Dr. Isaac Stephens is an Associate Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of Mississippi.
Research Interests
- Religion and politics of the Stuart period.
- London during the British Civil Wars and English Revolution.
- Interplay between parochial, municipal, and state politics.
- The complexities and ambiguities of early modern English Protestantism.
- The early modern public sphere.
Biography
Dr. Isaac Stephens is a historian of early modern British/European history, and he has a particular interest in the interplay between religion, politics, gender, and culture during the Stuart period. Elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2017, he has received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Henry E. Huntington Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the William Andrews Clark Library, and Vanderbilt University. His publications include articles in the Journal of British Studies and The Historical Journal. He has also authored one book – The Gentlewoman’s Remembrance: Patriarchy, Piety, and Singlehood in Early Stuart England (Manchester University Press, 2016) – and co-authored another with Peter Lake – Scandal and Religious Identity in Early Stuart England: A Northamptonshire Maid’s Tragedy (Boydell Press, 2015). Currently, Stephens’ research ceenters on producing two books. Ttentatively titled Smiting Shepherds: Clerical Ejections and Popular Politics in London, 1640-1662, one examines mass ejections of clergy from parish livings in England’s cultural and political hub during the British Civil Wars, the English Revolution, the Interregnum, and the Restoration. These purges throw into sharp relief early modern confessional conflicts that shaped London, if not all of Britain. Iinvestigating the mass ejections demonstrates how ordinary Londoners found ways to influence parochial and national politics, and such research expands our understanding of the public sphere, popular politics, persecution, martyrdom, the English state, the city of London, and religious disputes in the seventeenth century.
Stephens’ other project explores the life of the moderate puritan, Edward Reynolds, who stood as bishop of Norwich in the Church of England from 1661 to 1676. Born in 1599, Reynolds intimately experienced the religion-political oscillation of the seventeenth century during his career that included holding livings in Northamptonshire and London, sitting as a Presbyterian member of the Westminster Assembly, and serving as royal chaplain to Charles II before becoming a bishop. Examining his career provides fresh perspective on England’s so-called Long Reformation, as his life spanned years that included the Jacobean “Calvinist Consensus,” the Personal Rule, the tumults of the 1640s and 1650s, and the consequences of Stuart monarchy’s return in 1660.
Before joining Mississippi’s Department of History in 2018, Stephens taught at Vanderbilt University, Dalhousie University, Appalachian State University, Auburn University, and Saginaw Valley State University. Combined with his research, such experience makes him well suited to offer both undergraduate and graduate instruction/advisement in historical methods and the history of early modern Britain, Europe, and the globe.
Publications
Co-Authored with Peter Lake, Scandal and Religious Identity in Early Stuart England: A Northamptonshire Maid’s Tragedy (Boydell Press, 2015).
Articles:
“‘Man of Moderation’: The Restoration Bishop of Norwich,” in William J. Bulman and Freddy Dominguez, eds., Political and Religious Practice in the Early Modern British World (Manchester University Press, 2022), 138-57.
Courses Taught
- HST 120 Introduction to European History to 1648
- HST 121 Introduction to European History since 1648
- HST 300 Historical Methods
- HST 316 Martyrs of the English Reformation
- HST 320 Tudor-Stuart Britain and Ireland, 1485-1688
- HST 321 Tudor England, 1485-1603
- HST 337 History of London
- HST 651 Readings in European History to 1815
- HST 681 Readings in British History to 1815
Education
M.A. History, University of California-Riverside (2003)
Ph.D. History, University of California-Riverside (2008)