Carol Pal MN ’98 WS ‘07; Professor of History, Bennington College

Carol Pal received the American Historical Association’s 2013 Joan Kelly Memorial Prize for Best Book with the publication of her first book, Republic of Women: Rethinking the Republic of Letters in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge University Press, Ideas in Context, 2012). “Pal’s meticulously researched, beautifully written study takes us on a stunning tour of the correspondence, networks, publications, and mentorships connecting seven learned women across Europe in the 17th century,” said the AHA. The book also earned an honorable mention in 2012 for Best Book from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women.

Dr. Pal’s book was based on her dissertation at Stanford University, Republic of Women: Rethinking the Republic of Letters 1630-1680, which was awarded the Stanford History Department’s Elizabeth Spilman Rosenfield Dissertation Prize for the best-written dissertation in 2007.

“In addition to receiving a Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies in 1998, I was also the fortunate recipient of a Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Grant in Women’s Studies in 2002,” Dr. Pal writes. “As a late bloomer and a single mother, there was absolutely no way I would have been able to pursue my intellectual passion without this crucial support.” A former auto mechanic and pastry chef, Dr. Pal completed her B.A. at Mills College, then went on to graduate studies at UC Berkeley and Stanford University, where she received her M.A. in 2000 and Ph.D. in 2007.

In 2008, Dr. Pal joined the History Department at Bennington College and spent the 2012-2013 academic year as a Dibner Fellow in the History of Science at the Huntington Library. Her upcoming projects include a sourcebook in the history of medicine, which she is editing, as well as a translation of the works of Marie du Moulin and a study of some of the lost practices of early modern knowledge-making.

More information at webfac.bennington.edu/cpal/ .

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