Dr Naomi Baker - research

Specific research interests:

My primary field of research is early modern literature, particularly the construction and representation of identity in seventeenth-century writing. I have published articles on autobiographical writing by both female and male authors, discussing in particular the relationship between gender and religion in early modern life writing, alongside issues of race, nationality and social class.

The recovery of previously unstudied early modern manuscripts and printed texts has been an important aspect of my research. I have published an edition of two manuscript conversion narratives, entitled Scripture Women: Rose Thurgood, 'A Lecture of Repentance' and Cicely Johnson, 'Fanatical Reveries' (Nottingham: Trent Editions, 2005). Written in the 1630s, these texts are among the earliest known English conversion narratives. The fact that both of the authors were female, and that one of them was poor to the point of starvation (the other was of the 'middling sort'), makes the texts even more remarkable.

Current research projects:

I continue to be interested in the construction of identity in the early modern period. My latest book, Plain Ugly: The Unattractive Body in Early Modern Culture (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2010), discusses representations of physical unattractiveness in early modern England as a means of analysing the changing relationship between the body and the self in this era. Investigating a wide range of primary texts, both literary and visual, the book pays particular attention to the importance of gender in representations of the 'ugly' body.