Join us Friday, April 10 at 12 pm, as Dr. Catherine “Cat” Eskin, Associate Professor of English at Florida Southern College, offers a fresh perspective on our featured exhibition, The Medici Dynasty: Renaissance in Florence. The lecture will examine how women have historically been defined through their relationships to men—daughter, wife, or widow—focusing on Maria de’ Medici, Marie of France, and the biblical figure of Judith.

BIO

Catherine R. Eskin, PhD, is a tenured Associate Professor of English at Florida Southern College, where she teaches courses in first-year writing, early English literature, Shakespeare, feminist humor, place studies, creative nonfiction, and biography. Her scholarly interests include early modern literature, William Shakespeare, digital humanities, and southern Jewish identities.

She is the founder of the Temple Emanuel Archive, a community-centered initiative preserving the history of Polk County’s Jewish community through records, images, and oral histories, and she actively involves students in hands-on archival and public humanities work. Eskin also collaborates with institutions such as the Folger Shakespeare Library to expand access to early modern manuscripts.

Dr. Eskin received her B.A. in Comparative Literature from Rutgers University and her M.A. and PhD in Early Modern English Literature and Rhetoric from University of Texas at Austin.