Jessica Hower received her PhD in History from Georgetown University in 2013, her MA in History from Georgetown University in 2009, and her BA in History and Political Science from Union College in 2006. She was a Royden B. Davis Teaching Fellow at Georgetown University in 2011-2012 and a Dissertation Fellow at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012-2013.

She teaches classes on “Empires and Empires of the Mind in World History, ca. 1450-present”; “Early Modern Europe: Politics & Culture, Society & Thought, 1469-1915”; “History of the British Isles, since 1688”; “The Real Game of Thrones: The Medieval Era in History & Legend”; “The Tudors: Politics and Culture, 1485-1603”; “Witches, Nuns, Prostitutes, Wives, & Queens: Women and Gender” (cross-listed with Feminist Studies); “The Theory & Practice of History: Historiography Seminar”; “Capstone Research Seminar: History & Memory”; and a First-Year Seminar (FYS) “A Pirate’s Life for Me: Pirates, Piracy, and Southwestern University”

Honors & Awards

• Jesse E. Purdy Excellence in Scholarly & Creative Works Research Award, Southwestern University, 2019
• Finalist, “Cutting-Edge Curriculum” Award, General Board of Higher Education, 2017-2018
• University Teaching Award, Southwestern University, 2016
• Wm. Roger Louis Prize for the Best Paper delivered at the Britain and the World Conference, 2014
• Thomas Helde Award for Excellence in Teaching, Georgetown University, 2011-2012
• Joseph D. Doty Prize for coursework in History, Union College
  2005
• Oswald Heck Irwin Steingut Prize for coursework in Political Science, Union College, 2006
• George H. Catlin Prize for highest scholastic record, Union College, 2006
• Seward Interdisciplinary Fellowship Honors Program, Union College, 2003

Grants & Fellowships

• Integrated Learning Faculty Fellow, Southwestern University, 2019-2020
• Society for Renaissance Studies Bursary Fund Grant
  2018
• Competitive Faculty Development Grant, Southwestern University, 2018
• John Fell Oxford University Press Research Fund Grant, 2016
• Sam Taylor Fellowship, General Board of Higher Education, 2015
• Bernadotte E. Schmitt Research Grant, American Historical Association, 2015
• Junior Sabbatical, Southwestern University (for Spring 2017), 2015
• Competitive Faculty Development Grant, Southwestern University, 2015
• Competitive Faculty Development Grant, Southwestern University, 2014
• McNeil Center for Early American Studies Dissertation Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2012-2013
• Royden B. Davis Teaching Fellowship, History Department, Georgetown University, 2011-2012
• NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers “English Encounters with the Americas, 1550-1610” led by Mary Fuller, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, with funding, July 2011
• Piepho Grant for archival dissertation research, History Department, Georgetown University, Spring 2011
• Non-Service Grant, History Department, Georgetown University
  2010-2011
• Assistant to the Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History, Georgetown University, 2008-2010
• Teaching Assistantship, Georgetown University, 2007-2008
• Graduate School Tuition Scholarship, Georgetown University
  2006-2013
• GSAS/History Department International Conference Travel Grant, Georgetown University, 2009
• GSAS/History Department US Conference Travel Grant, Georgetown University, 2008

Affiliations

• Renaissance Society of America, 2018-present
• Ecclesiastical History Society, 2016-present
• Sixteenth-Century Society and Conference, 2016-present
• British Scholar Society (Britain and the World), 2014-present
• North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS), American Historical Association (AHA), Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Alpha Theta, 2006-present
• Advisory Committee, Washington Area Consortium for North American History, 2010-2013

