Claire Walker

Research Interests

British History European History Historical Studies Religion and Society

APrf Claire Walker

Associate Professor

School of Humanities

College of Creative Arts, Design and Humanities

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.

Claire Walker studied at the University of Western Australia before being appointed to her first academic position at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She has been teaching history at the University of Adelaide and Adelaide University since 2007. Claire teaches undergraduate courses on medieval and early modern history and supervises graduate research theses on the history of religion, women, fashion, medicine and emotions. Her research explores religion, gender, politics, emotions and material culture in 17th and 18th centuries, focusing in particular on exiled communities of British nuns in France and the Southern Netherlands. Claire is a Graduate Research Coordinator in the School of Humanities and Co-Lead of Graduate Research in the College of Arts, Design and Humanities.

Matter of Faith: The Materiality of Early Modern English Convents

This project considers gender, religion and material culture within the context of exile/migration in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Europe. It examines how religious objects and spaces might mediate the anguish of separation from the homeland and establish new relationships and identities. Using monastic chronicles, personal diaries and letters, religious images and statues, relics, shrines, religious furnishings and convent plans and maps, it documents the location, provenance, uses and meanings of particular rooms/areas and objects to explore how exiled nuns used artefacts to endure, explain and embrace religious exile. It also considers the ways these artifacts shaped collective and personal spiritual devotions.

Date Position Institution name
2025 - ongoing Associate Professor University of Adelaide
2010 - 2024 Senior Lecturer University of Adelaide, Adelaide
2008 - 2009 Lecturer University of Adelaide, Adelaide
1992 - 2007 Lecturer The University of Newcastle

Language Competency
French Can read

Date Institution name Country Title
1996 The University of Western Australia Australia PhD
1987 The University of Western Australia Australia BA (Hons)

Year Citation
2024 Walker, C., & Howe, G. M. (2024). “huge Great cross”: Catholic Pain Management in Early Modern England. Sixteenth Century Journal: journal of early modern studies, 55(3-4), 737-759.
DOI WoS1
2024 Walker, C. (2024). <i>English Convents in Catholic Europe, c. 1600-1800</i>. CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW, 110(1), 3 pages.
DOI
2020 Walker, C. (2020). "Hangd for the true faith": embodied devotion in early modern English Carmelite cloisters. Journal of Religious History, 44(4), 494-512.
DOI Scopus3 WoS4
2020 Barclay, K., Lemmings, D., & Walker, C. (2020). Introduction: What Were Emotions? Defi nitions, Understandings, and Contributions. A Cultural History of the Emotions in the Baroque and Enlightenment Age, 1-14.
Scopus1
2017 Walker, C. (2017). Governing bodies, family and society: the rhetoric of the passions in the sermons of Samuel Wesley. English Studies, 98(7), 733-746.
DOI Scopus1
2017 Walker, C. I. (2017). The experience of exile in early modern English convents. Parergon, 34(2), 159-177.
DOI Scopus3 WoS6
2016 Walker, C. (2016). Exiled children: Care in English convents in the 17th and 18th centuries. Children Australia, 41(3), 168-177.
DOI Scopus6 WoS5
2012 Walker, C. (2012). Crumbs of news: early modern English nuns and royalist intelligence networks. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 42(3), 635-655.
DOI Scopus9 WoS7
2011 Walker, C. (2011). Female Monastic Life in Early Tudor England: With an Edition of Richard Fox's Translation of the Benedictine Rule for Women, 1517. JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY, 35(3), 450-451.
DOI
2011 Walker, C. (2011). The Historical Study of Women: England, 1500-1700. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW, 126(520), 669-671.
DOI
2009 Walker, C. (2009). Going against some forcible wind: Writing and Reform in Medieval and Early Modern Convents. Journal of Womens History, 21(1), 135-144.
DOI
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Clitherow [née Middleton], Margaret [St Margaret Clitherow] (1552/3–1586), Roman Catholic martyr. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
DOI
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Radcliffe, Margaret [name in religion Margaret Paul] (1582x5–1654), abbess. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
DOI
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Lawson [née Constable], Dorothy. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
DOI
2002 Walker, C. (2002). Godliness, Sex and Propaganda: Gender in the Confessional Age. Review of 4 Books. Gender and History, 14(1), 138-142.
DOI
2000 Walker, C. (2000). Prayer, patronage, and political conspiracy: English nuns and the restoration. Historical Journal, 43(1), 1-23.
DOI Scopus38
1999 Walker, C. (1999). Combining Martha and Mary: Gender and Work in Seventeenth-Century English Cloisters. Sixteenth Century Journal, 30(2), 397-418.
DOI Scopus29

