• Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, University of Birmingham, 2010
• PhD in History, University of St Andrews, 2003
• MLitt (with Distinction) in Reformation Studies, University of St Andrews, 1998
• MA (First Class) in Modern History, University of St Andrews, 199

I was born and raised in Northern Ireland and left there at 18 to read Modern History at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, where I first discovered a love of Reformation History. Thanks to the expertise and encouragement of the early-modernists at St Andrews, in particular Andrew Pettegree and Bruce Gordon, I stayed to pursue postgraduate study at St Andrews and was funded by the award of two scholarships: a one-year studentship from the Humanities Research Board of the British Academy to support the M.Litt. degree, and a Caledonian Research Foundation Scholarship to fund the PhD. Between 1999 and 2003 I also taught on a broad range of Modern History courses at the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh. I was appointed to my current post at the University of Birmingham in 2003.

I am a founder-member of the Centre for Reformation and Early Modern Studies and convene the Centre's MA degree in Reformation and Early Modern Studies. I have also been a member of the History Advisory Panel for the History, Classics and Archaeology Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy, and between 2005 and 2010 acted as Treasurer of the European Reformation Research Group. I helped found the Catholic Reformation Research Network, and was made a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2008 and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2010.

Undergraduate

First year

• Module Convenor for Practising History: Skills in History (autumn term) and Practising History: Approaches to History (spring term)

 Second year

• Option: Rebellion, Reform and Revolt in the Sixteenth-Century: the Career of Martin Luther
• Group Research: Sex, Lies and Videotape: Early Modern History on screen
• Critical Analysis: Reclaiming The Past: Homosexuality through History, from Ancient Greece to the Present Day
• Dissertation Preparation on topics in Early Modern History

 Third year

• Special Subject: Saints and Stormtroopers. Catholicism in Early Modern Europe
• Dissertation Supervision on topics in Early Modern History

Postgraduate

• MA in Reformation and Early Modern Studies degree co-ordinator
• MPhil in Early Modern History degree co-ordinator

My research interests have given me experience of and enthusiasm for a number of broader themes which I would be keen to supervise. These include aspects of early-modern Catholic reform, early-modern politics, and the interaction between man and environment in early-modern Europe. Doctoral students who I currently supervise or co-supervise work on a range of topics:

• Charles Byrd II (co-supervision with Professor Allen Anderson, Theology): Pentecostalism’s Anabaptist Heritage?
• George Doukas: The world of Pierre Boaistuau (c 1517-66): Man, Sin and Nature in Early Modern Europe
• Sharon Janot (co-supervision with Dr Deryn Guest, Theology): Martin Luther and Contemporary Queer Theology
• Ruth Kirk (co-supervision with Dr Simone Laqua-O’Donnell, History): Preserving the Future: Pedagogy and Persuasion in Catholic Reformation Germany, 1521-1648
• Lisa Kranzer (co-supervision with Professor Wendy Scase, English): Sixteenth Century Protestant Pamphleteering Cultures in England and Austria

My first monograph, entitled Catholic Belief and Survival in Late-Sixteenth Century Vienna, was published by Ashgate in May 2007. Focused on the career of one of the most prominent Catholic figures of late sixteenth-century Vienna, Georg Eder (1523-1587), this work highlighted the role of the Catholic laity in instigating, enacting and supporting Catholic reform in the early-modern period.

My current research now looks more broadly at the relationships between politics, society and religion in early-modern German-speaking Europe. I am currently working on a series of articles and essays on Catholic Reform in early-modern Lucerne, and am also in the process of completing publications pertaining to Disaster History, East Central European History, and Reformation History.

