Douglas Biow is the Superior Oil Company-Linward Shivers centennial professor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies and director of the Center for European Studies and the France-UT Institute. He is the author of numerous articles and five books: Mirabile Dictu: Representations of the Marvelous in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Michigan, 1996); Doctors, Ambassadors, Secretaries: Humanism and Professions in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 2002), the recipient of a Robert W. Hamilton Book Award; The Culture of Cleanliness in Renaissance Italy (Cornell, 2006), named a Choice Outstanding Title; In Your Face: Professional Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous (Stanford, 2010); and, most recently, On the Importance of Being an Individual: Men, Their Professions, and Their Beards (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). He has been the recipient of several scholarly awards, including NEH, Delmas, and Guggenheim fellowships.

 

Biow studied literature and classical violin at Bennington College before earning his MA and PhD in Italian Language and Literature at Johns Hopkins University.