When Professor Ethan Matt Kavaler began his tenure as Director of the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies (CRRS) in 2014, he did so with “a sense of honour and obligation.” A decade later, the impact of his leadership is evident in the Centre’s broadened reach and deepened sense of community.
One of Kavaler’s top priorities was to bring students into all aspects of the Centre’s work. Graduate students sit on committees, participate in workshops, and work in the library. Kavaler also supported the creation of the Association of Renaissance Students, which now hosts an annual conference among a devoted corps of undergraduates.
“[It] is very professional,” Prof. Kavaler said about the conference, “and has really bred esprit de corps among the students.”
The CRRS library, home to roughly 7000 sixteenth-century imprints and one of the world’s leading collections of works by Erasmus, has always been at the heart of the Centre. Under Kavaler’s directorship, the library not only remained a hub of daily activity but also expanded into an adjoining room in Pratt Library. This provided more flexible space for research, teaching, and student gatherings while preserving the integrity of rare books.
“It doubled our usable space and made the Centre much more adaptable,” he says.
Kavaler believes his perspective as an art historian has contributed in several ways. “I am particularly sensitive to objects and artifacts,” he says. He has encouraged scholars to think beyond texts, highlighting how material culture reveals as much about the early modern period as letters or documentary sources. New library acquisitions have helped establish the CRRS library as a hub for hands-on encounters with objects.
This perspective informed initiatives like Objects of Devotion, an interdisciplinary conference bringing together art historians, social historians, and anthropologists to explore how material culture shaped belief and daily life. “Art history teaches you to look closely at what people made and why,” Kavaler notes. “It’s a lens that opens new ways of understanding society, religion, and politics in the early modern period.”
Kavaler is quick to point out that his work is built upon the foundations laid by his predecessors and the support of passionate staff members. He has also led the CRRS in widening the scope of Renaissance studies beyond Europe. The Centre has supported scholars engaging with the circulation of ideas in early modern North America, Asia, and Africa.
At the same time, the Centre strengthened its publishing program with offerings like series Early Modern Cultural Studies with the publisher Brepols, for which Kavaler serves as general editor, offering scholars a vital international platform.