These are, respectively: Elaine Fulton, ‘Acts of God. The Confessionalisation of Disaster in Reformation Europe’, in Andrea Janku, Gerrit J. Schenk, Franz Mauelshagen (eds), Historical Disasters in Context: Science, Religion, and Politics (Routledge Studies in Cultural History); Elaine Fulton, ‘Introduction’ (co-authored with Maria Craciun) and ‘Mutual Aid: The Jesuits and the Courtier in late sixteenth century Vienna’, in Maria Craciun and Elaine Fulton (eds), Communities of Devotion. Religious Orders and Society in East Central Europe 1450-1800 (Ashgate: Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700); Elaine Fulton, ‘Introduction’ (co-authored with Peter Webster) and ‘Touching Theology with Unwashed Hands: the Preservation of Authority in post-Tridentine Austria’, in Elaine Fulton, Helen Parish and Peter Webster (eds), The Search for Authority in the Reformation (Ashgate).

• Transcript

Internal

I act as co-ordinator of Postgraduate Teaching Assistants in the School of History and Cultures, and am a member of the School’s Learning and Teaching Committee. I am also part of the University’s Learning Environment Group and have participated in several Quality Audits and appointment committees.

External

I am external examiner for the History programme at Nottingham Trent University and the MPhil in Reformation and Enlightenment Studies at Trinity College, Dublin.

I am a member of the Ecclesiastical History Society and European Reformation Research Group.

Conferences

• Panelist in a session on Responses to Natural Disaster in the Renaissance at the Renaissance Studies Society annual conference in Dublin, July 2008
• Presented a paper on ‘Acts of God? Lucerne and the 1601 Earthquake’ at the Ecclesiastical History Society conference in Galway, July 2008
• Panelist in a session on Climate Change and Natural Disaster in Early Modern Europe: Recent Discoveries and Avenues for Future Research, American Historical Association, Washington DC, January 2008
• Paper on 'The Confessionalisation of Disaster: Religion, Politics and the Wrath of God in Early-Modern Europe at a conference on The Politics of Disasters, Berne, Switzerland, September 2007
• Faith Under Fire? Catholicism during the Protestant Reformation; invited lecture given at the Newman Association, Worcester Circle, November 2006
• Invited lecturer on Acts of God? Environmental Change in Reformation Europe, Grant MacEwan College, Edmonton, Canada, September 2006.
• Paper on Confessional Moderation at the Habsburg Court of Vienna at an international conference sponsored by the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies on Religion and Authority in Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, September 2006.
• Invited lecturer on Power and Politics in the Reformation at Sixth Form A level History Conference, Leicester Grammar School, May 2006.
• 'Hidden Beginnings. Catholic Reform in Late Sixteenth-Century Vienna', presented at the Reformation Studies Colloquium, Somerville College, Oxford, April 2006.
• Co-organiser and presenter at the Reformation Studies Colloquium, University of Birmingham, April 2004.
• Paper on doctoral research given at the Institute of Historical Research, London, February 2002.
• Organiser and presenter in a session entitled Confessional Identity in the Austrian Habsburg Lands: Court, Cloister and Calendar, at the meeting of the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, Denver, Colorado, October 2001.
• Contributed a paper on doctoral research at a conference on The First Order: Clerical Discourse and Devotional Patterns in East Central Europe, 14th-18th centuries at the Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, September 2001

• Maria Craciun and Elaine Fulton (eds), Communities of Devotion. Religious Orders and Society in East Central Europe 1450-1800 (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2011
• ‘The Hand of God: Reactions to Crisis and Natural Disasters in Pre-Modern Europe’ (co-authored with Penny Roberts) in Mark Levene et al (eds), History at the end of the World? History, Climate Change and the Possibility of Closure (Troubadour/Humanities e-books, 2010), pp. 67-79 (Troubadour/Humanities e-books, 2010), pp. 67-79
• Catholic Belief and Survival in Late Sixteenth Century Vienna (Ashgate, April 2007).
• Wolves and Weathervanes: Confessional Moderation at the Habsburg Court of Vienna, in Luc Racaut and Alec Ryrie (eds.), Between Coercion and Persuasion: Moderate Voices in the European Reformation (Ashgate, 2005) (Ashgate, 2005)
• Book reviews and review articles published or forthcoming in the Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature, European History Quarterly, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Reformation and the Proceedings of the Huguenot Society.