Alexander Bevilacqua

Alexander Bevilacqua is an Associate Professor of History at Williams College, where he has taught since 2017. He specializes in early modern Europe (ca. 1450 to 1800), with particular focus on the history of Europe from Renaissance to Enlightenment, global interactions, and their cultural and intellectual ramifications.

Bevilacqua earned his B.A. from Harvard University (2007), M.Phil. from University of Cambridge (2008), and M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Princeton University (2010, 2014). Prior to Williams, he was a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows (2014-2017). His current book project, The Mask of Battle: European Chivalry in the Age of Discovery, examines the impact of chivalry on European imaginings of the world beyond Europe.

His research interests span European intellectual history, Islamic studies, global interactions, and the Enlightenment. His work demonstrates particular expertise in cross-cultural encounters between Europe and the Islamic world, early modern religious thought, and the history of scholarly networks. He has published extensively on these topics in journals such as Past and Present, Journal of Modern History, and Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.

Bevilacqua's scholarship reveals a consistent focus on how knowledge was transmitted across cultural boundaries in early modern Europe, with particular attention to intellectual networks connecting Europe and the Islamic world. His work often examines how these exchanges shaped European thought during the Enlightenment period.

• Winner of the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize
• Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize
• Shortlisted for the Longman/History Today Book Prize

Bevilacqua has advised numerous senior theses at Williams College, with many winning departmental prizes. His research has been supported by prestigious organizations including the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Historical Association, and the American Philosophical Society. He has held fellowships at institutions including the Huntington Library, the Warburg Institute, and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin.