Dustin M. Neighbors

Dr Dustin Neighbors is a postdoctoral researcher and the Project Coordinator for the EU Horizon funded consortium project, Colour4CRAFTS, with the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. As a historian of northern European and British cultural history utilising digital research tools, Dustin specialises in the history of monarchy and court culture, with an emphasis on the performativity of gender, material culture and dress history, cultural practices (i.e. hunting), and the political culture of spectacles within the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

He is currently working on three interconnected projects. For the first project, which was awarded a Janet Arnold Grant from the Society of Antiquaries, Dustin has comparatively examined the material culture, dress, and textiles of early modern hunting to better understand the lives of royal and noble figures between the 16th and 18th centuries, including August and Electress Anna of Saxony in Dresden and Queen Christina of Sweden. As part of this project, Dustin has collaborated with the Livrustkammaren in Stockholm, the Royal Dress Collection in the UK, the Cleveland Museum of Art in the USA, and the V&A Museum in the UK. Second, Dustin is examining the meaning of colour and colouration practices at the court of Queen Christina of Sweden, which is directly tied to the Colour4CRAFTS project. Third, Dustin is cultivating a larger project on the cultural heritage, politics and practices of early modern hunting, particularly women’s engagement with hunting, and its environmental elements in northern Europe.

Recent and forthcoming publications (including publications submitted or in development):

Published

The Performativity of Female Power and Public Participation through Elizabethan Royal Progresses”, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 18:1 (2022).

“Zones of Privacy in Letters between Women of Power: Elizabeth I of England and Anna of Saxony”, Royal Studies Journal 9:1 (2022). Co-authored with Natacha Klein Käfer.

“Beyond the Public/Private Divide: New Perspectives on Sexuality, Hospitality, and Diplomacy within Royal Spaces”, Royal Studies Journal 9:1 (2022), p. 1-17. 

“Elizabeth I, Huntress of England: Private Politics, Diplomacy, and Courtly Relations Cultivated through Hunting”, The Court Historian 28:1 (2023): pp. 49-79.

“Privacy and the Private within European Court Culture”, The Court Historian 28:1 (2023): pp. 1 – 17.

“The Study of Medieval Hunting”, Routledge Resources Online: Medieval Studies (2023).

“The Politics of Privacy: Examining Influence and Personal Relationships at the English and Holy Roman Imperial Court. In Notions of Privacy at Early Modern European Courts: Reassessing the Public/Private Divide, 1400-1800. Eds. Dustin M. Neighbors, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, and Elena Woodacre. Amsterdam University Press (forthcoming 2023).

“Reassessing the Public/Private Nature of European Court Culture: An Introduction”. In Notions of Privacy at Early Modern European Courts: Reassessing the Public/Private Divide, 1400-1800. Eds. Dustin M. Neighbors, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, and Elena Woodacre. Amsterdam University Press (2024).