Carmen Nocentelli specializes in early modern studies, with a focus on the cultural dynamics of proto-globalization. Her research crosses disciplinary, geographical, and linguistic boundaries, exploring how European literatures and cultures were transformed by contact with Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

She is co-editor of England's Asian Renaissance (2021) and author of Empires of Love: Europe, Asia, and the Making of Early Modern Identity (2013), winner of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies and the Roland H. Bainton Book Prize in Literature.

Her scholarship on travel writing, early modern drama, picaresque fiction, and political pamphleteering has appeared in leading journals—including PMLA, Modern Language Quarterly, and The Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies—as well as collections such as Travel and Travail: Early Modern Women, English Drama, and the Wider World, Indography: Writing the 'Indian' in Early Modern England, and Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires.

Her research has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Commission, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Huntington Library, and the Newberry Library.

Selected Publications:

Books

• Empires of Love: Europe, Asia, and the Making of Early Modern Identity (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
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• England's Asian Renaissance, coedited with Su Fang Ng (University of Delaware Press, 2021)
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Articles and Book Chapters

• “Mucking About with Islands: A Response,” Viator 55.1 (2024): 159-63.
• “Rereading ‘Elizabeth I as Europa’,” PMLA 138.2 (2023): 321-342
• "Of Corn and Tares: Making Madras English, 1639-1696," Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 22.2 (2022): 72-93
• "England's Asian Renaissance: An Introduction" (with Su Fang Ng), England's Asian Renaissance, ed. Su Fang Ng and Carmen Nocentelli (University of Delaware Press, 2021). 1-27
•  “Teresa Sampsonia Sherley: Amazon, Traveler, and Consort,” Travel and Travail: Early Modern Women, English Drama, and the Wider World, ed. Bernadette Andrea and Patricia Akhimie (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). 81-101
• “The Dutch Black Legend,” Modern Language Quarterly 75.3 (2014): 355-83
• "Made in India: How Meriton Latroon Became an Englishman," Indography: Writing the Indian in Early Modern England, ed. Jonathan G. Harris (Palgrave, 2012). 223-34 
• "Spice Race: The Island Princess and the Politics of Translational Appropriation," PMLA 125.3 (2010): 572-88
• "The Erotics of Mercantile Imperialism: Cross-Cultural Requitedness in the Early Modern Period," Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 8.1 (2008). 134-53
• "Discipline and Love: Linschoten and the Estado da Índia," Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires, ed. Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo, and Maureen Quilligan (University of Chicago Press, 2007). 205-24
  

Other writing

• Spostare il centro del mondo: la lotta per le libertà culturali [Moving the Centre: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms]. Translation into Italian from an original by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. (Meltemi 2000).

Awards and Grants:

• National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Award (2025-2026)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, Folger Shakespeare Library (2016-2017)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, Newberry Library (2008-2009)
• Mayers Fellowship, Huntington Library (2007)
• Audrey Lumsden-Kouvel Fellowship, Newberry Library (2006)

Teaching Interests:

• Early Modern Drama
• Early Modern Epic Poetry
• Demonology and Witchcraft
• Early Globalization
• Literary Theory
• Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

Representative Courses:

• COMP 505 - Introduction to Critical Theory
• COMP 480/ENGL452 - The Global Renaissance
• COMP 432/ENGL432/FREN432 - Magic, Witchcraft, and Science
• ENGL 352 - Early Shakespeare
• ENGL 353 - Later Shakespeare
• COMP 380/ENGL 315 - Literature and the Age of Exploration
• COMP 2225 - Health, Illness, and Culture