Professional Service

• Director of Awards & Grants and Member of the Board of Directors, British Scholar Society/Britain and the World, June 2018-present
• Member, Editorial Board, Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice (Routledge, Taylor and Francis)
  May 2017-present
• Chair, “Rethinking ‘Centers’ and ‘Peripheries’ in the Early Modern World” Panel, British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, Kansas City, MO, April 2019
• Chair, “Commercial and Imperial Relationships in the Early Modern British World,” Panel, British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, Kansas City, MO, April 2019
• Chair, “Relations and Perceptions in the Early Modern Caribbean” Panel, British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, Exeter University, Exeter, UK, June 2018
• Reviewer/Referee, History of Political Thought (Exeter University, Imprint Academic), May 2018
• Chair, “Caribbean Encounters in the Seventeenth Century” Panel, British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, University of Texas at Austin, April 2017
• Chair, “Captives, Correspondence, and Culture: The Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World” Panel, British Scholar Society Britain and the World Conference, King’s College London, UK
  June 2016
• Chair, “Directors, Investors, and Overseas Servants: Global Networks Overseas” Panel, British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, King’s College London, UK, June 2016
• Chair, “The British Abroad in the Seventeenth Century,” Panel, British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, King’s College London, UK, June 2016
• Chair, “Seafaring and Mapping in the Early Modern British World” Panel, British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, University of Texas at Austin, April 2015
• Chair, “War and Subjecthood in the 18th Century” Panel, British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, University of Texas at Austin, April 2015

University Service

• Affiliated Faculty and Committee Member, Feminist Studies
• Member, Early Modern Studies Program (Interdisciplinary Minor)
• Humanities Area Representative, Awards & Honors Committee
• Co-Leader, London Semester Study Abroad Program, Fall 2017

Articles & Book Chapters

“‘… And Greedily Deuoured Them’: The Cannibalism Discourse and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1536-1612,” in To Feast on Us as Their Prey: Cannibalism in the Early Modern Atlantic, edited by Rachel B. Herrmann (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2019), 97-114.

“‘All Good Stories’: Historical Fiction in Pedagogy, Theory, and Scholarship,” Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice volume 23, no. 1 (February 2019): 78-125.

“Under One (Inherited) Imperial Crown: The Global Origins of Britain and its Empire, 1603-1625,” Britain and the World: Historical Journal of the British Scholar Society, volume 8, no. 2 (September 2015): pp. 160-180.

“An Experiment in British Empire: Henry VIII in Tournai, 1513-1519,” Memoires de la Société Royale d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Tournai, volume 14 (2014): pp. 81-145.

Book Manuscript

Tudor Empire: The Making of Early Modern Britain and the British Atlantic World, 1485-1603 (single-authored monograph), under contract with Palgrave MacMillan

Works-in-Progress

“Utopia’s Empire: Thomas More, Utopia, and the Early British Imperial World” in More’s Utopia, ed. Cathy Shrank and Phil Withington (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

Co-editor, with Valerie Schutte, Images of Queen Mary I in Literature and Writing, CFP circulated, accepting chapter proposals for August 2019, full chapters due August 2020 (Intended for “Queenship and Power” Series, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)

Britain and the World, 1603-2016 (co-authored with Stephen Conway, Bryan S. Glass, and Martin Farr; contributing Part I, consisting of four chapters on the seventeenth century), under contract with Palgrave MacMillan

