Ada Palmer

Ada Palmer is an Associate Professor in the History Department at the University of Chicago, with affiliations in Classics, Gender Studies, and the Institute on the Formation of Knowledge. Her research centers on censorship, radical heterodoxy, and the evolution of information control across technological revolutions from print to digital eras.

Her primary research areas include censorship history, radical thought, history of science, religious history, freethought, European history (with specialization in Renaissance and Enlightenment periods), book history, and printing history. Her seminal work Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance (2014) examines classical atomism's impact on modern scientific thought, while her upcoming book Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age (2025) deconstructs historical narratives about medieval and Renaissance periods for general audiences.

Palmer is recognized as an internationally award-winning science fiction and fantasy novelist, though specific award names are not detailed in available sources.

Beyond academia, she is a disability activist, polyphonic a cappella composer, anime/manga scholar, and comics industry consultant. She hosts the podcast Ex Urbe, Ad Astra and maintains ExUrbe.com, featuring her influential essay "Tools for Thinking About Censorship" and her globally acclaimed gelato guide previously highlighted in The Economist. She teaches H-205: Censorship from the Inquisition to the Present.