Stephanie Leitzel

Stephanie Leitzel

Stephanie Leitzel

Stephanie Leitzel is a PhD candidate in History, focusing on the global connections of the Mediterranean in the medieval and early modern periods. She is primarily interested in issues of pre-industrial economic transformation, a theme she has approached from diverse fields in her past studies – from the archaeology and history of the Roman empire's economic collapse to the history of capitalism in the early modern period. While at Harvard, she completed General Exam fields in both early and late medieval history, early modern Europe, the history of capitalism, and modern Italy. She has taught General Education courses on medieval Europe, as well as American Capitalism.

Stephanie’s dissertation – Economies of Color: Italian Capitalists, Dye Commerce, and the Making of a Global Economy (1450–1650) – explores how the quest for color contributed to the emergence of a more integrated global economy. The research for this project has carried her to archives in Italy, London, Spain, and Mexico, where she deals in a range of historical sources from bank accounts and dyers’ journals to merchant letters and Spanish imperial reports.

Stephanie is a Beinecke scholar, and graduated with highest distinction and highest honors from the university of Michigan in 2015, with a B.A in History and minor in Medieval and Early Modern studies. She previously studied at the University of St. Andrews and the American Numismatic Society in New York. Her scholarship has been supported by the Social Sciences Research Council, the Fulbright Commission, the Renaissance Society of America, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Weatherhead Center, Harvard Business School, the Deutsches Historisches Institut, and the American Historical Association, amongst others.

Stephanie has accepted a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, where she will reside for the 2022-3 academic year as a pre-doctoral fellow.

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