Staff profile

Lily Chadwick (she/her) is a final-year PhD student in history at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom. Lily is a historian of the early modern British Atlantic and specializes in the research of gender, religion, and authority/power. Lily’s PhD thesis, Transatlantic Friends: Gender, Authority, and Regionalism in the Early Modern British Atlantic, analyzes the development of Quaker Women’s Monthly Meetings in specific locations across the British Atlantic between 1670 and 1725 to understand the impact of regional circumstance on the agency and authority of Quaker women within the institutional apparatus of the Meeting.

Originally from the United States, Lily received her BA in history and global studies from the University of Minnesota in 2018. She completed her MA in history at the University of Durham in 2020. Her MA thesis, Troublesome Women – Normalizing the Gendered Theology of Intergenerational Quaker Ministry, analyzes the language and imagery used in early Quaker pamphlets to “normalize” or reconcile female Quaker ministers’ participation in itinerant ministry with contemporary understandings of femininity and the gendered body.

Publications & Awards

Publications

“Gendered Relationships and the Spiritual Family: Female Quaker Ministers and the Language of Obedience.” Durham University History in Politics Journal, no. 3 (Winter 2022): 31-39.

Fellowships & Awards

W.M. Keck Foundation Short-Term Fellow at The Huntington Library (2023-2024)

Faculty of Arts & Humanities Durham Doctoral Studentship (2020-2023)

Durham University Santander Scholarship (2019-2020)

Talle Family Merit Scholar for Excellence in History (2017-2018)

Phil Beta Kappa Inductee (2017)

Conferences and Papers [Selected]

“Transatlantic Friends – Exploring ‘Radical’ Religion and Feminine Agency Through Early Modern Atlantic Regionalism.” Paper presented at The Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, United States of America, 21-23 March, 2024.

“Gendered Bodies - Radical Quaker Ministry and the Gendered Politics of Publication in the Early Modern British Atlantic World.” Paper presented at North American Conference on British Studies, Baltimore, United States of America, 10–12 November, 2023.

“Quaker Marriages and Family Reconstitution: Accessing the Intimate in the Archive.” Paper presented at Family Archives and Their Afterlives, 1400-Present, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, 27–28 June 2023.

“’Deceit and Covetousness’: Re-examining Indigenous-Quaker Relationships in Early America.” Paper presented at the Quaker Studies Research Association, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 23–24 June 2023.

“Seducing Spirits: Gender, Authority, and Quakerism in Colonial Dartmouth and Salem.” Doctoral thesis chapter presented at a graduate workshop titled “Religious Dialogue in the Early Modern World,” hosted by the Centre for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota & Department of History and Civilisation, European University Institute, Florence, Italy, 23–24 May 2023.

Panel Organizer and Presenter. “’Lieber Onkel Josef’: Das Volk Auf Dem Weg and the Pursuit of Familial Identity." Paper presented as part of a panel titled "Diaspora, Contested Homelands, and International Connection: The Creation of Ethnic and Communal Identity Among Russian Germans in Europe and North America" at the German Studies Association, Houston, Texas, 15–18 September 2022.

“Radical Quaker Ministry and Reconciliation in the Early Modern Atlantic World.” Paper presented at The Renaissance Society of America, Dublin, Ireland, 30 March 2022–2 April 2022.