Thomas Goodwin

Research Topic

The Social World of the Poligrafi and their Role in the Circulation of Disinformation, Obscenity and Slander in Sixteenth-Century Italy

Supervisors: Prof David Parrott and Dr Miles Pattenden

I am a DPhil candidate at New College, Oxford. I study the cultural, intellectual, and literary history of early modern Europe, with a particular focus on Italy. My interests are the history of communication, (dis)information, and censorship; popular political participation, public opinion, and the ‘public sphere’; the history of obscenity and sexuality; technology studies; the history of political thought; historiography, from the late medieval period to the present; and the application(s) of social and political theory to the study of the Renaissance and the early modern world.

My current research is on Pietro Aretino and the poligrafi, an amorphous group of writers, editors, and translators, and their role in the circulation of disinformation in sixteenth-century Italy. My next project will be a conceptual history of the Venetian popolo – the circa ninety per cent of the Venetian population formally excluded from political participation – ranging from the mid-fifteenth century to the early seventeenth century.

In 2018, I co-organised the conference 'Beyond Truth: Fiction and (Dis)information in the Early Modern World', which took place from 17-18 September at New College, Oxford.  For more information, please see our website: oxdisinfo.wordpress.com.

You can read more about my research and publications on my Academia.edu profile. I am on Twitter @T_S_Goodwin.