Judith C. Brown (born 1946) is an American historian and a Professor Emerita of History at Wesleyan University. A specialist on the Italian Renaissance, she is considered a pioneer in the study of the history of sexuality whose work explored the earliest recorded examples of lesbian relationships in European history.
Brown holds a B.A. and M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley as well as a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. In addition to her career as a faculty member at UMBC and Stanford, Rice, and Wesleyan universities, she has been Dean of the School of Humanities at Rice and Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Provost at Wesleyan.[1] She was also the former Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at Minerva University in San Francisco.[2]
Currently, Brown is an Emeritus Professor of History at Wesleyan University.[3]
Brown has received numerous fellowships and awards, including fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Stanford Humanities Center, I Tatti (the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies), as well as grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Pew Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and others.[1]
Her 1986 book Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy was adapted for the screen in 2021 as Benedetta by director Paul Verhoeven.[4]
A feminist historian of early modern Europe and Renaissance Italy, Brown’s scholarly interests include issues in higher education and the history of women, gender and sexuality.[1]