Cohen, Thomas V. 1942–

(Thomas Vance Cohen, Tom Cohen)

PERSONAL:

Born December 19, 1942, in Norfolk, VA; son of Robert (a physician and professor of medicine) and Elizabeth (a lab technician and homemaker) Cohen; married Elizabeth Storr (a professor of history), June 23, 1967; children: two. Ethnicity: "Lightly Jewish." Education: University of Michigan, B.A., 1964; Harvard University, M.A., 1965, Ph.D., 1974. Politics: "Dark green, skeptically left." Religion: "Tolerant." Hobbies and other interests: Conversation, languages, understanding things and people.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Office—Department of History, York University, Vari Hall 2156, 100 York Blvd., Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, lecturer, 1969-72, assistant professor, 1972-76, associate professor, 1976-2004, professor of history and humanities, 2004—.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association, Renaissance Society of America, Sixteenth-Century Society.

AWARDS, HONORS:

American Academy in Rome fellow, 1991-92; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant (with wife, Elizabeth Cohen), 1996-98; Arts Leave fellow, 2001-02; Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize, American Historical Association, 2005, for Love and Death in Renaissance Italy.

WRITINGS:

(With wife, Elizabeth S. Cohen) Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates, University of Toronto Press (Buffalo, NY), 1993.

(With Elizabeth S. Cohen) Daily Life in Renaissance Italy, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2001.

Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2004.

Contributor to books, including Prophetic Rome in the High Renaissance Period, edited by Marjorie Reeves, 1992; Essays on Life Writing, edited by Marlene Kadar, 1992; (with Elizabeth S. Cohen) A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing, edited by D. Woolf, 1998; and (with Elizabeth S. Cohen) Shell Games, edited by M. Crane, R. Raiswell, and M. Reeves, 2004. Contributor of translations to books, including Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492-1700, edited by Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, 2002; and Court Culture in Rome, edited by Jill Burke, 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including American Historical Review, Bard Graduate School of Design Journal, Canadian Journal of History, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Continuity and Change, Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), History and Theory, History of Intellectual Culture, Jewish History, Journal of Modern History, Journal of Social History, Medieval Review, Positive Pedagogy, Quaderni dell' italianistica, Renaissance Quarterly, Sixteenth-Century Journal, Social History/Histoire Sociale, and Theological Studies. Guest editor, Journal of Early Modern History, 2003 and 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Thomas V. Cohen wrote his first two studies of Renaissance Italy with his wife, fellow historian and York University associate professor Elizabeth Cohen. In Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates, the pair present the translated records of nine trials, providing commentaries and explanatory notes to help readers understand the materials. It was written primarily for classroom use, although Antonio Santosuosso in the Canadian Journal of History suggested it might also suit general readers interested in the period. He termed it "a good read" and felt that "the interpretative essays at the end of each trial provide an excellent basis for class discussion." Reviewing the work for the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Kenneth Gouwens stated that it "excels in analyzing the narratives encapsulated in legal documents." He added, "Although its sophisticated commentaries will be of use to advanced scholars, Words and Deeds is important above all because it can provide undergraduates with minimally mediated access to the words (and perhaps the deeds?) of Cinquecento Romans."

The Cohens' second joint work, Daily Life in Renaissance Italy, is another undergraduate textbook. This time the authors discuss the wide range of Renaissance life, including upper and lower classes, urban and rural experience, and different occupations. Guido Ruggiero in the Journal of Social History observed that "one of the most notable things about this volume is that the authors have conceived of daily life in a broader way than usual," conveying "the complexity and richness of everyday life in the renaissance." Ruggiero also highlighted the authors' "theoretical sophistication that is well hidden and a prose that is lively, even witty at times, and jargon free." Renaissance Quarterly reviewer Kenneth R. Bartlett deemed the book "very engaging and useful," with a "clear, breezy" style well suited to students and general readers as well as "sufficient original scholarship from primary sources to interest a specialist."