Conference Presentations

• “From Benign Mascot to Enemy of All Mankind, and Back Again: The Problem and Promise of Piracy in Pedagogy,” The Problem of Piracy: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Plunder by Sea across the World from the Ancient to the Modern, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, June 2019
• “‘Discended of bastard blood’: The Creation of Monarchy, Nation, and Empire in the Early Modern British World, ca. 1480-1513,” Monarchy and Modernity, 1500-1945 Conference, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, January 2019
• “‘Partners Both’ in Gender and Empire: Mary I, Elizabeth I, and the Construction of Female Imperial Kingship, ca. 1550-1570,” Kings & Queens 7: Ruling Sexualities: Sexuality, Gender, & the Crown Conference, University of Winchester and Hampton Court Palace, UK, July 2018
• “‘Bloody’ or ‘Most Serene and Potent’? Mary I, The British Empire, and the Making of the Early Modern Atlantic World,” British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, Exeter University, Exeter, UK, June 2018
• “‘Thy bright sphere’: Elizabeth I, the Armada, and the Atlantic World, ca. 1570-1600,” Elizabeth I: The Armada and Beyond, 1588 to 2018 Conference, Royal Museums Greenwich and the Society for Court Studies, Queen’s House and National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK, April 2018
•  “Tudor Empire: The Making of Britain and the British Atlantic World,” The Long History of Ethnicity & Nationhood Reconsidered Seminar Series, Michaelmas Term 2017, sponsored by TORCH: The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, Bing Overseas Studies Program Stanford University, and the University of Birmingham BRIHC: Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures, Stanford House, Oxford University, Oxford, UK, October 2017
• “From ‘Tydder’ to ‘Tudor,’ ‘Stewart’ to ‘Stuart’: Dynasty, Empire, and Identity in the Early Modern Atlantic World,” The Modern Invention of Dynasty: A Global Intellectual History, 1500-2000 Conference, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, September 2017
• “‘To bere the sam good hart’ of Empire: The Meaning and Making of British Imperialism in the Sixteenth Century,” British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, University of Texas at Austin, April 2017
• “‘We could not suffer it’: Kings, Popes, and the Construction of British Empire, ca. 1450-1550,” Church and Empire Conference, Ecclesiastical History Society Winter Meeting, Magdalene College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK, January 2017
• “Utopia’s Empire: Thomas More, his Readers, and the Development of British Imperialism in the Tudor Century,” Sixteenth Century Society Conference, Bruges, Belgium, August 2016
• “Auld Enemies and Auld Empires: Scotland, England, and Early Modern British Imperialism,” Imperial Comparison Conference, All Souls College, Oxford University, Oxford, UK, July 2016
• “A Whig in Wolf’s Clothing: Pop Culture, Historical Fiction, and British History, from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Hilary Mantel,” British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, King’s College, London, UK, June 2016
• “The Afterlives of John Cabot: The History, Heritage, and Memory of England’s First Trans-Atlantic Encounters, 1496-1707,” Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Cultural Heritage: Heritage, Tourism and Traditions Conference, Liverpool, UK, Paper selected following double-blind peer review, July 2015, Final version accepted for publication in the official Conference Proceedings volume, October 2015
• “‘… And greedily devoured them’: The Cannibalism Discourse and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1536- 1612,” Cannibalism in the Early Modern Atlantic Conference, University of Southampton, UK, June 2015
• “The First Scottish Empire: Scotland, Britain, and the Early Modern Imperial World,” British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, University of Texas at Austin, April 2015
•  “Utopian Diasporas: English Migration, Empire, and Englishness in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” The Global English: Historical Perspectives Conference, Northumbria University, UK, July 2014
• “Under One (Inherited) Imperial Crown: The Global Origins of Britain and its Empire, 1603-1625,” British Scholar Society Britain and the World Annual Conference, Newcastle University, UK, June 2014
• “‘Ungracious Dogholes’: The Henrician British Empire in Tournai, Ireland, and Newfoundland, 1513-1527,” Early Modern Global History Seminar, Institute for Global History, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, December 2012
• “The Stuart Legacy of Henry VIII: The King in History, 1603-1688,” presented before “Henry VIII and the Tudor Court, 1509-2009,” special academic conference to mark the 500^thanniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne, Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, UK, July 2009
• “Henry VIII, Tournai, and the Origins of the British Empire,” presented before the North American Conference on British Studies, Cincinnati, OH, October 2008

University Talks & Presentations

• “First-Year Seminar Sneak Preview” Panel, Admitted Students Day, March 2015, April 2016, April 2018, March 2019
• “‘Beneath Every History, Another History’: Historical Fiction in Teaching, Theory, & Scholarship,” President’s Appreciation Celebration, September 2018
• “Getting into Graduate School” Panel, Office of Career Services
  September 2016, September 2018
• “Treasure Island, Piracy, and the Liberal Arts at Southwestern University,” Fall Saturday Admissions Program, November 2015, December 2015, November 2016
• “Teacher-Scholar Presentation on Innovative Pedagogies,” Dean of the Faculty’s Teacher-Scholar Series, November 2014