Jessica Keene

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 Dr. Keene’s research interests center on early modern English gender and religious history. Her current book project, ‘Spiritual Fornication’: Sex, Celibacy, and the English Reformation, contends that sexuality was central to the English Reformation and to the establishment of the Church of England itself.  It examines crucial Protestant and Catholic debates about sexuality, vows, and clerical marriage from the 1520s through the reign of Elizabeth I. Allegations of Catholic clerical sexual impropriety served to justify Henry VIII’s decision to dissolve England’s monasteries by the late 1530s. The closure of the monasteries precipitated decades of debates and shifting royal policies about expectations of celibacy and marriage for Church of England clergy, former Catholic monastics, and – perhaps unexpectedly – university faculty and fellows at Cambridge and Oxford. English rulers’ preference for celibate, unmarried men to occupy positions of religious and educational influence served to legitimize the newly established Church of England and shaped English patriarchal visions of society and marriage. 

Alongside her book manuscript, Dr. Keene is currently developing an article on “Henry VIII’s Sexual Conservativism” which contends that, in spite of infamously marrying six times, severing England’s relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, and establishing the Church of England, Henry VIII’s views about sexuality- for himself, for his clergy, and for English men and women more broadly- remained consistently theologically conservative and fundamentally aligned with Catholic doctrine throughout his lifetime.   

Dr. Keene’s article, “‘Furnaces of all letcherousness’: Narratives of Sexual Depravity and the Dissolution of the English Monasteries” was released in Spring 2022 by the Sixteenth Century Journal. She co-authored a public-facing piece entitled “The Tudors are Trending” for the American Historical Association’s Perspectives on History series in 2020. Dr. Keene has been quoted on historical topics in the New York Times and Wine Enthusiast Magazine.

Prior to her arrival at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Dr. Keene served as Assistant Professor of History at Georgian Court University. She previously taught courses in History, Expository Writing, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Johns Hopkins University and Goucher College.

Dr. Keene fostered her passion for career education and advising for humanities undergraduate and graduate students while completing her doctoral research at Johns Hopkins University. While there, she served as Career Center Ambassador for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Career Services at the Johns Hopkins Homewood Career Center (now the Life Design Lab) and as a Research Assistant for the Professional Development and Career Office at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. Keene completed her PhD in History at Johns Hopkins University in 2020. Dr. Keene has master's degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She completed her undergraduate studies at Christopher Newport University.

• “Monastic Sexuality, Newsmaking, and Anti-Catholic Propaganda: The Royal Visitation of the English Monasteries,1535-1536,” in Gender and the News in the Early Modern World, Alex W. Barber, Amanda E. Herbert, and Hannah Jeans, eds. Solicited by Manchester University Press. Submitted.
• “‘Furnaces of all letcherousness’: Narratives of Sexual Depravity and the Dissolution of the English Monasteries.” The Sixteenth Century Journal (Spring 2022)
• Jessica L. Keene and Amanda E. Herbert, “The Tudors are Trending: An English Dynasty Continues to Dominate Popular Culture,” American Historical Association Perspectives on History, September 16, 2020: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-...
• “Jane Drummond Kerr,” “Elizabeth Cowdray,” “Joan Bromley Greville,” “Judith Taylor,” “Frances Edmonds,” and “Elizabeth Henege Finch.” In A Biographical Encyclopedia of Early Modern Englishwomen: Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts, 1500-1650. Edited by Carole Levin, Anna Riehl Bertolet, and Jo Eldridge Carney. (New York: Routledge, 2017)

• Interviewed and quoted, “How the Bloody Mary Went from Brunch Staple to Social Media Sensation,” by Amy Beth Wright, Wine Enthusiast Magaizine, November 18 2022: https://www.winemag.com/2022/11/18/bloody-mary-history/