Love and Death in Renaissance Italy is Cohen's third book and the first in which he claimed sole authorship. Returning to court records like those that formed the basis for Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome, he depicts six cases with a combination of narrative reconstructions of the case, actual excerpts from the records, and moral assessments. Renaissance Quarterly reviewer Mary S.K. Hewlett called it "a history book that you simply cannot put down" and highlighted its "spectacular and unique blending of barebones cases and minute examination of the nuances and actions of the participants." A number of critics made special mention of Cohen's writing in their reviews. For instance, Liza Picard in History Today claimed that Cohen "has created a mise-en-scène more detailed, and more compelling, than most novels," and Michele Marrapodi in Seventeenth-Century News deemed the book "elegantly written as a collection of thrilling short stories." Other writers commenting on the prose included Douglas Biow in the Historian, who remarked that Cohen "crafts the chapters of his book as stories, each with a writer's concern for voice, irony, literary conventions, drama, and genre." Biow felt that some historians might fault the book for "lack of coherence in argumentation," but he himself did not. Rather, he called Love and Death in Renaissance Italy "exhilarating" and expressed the view that the case stories in a sense "recount the ‘meta-story’ of Cohen's adventurous love for the archives in Rome." Writing in the Canadian Journal of History, Robin Ganev said that the book represents a rare combination of "scholarly excellence" and "lively, colourful writing."

Cohen told CA: "The excerpts from reviewers here above are very flattering; I am tempted to go buy the books. Other excerpts from their comments would point out things I should have done differently, or better. The reviewers do catch something that Elizabeth and I do want to do—to bridge the gap between scholars and a larger reading public. Back in 1850, historians wrote to be enjoyed, and were widely read by an educated general public. Biography, today, remains very popular, but other kinds of history—more ‘archaeological’ in its digging, more archival, more academic, more theoretical—are often hard to digest and even harder to enjoy. We Cohens do not want to give up on our archives and our fancy speculations but, because we are keen teachers, we very much want to bring lots of readers along with us as we try to leap the chasm between now and long ago and as we ponder all the problems of recognizing, understanding, and explaining people who lived many hundred years back in time. There is a double shock—familiarity and difference. Renaissance Italians were, in some ways, just like us—the same passions and similar disasters and dilemmas. But the drama of meeting them should not blind us to their differences from us, in their vision of the world, their moral calculus, and their reflexes and deep-set habits. It is the tension between familiar and strange that gives the historian's quest, and the reader's adventure, its delicious tingle. Doing history is both serious and fun; Cohen writing has a playful streak to encourage readers to join the adventure."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Canadian Journal of History, August, 1994, Antonio Santosuosso, review of Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates, p. 392; August, 2005, Robin Ganev, review of Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, p. 304.

Catholic Historical Review, October, 1994, Thomas Kuehn, review of Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome, p. 810.

Choice, June, 1994, P.L. Kintner, review of Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome, p. 1637.

Historian, winter, 2006, Douglas Biow, review of Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, p. 867.

History Today, November, 2004, Liza Picard, review of Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, p. 67.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, winter, 1996, Kenneth Gouwens, review of Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome, p. 508; spring, 2007, Monica Chojnacka, review of Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, p. 625.

Journal of Social History, summer, 2003, Guido Ruggiero, review of Daily Life in Renaissance Italy, p. 1071.

Law and History Review, fall, 1995, Julius Kirshner, review of Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome, pp. 420-422.

Reference & Research Book News, March, 1994, review of Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome, p. 34.

Renaissance Quarterly, winter, 2002, Kenneth R. Bartlett, "Italy, the Enduring Culture," p. 1386; fall, 2005, Mary S.K. Hewlett, review of Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, p. 912.

Seventeenth-Century News, spring-summer, 2007, Michele Marrapodi, review of Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, pp. 52-54.

Sixteenth-Century Journal, winter, 1994, Anne Jacobson Schutte, review of Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome, p. 1007.

Times Literary Supplement, July 29, 1994, D.S. Chambers, review of Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome, p. 27; November 19, 2004, David Abulafia, "Non-Toxic Shock," p. 26.

ONLINE

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (January, 2002), Luci Fortunato De Lisle, review of Daily Life in Renaissance Italy.

York University, Department of Humanities Web site,http://www.yorku.ca/ (June, 2008), faculty profile.