Rate My Professor Kirk Essary

Kirk Essary is Associate Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Western Australia (UWA), within the School of Humanities. He teaches in both the History and Classics departments. Essary holds a PhD in Religion from Florida State University (2014), an MA in Religions of Western Antiquity from Florida State University (2010), an MA in Classics from Texas Tech University (2008), and a BA in Philosophy from Oklahoma State University (2006). His academic career at UWA commenced as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions from 2015 to 2018. He subsequently served as Director of the Centre from 2018 to 2022 and now holds the position of Associate Professor in History and Classics. He is also Director of the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

Essary's research specializes in religious and intellectual history of late medieval and early modern Europe, including Renaissance and Reformation studies, early modern intellectual history, the history of European religions, Christian humanism, the reception of classical and biblical texts, the Protestant Reformation, the relationship between philosophy and theology, and the history of emotions. His current focus is on Erasmus of Rotterdam. Key publications include the monograph The Renaissance of Feeling: Erasmus and Emotion (Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2024); The Mind's Bloody Sweat: (Dis)embodied Emotions in Erasmus, More, and Calvin (2021); Everything old is new again: Christian humanism and Erasmus (Christian History Magazine, 2022); The Renaissance of affectus? Biblical humanism and Latin style (Routledge, 2019); and Introduction: The language of affect from late antiquity to early modernity (Routledge, 2019). He has contributed reviews to Journal of Jesuit Studies, Review of Biblical Literature, and The Sixteenth Century Journal (2023). Essary has received the Anne Scott Parergon Prize (2024) and the School of Humanities Mid-Career Research Award (2023). He reviews for Parergon (since 2017), Erasmus Studies, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, and Emotions: History, Culture, Society.