Ed Steidle in Florence

Ed Steidle began his graduate studies in comparative literature at the Johns Hopkins University and went on to earn his master’s and doctoral degree at UC Berkeley. Since joining Stanford in 1984, he has taught in various departments, including the English department, the Western Culture Program and the Graduate Program in the Humanities. He developed the CLS and Crossroad series for the Continuing Studies program. His courses cover the history, art and literature of selected cultures across Eurasia and the Americas from antiquity to the modern period.  

Ed was raised and educated in Europe, and he and his family spent many years going back and forth between Paris and Rome. “For a young man with a Fiat 500 and plenty of free time during summer and Christmas vacations, Tuscany was an ideal destination,” he recalls.

On this program, Ed’s lectures will cover the history of Italy from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the Risorgimento of the 19th century.  He will discuss the great literary and artistic figures of central Italy, their major works and their impact on the rest of the continent from the 14th to the 18th centuries.  Among other major writers, Ed will explore Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Castiglione and Poliziano. He will also cover some of the major painters and architects of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, including Lorenzetti, Duccio, Piero della Francesca, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Bronzino and Bernini. Italy’s enormous impact on its neighbors, especially France, will also be examined.

• Joined Stanford faculty in 1984

• Taught in Stanford’s English Department, Graduate Program in the Humanities and Continuing Studies program

• Created the Crossroads and Making of the Modern World series

• BA, English literature and Oriental philosophy, Franklin and Marshall College

• MA and PhD, comparative literature, Johns Hopkins University and UC Berkeley