Elisa Tersigni

Elisa Tersigni is a postdoctoral fellow at the Women Writers Project, Northeastern University. She holds a PhD in English and Book History & Print Culture from the University of Toronto. She was the Digital Research Fellow for Before 'Farm to Table': Early Modern Foodways and Cultures from 2018–2011, during which time she was project manager for the development of the corpus of manuscript recipe books at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Awards

• Pantzer New Scholar Award, Bibliographical Society of America (2020)

Critical Editions

• "Upon the Crown Imperial" (Poem 53), The Pulter Project
• "The Crown Imperial in the Early Modern English Imagination", The Pulter Project
• "Tears and Ink", The Pulter Project
• "The Welcom" (Poem 19), The Pulter Project
• "Bell Tolling", The Pulter Project
• "The Personification of Death in Early Modern Art and Literature", The Pulter Project

Exhibitions

• Tastes of the Mediterranean, Pop-up exhibition at Folger Shakespeare Library on March 31, 2019
• How We Eat: Food, Culture, and Identity, exhibition at Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, forthcoming 2026

Scholarly Blog Posts

• Before the Thanksgiving Turkey, There Was the Banquet Peacock
• Not Shakespeare's Cup of Tea: Consuming Caffeine in Early Modern England
• Tastes of the Mediterranean: Italian Food Before Italy
• Code Makers: The Hidden Labour Behind the Folger Shakespeare Library's Recipe Book Corpus
• Code Breakers: The Hidden Labour Behind the Folger Shakespeare Library's Recipe Transcriptions
• A Wild and Woolley Week, with David Goldstein, Jennifer Egloff, Sara Pennell, and Heather Wolfe

Publications

• "Review of Madeline Bassnet’s Women, Food Exchange, and Governance in Early Modern England." Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 38.2, 2019: 448–450.

Recipe Recreations

• Much Ado About Stuffing: Recreating an Early Modern Stuffing Recipe, with Jack B. Bouchard, Julia Fine, and Michael Walkden
• Savory Biscuits from a 17th-Century recipe, with Jack B. Bouchard

Presentations and Invited Talks

• "From Aqua Mirabilis to Spice: Muslim and Jewish Influences in Early Modern English Recipes," Food and the Book 1300-1800, Newberry Library (October 2020)
• "Digital Resources for Early Modernists: Feminist Bibliography and Manuscript Recipe Books," Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Ohio State University, September 2020.
• "Two Sides of the Same Book: The Creation and Use of Early Modern English Receipt Books," Annual Meeting of the Bibliographical Society of America (January 2020)
• Woolley Week: New Discoveries in the Life and Work of a 17th-century Woman Writer, Folger Shakespeare Library (May 2019)

Media

• Episode 64: Elisa Tersigni and the History of Cookery, Kitchens, and Food in Shakespeare, That Shakespeare Life (July 2019)
• Episode 235: Coffee and Tea in Shakespeare's Time, That Shakespeare Life (October 2022)