Year Citation
2019 Broomhall, S., Davidson, J., Lynch, A., Lemmings, D., Walker, C., & Barclay, K. (Eds.) (2019). A Cultural History of the Emotions in the Baroque and Enlightenment Age (1600-1780) (Vol. 4). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
DOI Scopus3
2015 Kerr, H., & Walker, C. (Eds.) (2015). 'Fama' and Her Sisters: Gossip and Rumour in Early Modern Europe (1st ed.). Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers.
2009 Lemmings, D., & Walker, C. (Eds.) (2009). Moral panics, the media and the law in early modern England. Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI Scopus43
2006 Walker, C. (Ed.) (2006). Elizabeth Evelinge, III. Australia: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
2003 Walker, C. (2003). Gender and Politics in Early Modern Europe: English Convents in France and the Low Countries. Basingstoke UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
DOI WoS104
- Broomhall, S. (2016). Early Modern Emotions. Routledge.
DOI

Year Citation
2023 Walker, C. (2023). 'Disengagement from all creatures': Exploring loneliness in early modern english cloisters. In K. Barclay, E. Chalus, & D. Simonton (Eds.), The Routledge History of Loneliness (pp. 193-206). London: Routledge.
DOI Scopus3
2023 Walker, C. (2023). Religious Houses: Spirituality. In J. Morrill, & L. Temple (Eds.), The Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism, Vol II Uncertainty and Change, 1641-1745 (Vol. 2, 1st ed., pp. 152-169). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DOI
2020 Walker, C. I. (2020). The intellectual world of Catholic piety. In A. L. Capern (Ed.), The Routledge History of Women in Early Modern Europe (1st ed., pp. 238-262). Abingdon, UK and New York, USA: Routledge.
DOI Scopus2
2019 Walker, C. I. (2019). The embodiment of exile: relics and suffering in Early Modern English cloisters. In G. Tarantino, & C. Zika (Eds.), Feeling exclusion: religious conflict, exile and emotions in Early Modern Europe (pp. 81-99). Abingdon, UK and New York, USA: Routledge.
DOI Scopus2
2017 Walker, C. (2017). Monastic communities. In S. Broomhall (Ed.), Early Modern Emotions An Introduction (Vol. n/a, 1st ed., pp. 277-280). London and New York: Routledge.
DOI
2017 Walker, C. (2017). Political ritual and religious devotion in early modern English convents. In M. Bailey, & K. Barclay (Eds.), Emotion, Ritual and Power in Europe, 1200-1920 Family, State and Church (Vol. n/a, 1st ed., pp. 221-239). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
DOI
2015 Walker, C. (2015). Whispering Fama: Talk and reputation in early modern Europe. In H. Kerr, & C. Walker (Eds.), 'Fama' and her sisters: Gossip and rumour in early modern Europe (1 ed., pp. 9-35). Belgium: Brepols Publishers.
DOI
2015 Walker, C., & Kerr, H. (2015). Introduction: New perspectives on Fama. In H. Kerr, & C. Walker (Eds.), 'Fama' and her sisters: Gossip and rumour in early modern Europe (1 ed., pp. 1-7). Belgium: Brepols Publishers.
DOI
2015 Walker, C. (2015). An ordered cloister? Dissenting passions in early modern English cloisters. In S. Broomhall (Ed.), Gender and Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Destroying Order, Structuring Disorder (pp. 197-214). Farnham: Routledge.
DOI Scopus1 WoS6
2015 Walker, C. (2015). An ordered cloister? dissenting passions in early modern English cloisters. In Gender and Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Europe Destroying Order Structuring Disorder (pp. 197-214).
Scopus4
2014 Walker, C. (2014). 'When God shall restore them to their kingdoms': Nuns, exiled Stuarts and English Catholic identity, 1688-1745. In S. Apetrei, & H. Smith (Eds.), Religion and women in Britain, c. 1660-1760 (1 ed., pp. 79-97). United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing.
2014 Walker, C. (2014). When god shall restore them to their kingdoms: Nuns, exiled stuarts and english Catholic identity, 1688-1745. In Religion and Women in Britain C 1660 1760 (pp. 79-97).
Scopus10
2010 Walker, C. (2010). Continuity and Isolation: The Bridgettines of Syon in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. In E. Jones, & A. Walsham (Eds.), Syon Abbey and its books reading, writing and religion c.1400-1700 (pp. 155-176). Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, the.
2009 Walker, C. (2009). Remember Justice Godfrey: The popish plot and the construction of panic in Seventeenth-Century media. In D. Lemmings, & C. Walker (Eds.), Moral panics, the media and the law in early modern England (pp. 117-138). Hampshire, England: Palgrave MacMillan.
DOI Scopus7
2009 Walker, C. (2009). Priests Nuns Presses and Prayers: The Southern Netherlands and the Contours of English Catholicism. In B. Kaplan, B. Moore, H. Nierop, & J. Pollmann (Eds.), Catholic Communities in Protestant States: Britain and the Netherlands c. 1570-1720 (pp. 139-155). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
2008 Walker, C. (2008). Recusants, daughters and sisters in Christ: English nuns and their communities in the seventeenth century. In S. Tarbin, & S. Broomhall (Eds.), Women, Identities and Communitiies in Early Modern Europe (pp. 61-78). United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
2008 Walker, C. (2008). Securing Souls or telling tales? The politics of cloistered life in an English convent. In C. Wyhe (Ed.), Female Monasticism in Early Modern Europe (pp. 227-244). United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
Scopus22
2006 Walker, C. (2006). Introduction. In B. Travitsky, & A. Prescott (Eds.), The early modern Englishwoman: A facsimile library of essential works (pp. ix-xix). England: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
DOI Scopus2
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Wiseman [née Vaughan], Jane (d. 1610), recusant and priest harbourer. In L. Goldman (Ed.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (pp. online-1). Great Britain: Oxford University Press.
DOI
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Radcliffe, Margaret [name in religion Margaret Paul] (1582x5–1654), abbess. In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (pp. 1 page). Great Britain: Oxford University Press.
DOI
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Lawson [née Constable], Dorothy (1580–1632), recusant and priest harbourer. In D. Cannadine (Ed.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (pp. 1 page). Great Britain: Oxford University Press.
DOI
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Clitherow [née Middleton], Margaret [St Margaret Clitherow] (1552/3–1586), Roman Catholic martyr. In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (pp. 1 page). Great Britain: Oxford University Press.
DOI
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Loyal and dutiful subjects: English nuns and Stuart politics. In James Daybell (Ed.), Women and politics in early modern England, 1450-1700 (pp. 228-242). Aldershot & Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
Scopus12
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Spiritual Property: The English Benedictine Nuns of Cambrai and the Dispute over the Baker Manuscripts. In N. Wright, M. Ferguson, & A. Buck (Eds.), Women, Property and the Letters of the Law in Early Modern England (pp. 237-255). Toronto: University of Toronto Press Inc..
Scopus20
2001 Walker, C. (2001). "Doe not suppose me a well mortifyed Nun dead to the world" : Letter Writing in Early Modern English Convents. In Early Modern Women's Letter Writing (pp. 159-176). Bashingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Year Citation
2020 Walker, C. (2020). Religious Devotion, Gender and the Body in Europe, 1100–1800. In Journal of Religious History Vol. 44 (pp. 403-406). WILEY.
DOI

HIST2001 Medieval Worlds: 500-1500

Medieval Worlds explores interconnections between countries, societies and cultures from Europe, the Middle East and Africa to East Asia. Modules are designed thematically to investigate global movements, connections and expansion. They consider key events, people and movements which brought different peoples and cultures together, whether in conflict or collaboration. Using a range of documentary and material sources, including medieval manuscripts and artefacts in Adelaide's museums, galleries and libraries, the course interrogates medieval globalization and the historical people, institutions and ideas which continue to shape the modern world.

HIST3001 Early Modern Worlds: 1500-1800

The sixteenth to eighteenth centuries represent the transition between the medieval and modern worlds ... or do they? This course explores the geographic, intellectual, religious and political changes characterizing Europe and the world in this period of expanding horizons for some and contracting freedoms for others. Students work with journals, letters, early printed texts and images to evaluate historical scholarship and develop their own interpretations of the past. 

HIST4006 The Tudors and their Legacy

The Tudors ruled England and Wales from 1485 to 1603. In 118 years they transformed the historical landscape, enforcing religious change (and conflict), cementing the British Isles military and diplomatic position in Europe and the Atlantic world and encouraging an intellectual and cultural renaissance. Moreover, they provided history with many ‘firsts’ and a succession of colourful monarchs – Mary I was England’s first queen regnant, while Henry VIII and Elizabeth I are two of the best-known sovereigns. In recent years there has been renewed fascination with the Tudors, sparked by historical fiction (Wolf Hall) and TV series (The Tudors). This course investigates Tudor history, examining the monarchs and the momentous changes taking place during their rule, and unravelling their legacy into the twenty-first century.

Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
2026 Principal Supervisor ‘You See Now That Power Resteth Wholly In My Selfe’: Pocahontas and Female Power Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Kaitlin Litchfield
2025 Principal Supervisor "All the gems of the eighth Sphere”: The Jewels of Mary I of England Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mrs Jessica Catherine Carey-Bunning
2025 Co-Supervisor Visualising Human Anatomy and Physiology in Medical Literature (10th - 17th c.) Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Miss Mary Elizabeth Harpas
2025 Principal Supervisor "All the gems of the eighth Sphere: The Jewels of Mary I of England Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mrs Jessica Catherine Carey-Bunning
2024 Co-Supervisor Weaving Stories Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Alison Margaret Giles
2024 Principal Supervisor The Tudor Monarchy's Self-Representation in Early Modern England Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Yannic Bietz
2023 Principal Supervisor The Evolution/Role of Chivalry during the Tudor Era (1485-1603) Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Amber Louise Cox
2023 Principal Supervisor Painted Ladies: The Representation of Female Rule in the Imagery of Mary Tudor and Mary Stuart Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Miss Lucy Jasmine King
2022 Principal Supervisor Separations, Grief, and Consolation in the Later Works of Thomas More Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Mitchell Robert Thompson
2022 Principal Supervisor Marginal Martyrs: Faith, Doubt, and John Foxe, c. 1553-1558 - Doctorate Full Time Miss Grace May Howe
2022 Principal Supervisor Marginal Martyrs: Faith, Doubt, and John Foxe, c. 1553-1558 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Miss Grace May Howe
2022 Principal Supervisor Separations, Grief, and Consolation in the Later Works of Thomas More Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Mitchell Robert Thompson

Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
2020 - 2023 Principal Supervisor “Killing those foul witches”: the witch in fantasy medievalist computer role-play games Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Tess Watterson
2020 - 2025 Principal Supervisor ‘I must liken a ship on a long voyage to a little world’: Social Space, Emotional Standards and Emigrant Bodies Master of Philosophy Master Part Time Miss Emma Laurel Mary Grimes
2019 - 2024 Principal Supervisor ‘Knot of Love and Concord’: Loyalty in the Life of Mary I Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Miss Meagan Elizabeth Nattrass
2019 - 2023 Principal Supervisor Fashion Diplomacy at the Court of Henry VIII Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Grace Waye-Harris
2019 - 2022 Principal Supervisor Feeling Heads: Phrenology and Emotion in the United States, 1820-1850 Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Lachlan James McCarron
2019 - 2023 Principal Supervisor Antichrist in the Indies: Anti-Catholic Discourse and English responses to Roman Catholic Missions in the Americas and East Asia, c. 1558-1660 Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Alexander Timothy Pring
2018 - 2022 Co-Supervisor Romantic and Socio-Sexual Scripts in Eighteenth-Century Britain Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Miss Lani Gerbi
2016 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Women, Piety, and Patronage in Reformation England, c.1530-1558 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Stephanie Joan Thomson
2016 - 2019 Principal Supervisor Epilepsy in the Lunatic Asylums of South Australia (1852 – 1913) Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mrs Margaret Boult
2016 - 2020 Principal Supervisor Mysticism and Emotional transformation in a Seventeenth-Century English Convent Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Jessica McCandless
2012 - 2015 Principal Supervisor Dynastic Marriage in England, Castile and Aragon, 11th-16th Centuries Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Ms Lisa Anne Joseph
2012 - 2017 Principal Supervisor A 'Plea of Humanity'? Emotions and the Makings of Lunacy Reform in Britain, c.1770-1820 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Dr Mark Adam Neuendorf
2011 - 2017 Principal Supervisor A Dynamic Equilibrium: Doctors and Patients in Seventeenth Century England Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mrs Elizabeth Connolly
2011 - 2014 Co-Supervisor Treason, Passion and Power in England, 1660 - 1685 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Elsa Reuter
2011 - 2020 Co-Supervisor Fleecing the Pious: The Palmers' Guild of Ludlow in the Central and North Welsh Marches 1400-1530 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Judith Bailey
2010 - 2018 Principal Supervisor 'Baptism, No Wall of Division': Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptists and Dynamics of Toleration Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Matthew James Gray

Date Role Committee Institution Country
2024 - ongoing Member Society for the History of Emotions Council International Society Australia
2022 - ongoing Member 4th Biennial Society for the History of Emotions Conference Organising Committee The University of Adelaide Australia

Date Office Name Institution Country
2017 - 2017 Acting Director, Adelaide Node, ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions ARC CHE and the University of Adelaide Australia

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