Dr Claire Walker
Senior Lecturer
School of Humanities
Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics
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 since 2007. As an early modernist, Claire teaches courses on early modern European history, heresy and witchcraft, and medieval Europe. She researches the history of religion, society, politics, gender, emotions and material culture in 17th and 18th centuries, focusing in particular on exiled communities of English nuns in France and the Southern Netherlands and on the family of Samuel Wesley Senior. Claire is an experienced supervisor of postgraduate research students and she is currently the postgraduate coordinator in the School of Historical and Classical Studies.
Devotional Objects and Affective Spaces: The Materiality of Religious Exile in 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.
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Appointments
Date Position Institution name 2010 - ongoing Senior Lecturer University of Adelaide, Adelaide 2008 - 2009 Lecturer University of Adelaide, Adelaide 1992 - 2007 Lecturer The University of Newcastle -
Language Competencies
Language Competency French Can read -
Education
Date Institution name Country Title 1996 The University of Western Australia Australia PhD 1987 The University of Western Australia Australia BA (Hons) -
Research Interests
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Journals
Year Citation 2025 Walker, C., & Howe, G. M. (2025). “huge Great cross”: Catholic Pain Management in Early Modern England. Sixteenth Century Journal: journal of early modern studies. 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.
Scopus12020 Walker, C. (2020). "Hangd for the true faith": embodied devotion in early modern English Carmelite cloisters. Journal of Religious History, 44(4), 494-512.
Scopus2 WoS22017 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.
Scopus12017 Walker, C. I. (2017). The experience of exile in early modern English convents. Parergon, 34(2), 159-177.
Scopus2 WoS42016 Walker, C. (2016). Exiled children: Care in English convents in the 17th and 18th centuries. Children Australia, 41(3), 168-177.
Scopus3 WoS32012 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.
Scopus9 WoS52009 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.
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Clitherow [née Middleton], Margaret [St Margaret Clitherow] (1552/3–1586), Roman Catholic martyr. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Radcliffe, Margaret [name in religion Margaret Paul] (1582x5–1654), abbess. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
2004 Walker, C. (2004). Lawson [née Constable], Dorothy. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
2002 Walker, C. (2002). Godliness, Sex and Propaganda: Gender in the Confessional Age. Review of 4 Books. Gender and History, 14(1), 138-142.
2000 Walker, C. (2000). Prayer, patronage, and political conspiracy: English nuns and the restoration. Historical Journal, 43(1), 1-23.
Scopus351999 Walker, C. (1999). Combining Martha and Mary: Gender and Work in Seventeenth-Century English Cloisters. Sixteenth Century Journal, 30(2), 397-418.
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Books
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Book Chapters
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Conference Papers
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
HIST2053 Medieval Europe from the Crusades to the Black Death
This course explores the lives and experiences of people in western Europe during the Middle Ages. We begin the course in the early Middle Ages with Charlemagne and his successors, and the upheaval caused by Vikings and other invaders. We shall then consider the expansion of European power in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (including the Crusades), and the flourishing of European civilisation and culture, trade and urban life in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. At the end of the course, we discuss the crisis of medieval civilisation that was brought about by conflicts within the Church, the great struggle between France and England, and the Black Death. Students have the unique opportunity to locate and research medieval objects and examples of medievalism in Adelaide for a virtual 'museum' exhibition.
HIST2069 Heresy and Witchcraft in Medieval Europe
This course explores belief and deviancy in medieval Europe. After identifying religious and cultural orthodoxy, it embarks upon an analysis of dissent. Divergence from sanctioned ideology and ritual ranged from the spiritual and social challenge of medieval heresies, through popular beliefs in the magical powers of people and objects, to the witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Using a wide variety of original documents and historical interpretations, the course aims to understand and explain conflicting belief systems and the rise of intolerance in the pre-modern world.
HIST3037 Early Modern Europe
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are often claimed by historians to represent the transition between the medieval and modern worlds. Beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation, the era was characterised by intellectual, religious and political upheaval, which affected all levels of society, not only the elites. Through lectures and tutorials, with particular emphasis on primary documents, students will examine not only the great events of this era, but they will also delve below the surface to discuss the impact of these changes on the lives of ordinary men and women.
HIST4002/HIST7002 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 Honours/Masters 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.
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Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name 2024 Principal Supervisor The Tudor Monarchy's Self-Representation in Early Modern England Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Yannic Bietz 2024 Co-Supervisor Weaving Stories Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Alison Margaret Giles 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 Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Grace May Howe -
Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
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 Alana Watterson Dunbar 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 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
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Committee Memberships
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 -
Offices Held
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 2015 - ongoing Deputy Director, Adelaide Node, ARC Centre of Excellence in the History of Emotions ARC, CHE and the University of Adelaide Australia
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