Download Bio and interests - Diplomatic Cultures

Tracey A. Sowerby
Bio: I am the CMRS Career Development Fellow at Keble College, Oxford. Previously, I
held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Oxford. My monograph, Renaissance
and Reform in Tudor England: the Careers of Sir Richard Morison c.1513-1556 (2010),
examined the activities of a leading English humanist, reformer and diplomat. I have also
written about Tudor diplomacy, political culture, and print. I am PI on an AHRC funded
interdisciplinary international research network ‘Textual Ambassadors’ which investigates the
relationship between literature and diplomacy in the early modern world.
Research interests: My research focusses on early modern politics, religion, print culture, and
intellectual culture and the interactions between them. In particular, I am researching the
cultural history of Tudor diplomacy, considering how English diplomatic practice, personnel
and theory adapted to three major sixteenth century developments: the introduction of
resident ambassadors, the English Reformation and female rule. My project also explores
issues such as the role of diplomacy as a site of cultural exchange, diplomatic gifts, the
circulation of ideas and texts through diplomatic channels, ambassadors’ intellectual and
religious networks, the effectiveness and uniformity of royal iconography, the equipping of
diplomats and the impact of ambassadorial service on politicians’ notions of the English state.
Part of this project is concerned with diplomatic rituals and the politics of space during
diplomatic audiences. I am therefore investigating the reception of ambassadors at the Tudor
court and the spatial politics encountered by Tudor ambassadors at foreign courts. As areas
within palaces were invested with specific ceremonial meaning which expressed international
as well as domestic hierarchies, I am particularly interested in the ways in which monarchs
manipulated accepted constructions of palatial space in order to send nuanced diplomatic
messages.