use them sufficiently; he suggested that ideas from the fields of public administration and economics, for example, would have enhanced the discussion. "However," he concluded, "for scholars in the specific area, the case study of Monte Libretti will be both interesting and rewarding." Fellow Brown University historian R. Burr Litchfield, in Seventeenth-Century News, remarked that Italian village politics have received relatively little scholarly study, and for that reason the author's "well researched, well written, and insightful study is welcome."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, December, 2005, Thomas Kuehn, review of Patrons and Adversaries: Nobles and Villagers in Italian Politics, 1640-1760, p. 1624.

Historian, winter, 2006, David Gentilcore, review of Patrons and Adversaries, p. 862.

History, spring, 2005, Wolfgang Drechsler, review of Patrons and Adversaries, p. 114.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, summer, 2007, Steven Epstein, review of Patrons and Adversaries, p. 119.

Journal of Modern History, December, 2007, Thomas V. Cohen, review of Patrons and Adversaries, p. 930.

Seventeenth-Century News, fall-winter, 2005, R. Burr Litchfield, review of Patrons and Adversaries, pp. 186-188.

ONLINE

Brown University History Department Web site, http://www.brown.edu/departments/history/ (June, 2008), faculty profile.