Amanda E. Herbert, the Assistant Director at the Folger Institute of the Folger Shakespeare Library, will present the luncheon address. She holds MA and PhD degrees in History from Johns Hopkins University, and completed her BA with Distinction in History and Germanics at the University of Washington. She is co-editor of The Recipes Project and co-director of the multi-year, $1.5 million research project, Before Farm to Table: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures, a Mellon Initiative in Collaborative Research at the Folger Institute of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Dr. Herbert’s research focuses on the history of the body: gender and sexuality, medicine and health, athleticism and fitness, food and drink. Her first book, Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, and Friendship in Early Modern Britain (Yale, 2014), received the Best Book Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women. She is currently at work on her second book project, Water Works: Faith, Public Health, and Medicine at the British Spa. Dr. Herbert’s recent research for this book is the topic of her talk, “Stewing Alive: Spa Medicine in the British Atlantic World,” which explores colonial health, travel, and medicine in the eighteenth century.
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